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Adding panache to everyday ground turkey is a bit of a challenge. Here, pistachios, orange zest, and a creamy chèvre sauce step up to the plate and bring the balls home on the first run. Serve the sausage balls with the sauce for dipping as hors d’oeuvres with cocktails. Or, cook up spaghettini, set the sausage balls on top, and nap with the sauce. The chèvre sauce can also be used to blanket sautéed chicken breasts, or to drizzle, cooled, over fresh pear slices for dessert, accompanied with a crisp, not-too-dry Gewürztraminer or Riesling.

Without doubt, stuffed grape leaves are one of my favorite foods. I even planted two Thompson seedless grapevines, the preferred variety for Armenian stuffed grape leaves, in my small urban garden, primarily to harvest their leaves rather than their fruit. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a weekend backyard gardener to have the grape leaves. Due to the influence of Greek, Turkish, Syrian, Lebanese, Georgian, and Armenian cuisines and their growing numbers in America, jarred grape leaves have become available in markets around the nation, even supermarkets. Because they are large and sturdy enough not to tear as you roll them, yet still supple, I prefer jarred leaves from California’s Central Valley, home to a large population of Armenian farmers who grow tomatoes for canning, fruit for drying, and grape leaves for brining. Some cooks recommend rinsing jarred leaves, but I don’t. I like the briny taste they impart.

My love of rice paper began in childhood with candies that came packaged in colorful boxes, mostly pinkish and with children pictured gleefully jumping. Inside were gummy candies, chewable like jujubes, only softer. The fun part was unwrapping the outer paper and getting to the inside wrapping. At first it seemed like another layer of paper, a bit stiff like cellophane. But then you would pop the candy into your mouth and let the wrapping hydrate until soft enough to chew. I always found it a thrill “eating” my way from seemingly inedible paper to edible candy. So it is with rice paper wrappers for Vietnamese spring rolls” What seems at first glance a large plastic disk not for consumption, with hydration becomes supple enough to enfold all manner of comestibles.

These small sausage balls, with their rice “quills” poking outward, are a dream for entertaining. They can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated for up to 2 days before cooking to serve warm. The green tea leaves season the sausage with an exotic savor, and a side plate of hot-sweet mustard, soy sauce, and Asian sesame oil for dipping, all out of a jar or bottle, suffice to complete the dish’s charm. Although the meatballs have a pedigree in Chinese cuisine made with glutinous, or sweet, rice, I prefer to use regular rice. If you don’t have a bamboo steamer basket, a plate lined with lettuce leaves can substitute. The trick here is to rig up something, such as an empty can in the bottom of the pot, to elevate the plate above the water. Covering the pot will allow enough steam to collect around the plate for the balls to cook.

In the annals of folk medicine, watercress soup is said to be good for soothing a dry throat or for when a general system-cleansing tonic is needed. Here, the nip and pep of watercress infuses chicken broth made rich with slivers of shiitake mushroom and plump sausage-filled wontons to produce a new take on wonton soup that is both healthful and delicious. Hydroponic watercress, meaning watercress grown in water and without soil, closely resembles watercress you might pick alongside a running stream in spring, but it has finer, more delicate stems and far less dirt and sand on its leaves. It is often available year-round in supermarket produce sections.

This has been the Dinosaur’s Wednesday soup special for as long as I can remember. It’s a good, hearty soup that’s perfect for places like Syracuse and Rochester, New York, that are blessed with six months of winter a year—not that folks stop eating Corn & Potato Chowder in the summer. Made with fresh corn, just picked and cut from the cob, this soup takes on a real summer attitude. Best of all, you can make it in less than half an hour any time of the year.

Now this is real comfort food. It makes me feel like I’m doing something good for myself every time I eat it. Delicious and healthy—what more do you want?

Back in the early days of the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, I made a pilgrimage to New Orleans, and it seemed natural to bring some of the wonders of the Big Easy back up north. The thing that really grabbed me was jambalaya, a dish with infinite possibilities. There’s no one recipe for jambalaya because its whole reason for bein’ is to let the cook get personal and real creative with the bits of meat or fish hangin’ around in the fridge. You can give it your personal touch any way the spirit moves you. Try makin’ it with other veggies, throwin’ in some shellfish, messin’ with the seasoning—this is your chance to be a link in the evolution of one truly great leftover dish.

This is my version of a recipe that’s been bouncing around my family for years. It’s more Italian than barbecue, but who cares? It’s definitely a crowd pleaser. We get our fresh bread dough from the Columbus Bakery, a legendary family-run bakery in Syracuse.

Because we’re a barbecue joint, we’ve always got pulled pork on hand, so it was just natural for us to turn it into a delicious appetizer. Don’t let our habits limit you. Make these quesadillas with some cooked turkey or chicken thigh meat or any chopped or shredded leftover meat you have lurkin’ in the fridge.

We give catfish a good soaking in seasoned buttermilk before we coat and fry it. It tenderizes and sweetens up the fish, which we serve with our favorite spicy tartar sauce. You’ll find it on our appetizer menu every day and in a sandwich on Fridays.

Personally, I don’t know why this is considered a southern dish. With our short growing season in Central New York, there’s never a shortage of green tomatoes. It seems like the North should have thought of this dish first.

When we make guacamole, we make it to order. It’s one of those dishes that doesn’t improve with age. The avocados have to be perfectly ripe, giving gently when pressed, and then mixed with just the right balance of other ingredients. We serve our guacamole with warm, crisp tostones, a Cuban specialty made from fried plantains. You can make the tostones ahead of time and then refry them right before serving.

If you’re looking for an appetizer with a summertime attitude, here’s a simple, refreshin’ recipe. The scallops grill up in minutes, and the tangy citrus marinade gets transformed into a delicious sauce.

Come into the Dinosaur any night after work and eat this salsa at the bar with freshly fried tortilla chips. Back home, make it with the best tomatoes you can get your hands on.

Folks might laugh, but I could eat deviled eggs all day. My mother made them for me when I was a kid, and I’ve loved them ever since. When we serve our spiced-up version on a catering job or make them for a Custom-Que appetizer, everyone just goes nuts. To buy Zatarain’s mustard, see the Resources section (page 175).

This is the Dinosaur take on a New Orleans classic dish. Serve with a hunk of crusty bread for moppin’ up the tonsil-tingling sauce. Whether you eat it as an appetizer or serve it as a main course spooned over some Perfect Rice, you’ve got a winner on your hands.

Central and Western New York is “wing country,” so you’ve gotta have some good wings on your menu. Most places fry their wings according to the original Buffalo recipe, but we smoke ours. You can make them hot or mild on your grill just by changing the rub and the sauce you slather on at the end. We serve them with the traditional fixin’s—Blue Cheese Dressing and celery sticks.

I first came across these tasty Colombian fried corn cakes stuffed with oozin’, stringy cheese at a Miami street festival. Back home, I messed around with the recipe and added whole corn kernels to the dough to make ‘em more interesting. In the restaurant we serve arepas with a pile of pulled pork in the center for a real Memphis-meets-Miami dish. But if you don’t have the pork on hand, they’re just as good served with some Fire-Roasted Garlic Salsa.

These delectable shrimp boiled in beer and rolled in lots of spice and garlic are our most popular appetizer. Their “a-peel” has always been in the roll-up-your-sleeves sloppy nature of eating ‘em. There’s nothin’ polite about ‘em, and that’s the way we like it.