Sassy summer food without all the fuss

Utilize serving pieces that offer interest and texture. Serve salsa and guacamole in hollowed-out avocados. Green tomatillos with paperlike husks that can be scooped out (chop and add to your salsa) are great for holding votives or creamy single-serve sauces and dips. And there's no clean up. These organic options can be tossed when the party is over.

That ordinary fruit salad has sailed out on the last watermelon boat. Use long wood skewers and cookie cutters to create fun florals with fresh fruit. We made our little bouquet using a small leaf cookie cutter, cantaloupe, blueberries, seedless grapes and 6-inch wood skewers. It's an inexpensive project ($10-$15) and makes a nice presentation. Edible Arrangements, a company with seven Central Florida locations (ediblearrangements .com), will do the work for you with a lot more pomp and circumstance. Their price tags range from $25-$200.

Create a homemade dessert with a can opener and a food processor. Freeze a can of mandarin oranges or peaches in light syrup overnight. (Yes, freeze the whole can.) Open both ends and push out that sweet frozen cylinder. Lightly pulse in a food processor until slushy but still firm. Congratulations! You have made sorbet in record time. Drizzle with dark rum and add a sprig of fresh mint.

Put a little sizzle in your swizzle. Sugar cane "batons" and "swizzle sticks," creative ideas from Melissa's/World Variety Produce are sold in several supermarket produce sections (We found them for $13.50 at a Wal-Mart Supercenter and at melissas.com).

Before these sweet little items came on the market, creative cooks had to whittle their own from the sugar cane sold in supermarkets. Trust me. It wasn't easy lining the grippers of my husband's work bench vise with parchment paper so that I could get the slender pieces that I wanted. Use them in rum-based or tropical nonalcoholic drinks.

Other options are swizzle kebabs made with fresh herbs and fruit chunks. For a Bloody Mary, use pickled asparagus or shrimp-, bell pepper- and olive-stacked bamboo sticks.

Skewer flavor and style right into grilled foods. Seasoned Skewers, infused wood from Callisons Fine Foods, comes in citrus rosemary, Mexican fiesta, honey bourbon, garlic herb, Thai coconut lime and Indian mango curry flavors. Available at Whole Foods, Williams-Sonoma and on the Web site napastyle.com. About $29 for a 10-pack. Too steep for your budget? Make your own with long woody rosemary stems. Whittle the end to a point. Strip leaves and push food onto the remaining herb stem. Tie strips of citrus zest, chives or green onions under every piece of food.

Just because it's hot and steamy outside, doesn't mean your summer entertaining has to lose its pizazz to the sizzle. Here are a few ways to add a splash of style to your get-togethers:

Heather McPherson is the Sentinel food editor.

Related topic galleries: Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Williams-Sonoma Incorporated, Whole Foods Market

• ENGINEER

• IT SYSTEMS SPECIALIST

• ELECTRICIAN/ ELECTRICAL APPRENTICES

• COMPUTER

• ACCOUNTANT

• View all Top Jobs