Tasty pearls of wisdom from a guy who eats dessert first. Usually.

OK, I know what you’re thinking:  “he’s supposed to be helping me out with lesser-known grocery store items.  I buy cauliflower all the time!”.  And you make a fair point.  But I’m taking the chance this week to taste my way through a “Supermarket Score” that always gets one-trick-pony status.

“Always a bridesmaid, never a bride” no longer.  I’m giving cauliflower the spotlight with three delicious new ideas in this week’s “Supermarket Score!” on Rachael Ray’s blog.

An old culinary school friend, Amanda, is crashing at our house this week as she’s shadowing professional chefs at our alma mater, The Culinary Institute of America, to prepare herself for taking the acclaimed (and incredibly, arduously challenging) Certified Master Chef exam.  In my eyes (and the professional chef world), she’s a really big deal, so imagine my resistance to accepting her offer to make dinner for us during one night of her visit…not.

Add her amazing Brown Butter-Balsamic Gastrique to your recipe repertoire with this week’s post, Dinner at Home with a Master Chef, on Rachael Ray’s blog.

A few posts back, I shared with y’all 6 swap-outs that will save you in a pinch. You know, that make or break moment when dinner is in full swing and you realize you’re out of poultry seasoning? How about getting your favorite biscuit recipe going and staring down an empty bag of self-rising flour?

Luckily, disaster can be avoided! Stash these kitchen pinch hitters away in your culinary memory bank and the kitchen safety net is all yours – this week on my post on Rachael Ray’s blog.

What’s the first thing to come to mind when someone brings up “cottage cheese”?  Retro diet food surfing through a buffet atop leaf lettuce or cantaloupe?  Bodybuilding “go-to” snack?  Or, worst of all, “boring”?  Cottage cheese has endured all of these stereotypes and lived to tell the tale because – above all else – it’s gallons of kitchen versatility packed into 1-quart containers.

Make the most of this under-appreciated dairy aisle staple with this week’s post on Rachael Ray’s blog.

The allure of fresh cherries is undeniable. I’ll be hard-pressed to forget the first time I actually went cherry picking. Akin to apples, pears, peaches, and the like, cherries grow on trees in orchards. Beautiful, sweeping orchards with vistas the stuff that postcard dreamscapes are made of.

Come along on my trip through the cherry orchard and pick up a killer recipe for Brandied Cherries that will have you savoring the harvest all year round – this week on my post on Rachael Ray’s blog.

I love to entertain.  I’ll totally own it.  I get such pleasure from opening my home (and a bottle of wine or three) up to great people for a mellow evening in on the couch.  Sure dining out at a fancy restaurant is fun, but when was the last time you could do that under your favorite blanket with no shoes on?  My point exactly.

Since the backbone of entertaining is to enjoy your company, I think it an essential part of my exercise as “host” to keep the food as fuss-free as possible.  Check out my “go-to” 5-minute, 5-ingredient entertaining essential with this week’s post on Rachael Ray’s blog.

You ever feel like you’re staring into a blank abyss when the week reaches Thursday night and the tug-of-war between work fatigue and the weekend overwhelms your motor functions…and it’s time to make dinner? It’s often in these moments of great desperation that the “Fridge Raider” in all of us does his/her best work – such was the case for me last night.

Dinner is saved with my latest “Fridge Raider” post on Rachael Ray’s blog. If it had been you, what would you make with a leftover pork roast?

We’ve all been there before.  That sinking feeling that strikes when you’re knee-deep in putting together a cake and open the cupboard to find that you’re out of brown sugar.  Or when company is 20 minutes away and, because you’re all out of it, your buttermilk mashed potatoes will be reduced to simply “mashed potatoes”. I think we’re all in agreement that using the real thing 100% of the time is the best way to go.  But sometimes, life just doesn’t work out that way.

That’s why keeping a cache of “swap-outs” in your back pocket can turn potential culinary ruin into a quick fix that keeps everyone none-the-wiser.  Stash away these 6 Swaps Outs to Save You in a Pinch on this week’s post on Rachael Ray’s blog.

Like Any Town, USA, being from a small city in Northern New York means that a handful of “native to home” dishes saw regular rotation in our lunch sacks and at our dinner table.  Jefferson County, NY favorites like Chicken & Biscuits, Half Hots, and Rye Boat each deserve praise in their own individual posts – posts that we’ll save for another time.  For it was on a recent trip back home that I was reunited with an old friend whose impact on my life I’d nearly forgotten – the Half Moon Cookie.

Take a walk down memory lane with me as we reflect on Jerry Seinfeld’s zen mantra on why the cookie will save us – this week on my post on Rachael Ray’s blog.