Summer Party

This easy grilled flatbread—topped with sautéed mushrooms, fresh herbs and ricotta cheese—is perfect for outdoor entertaining.

What could be more summery than grilled peppers and squash heaped on toasted country bread that's slathered with fresh basil pesto? This versatile recipe works as a first course or even a whole meal.

These crisp, light fritters taste like nothing but fresh lobster and sweet corn.

When grilling shrimp or scallops, use sticks of lemongrass or sprigs of rosemary as an alternative to metal or bamboo skewers.

This giant Provençal casserole is called a panade. It’s a gooey, crispy meal-in-one.

American farmers harvest more than a million acres of potatoes each year, making it the country's top vegetable crop. Both the sweet and white kinds appear along with olives and feta on the flatbread here, which is baked until the edges of the potatoes crisp and the cheese starts to melt.

Light and moist, with an irresistible crispy top, this blackberry-studded buttermilk cake takes just 20 minutes to prep.

A classic beach-shack lobster roll becomes Asian-inflected when mixed with a mild curry mayonnaise; a few baked kaffir lime leaves on top add crunch.

A salute to the flavors of New Orleans, this cocktail spices up Napoleon House's Pimm's Cup (Pimm's No. 1, lemonade and 7-Up) with a splash of Tabasco and a generous dose of rum or vodka.

"Although we call it an anchovy vinaigrette," says chef Amelia O'Reilly, "we like to keep the vinegar and anchovies separate until they're on the plate; otherwise the anchovies taste pickled." The dressing is a great way to add savory accents to summer's sweetest, juiciest tomatoes.

In this ingenious 3-ingredient recipe, grilled fresh corn and poblano chile are used in two ways: Half of the mixture gets pureed into a sauce that's served under seared skirt steak and the rest becomes a chunky salsa that's spooned on top.

It's impossible to grill tiny favas, but the sweet-starchy beans get a similar smoky flavor when they're charred quickly in a hot skillet. Jean-Georges Vongerichten tosses the charred beans with garlic, jalapeño, tarragon and cubes of cheese for a warm salad.

"Walk to pick it, run to cook it," was the mantra back in the days when corn turned starchy within hours of harvesting. New varieties stay sweet and tender longer. Flavoring the ears here is a trio of seasoned salts.

This elegant tart is a great option for cooking in the bare-bones kitchen of a mountain cabin, since it doesn’t require a special pan. Kelly Liken uses Colorado plums, which she loves for their “beautiful tartness.” Even when ripe, the plums are somewhat tangy, thanks to Colorado’s cool nighttime temperatures. Any firm-but-ripe plums will work perfectly here.

Fresh beans make a beautiful crudité platter, but they can also be chopped and mixed together for a lovely late-summer salad, simply dressed with extra-virgin olive oil, Champagne vinegar and chopped herbs such as tarragon and chives.

"Ice cream sandwiches are universally popular, and everyone loves peach ice cream, too," Linton Hopkins says. "To make this recipe really Southern, we use pecans in the crispy cookie."

"Watermelon juice has such a mild flavor that most thickeners would overpower its taste," says chef Jamie Bissonnette. "But xanthan allows me to turn it into a soup."

Fresh sardines are among the most sustainable seafood choices. Plus, they are rich in omega-3 fatty acids and have very low levels of mercury relative to larger fish.

Crunchy black nigella seeds have a nutty, peppery flavor.

Farmstead eggs are at their best in late summer, when the chickens are "on pasture," eating grass. Here, egg whites form a sweet meringue holding passion fruit curd.

About 15 slender baby carrots—grilled until charred, then tightly rolled inside a tortilla with poblano-spiked sour cream—make for a superb vegetable wrap.

A lovely way to serve raspberries, blackberries and blueberries: suspended in a hibiscus gelatin.

Green Zebras are heirloom tomatoes with a striped pattern; they are sweet like red tomatoes but give this gazpacho a lovely jade hue. To make the chilled soup extra tangy, use tomatillos or unripe red tomatoes instead of Green Zebras.

Grilling zucchini and summer squash ribbons on skewers is terrific because the edges become wonderfully charred and crisp, while the insides stay tender and juicy.

Chopped red, green and orange tomatoes are tossed with olive oil and herbs, then served on Parmesan tuiles. The result: a supremely colorful, incredibly easy hors d'oeuvre.

Chef Chris Behr’s versatile frittata with crisp spring vegetables can be eaten warm or at room temperature. Serve for brunch with an accompanying platter of crusty bread, fresh fruit, cheese and salumi, or for lunch with a green salad.