For natural sweetness without a lot of fat or calories, nothing beats a dessert or garnish made from fresh fruits. But serving fruit doesn't have to be as dull as slicing up a melon or throwing some strawberries into a bowl; there are plenty of easy preparation ideas that can turn fruit from simple to sensational and help you add extra zing to your meals.

Ohio native Pamela Sturkey is an award-winning pastry chef and part owner of three restaurants in the Cincinnati area, Sturkey's and two Encore Café locations. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY, Sturkey was Rising New Pastry Chef for Chocolates a la Carte in 2000. Here she offers simple ideas for flavorful fresh fruit creations:

• Think of new twists.
  It's easy to just chop up fruits and put it on top of your food, but it pays to think creatively and come up with new ways to combine ingredients.
  
• Mix up pineapple salsa.
  Chop up a fresh pineapple and add some sugar, cashews, macadamia nuts, and a little bit of chopped chocolate. Add a little cinnamon and ginger, stir it up and you have a delicious pineapple salsa to put on desserts and ice cream.
  
• Oranges: the sweet citrus.
  Most citrus fruits, like lemons and limes, have a tart bite to them. Mixing in oranges, which have a natural sweetness, can help cut the effect of this tartness without adding sugar.
  
• Stir up a Citrus salad.
  Add fresh mint to our chopped up lemons, limes, and oranges, and you have a great citrus salad, or if you like, a citrus salsa to top your favorite foods with.
  
• Add those extra touches.
  Adding an extra, unexpected element takes almost no time at all, but can turn a simple combination of fruits into something spectacular.