French

Unusual eggplant appetizer, with baked eggplant and onion, then chilled and served on crisp leaves of lettuce or as a spread with slices of crusty sourdough bread.

Hollandaise sauce is one of the classic French sauces made with egg yolk and butter. Making hollandaise by hand using a wire whisk is really no more difficult than using a blender.

Béchamel Sauce is one of the five "mother sauces" in French cooking. This white sauce is part of every French cooks arsenal of basic sauces.

A favorite Quiche Lorraine recipe with Canadian bacon instead of regular fried bacon is a little easier on the calories and fat. To keep things simple, you can make this quiche with a store-bought pie crust.

The classic French Beurre Blanc sauce works nicely with steamed or poached fish, drizzled over chicken or fresh vegetables. Beurre Blanc means white butter in French, so not a low calorie or low fat sauce, but very tasty.

Steak Tartare is a gourmet dish made from finely ground or chopped raw beef mixed with various spices and ingredients. The word "tartare" is derived from the name Tartars, an ethnic people from Eastern Europe.

As the legend suggests, the Tartars were a nomadic  people and did not have time to cook the meat. Fortunately, the preparation of Steak Tartare as we enjoy it today has evolved over the methods employed by the nomadic Tartars.