Chicago caterer Greg Christian didn’t like to see the tons of food scraps, paper plates, plastic forks and glass bottles generated by his business go into the garbage, but he wasn’t sure recycling and composting would be practical in a commercial kitchen. So he researched the issue, drew up a plan, and today operates a zero-waste commercial kitchen — the first Chicago caterer to do so.

Weekly food rail, with a recipe for pumpkin seeds, critics’ take on Progressive Hamburger Press Set and more.

Simply Cookin' Chef Mitzi Stinson shows you how to make Beef and Potato Stroganoff, a perfect dish for any evening dinner. Ingredients and directions inside.

Raising and cooking bison is a slow process. For those who enjoy the unique form of red meat, it's worth the wait.

Japanese for deep-frying breaded foods such as tempura in a steel pan resembling a wok.

Over the past few years, Dogfish Head owner Sam Calagione and his brewers have been working in conjunction with the University of Pennsylvania’s molecular archaeology department on finding – and recreating – recipes for beers of from bygone eras. The latest offering, available in September, is Theobroma, which translates to “food of the gods,” in Greek. Far removed from Greece, however, the beer is a recreation of a central American recipe for the earliest chocolate drink in existence, consumed by the Aztecs.

One of the smallest entries won the biggest prize in the Calling All Chocolates culinary contest last week at the Illinois State Fair. Rachael McMullin Eden’s Dark Chocolate Raspberry Truffles, a petite confection with a burst of raspberry flavor, took first place in the contest sponsored by The State Journal-Register.

Talk about a vegetable with a split personality. That would be green beans, a veggie that is as much uptown as it is down home.

After a visit to the region in 2000, I aimed to infuse Tuscan flavor into my residential lot in Alliance, Ohio. No, I did not surround my yard with a hand-stacked stone wall or rip up my lawn to plant an olive grove. But I did cut in more flowerbeds, expand my veggie and herb garden, and planted several dwarf fruit trees, including a wildly successful plum tree.

Progressive Hamburger Press Set
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Our ancestors celebrated arrival of the late-summer fruit and berry harvests with strange-sounding desserts called slumps, grunts, pandowdies, buckles, crumbles and crisps. All are based on the American cobbler.

Ming Tsai, Natick, Mass., resident and chef/owner of Blue Ginger in Wellesley, Mass., has been in Beijing attending the Olympic Games, checking out the food scene and cooking. Traveling with is wife, Polly, and the chef de cuisine of Blue Ginger, Jon Taylor, Tsai, who is the host/executive producer of "Simply Ming," a cooking show on PBS, took a few moments this weekend to chat about his Olympic experience thus far.

Brian Toska teams up with new partners, Ann Margaret Horist and her brother, Joseph Garcia, for the grand re-opening of Caponata’s Italian Ristorante in Wheaton.
 

Watermelon is such a perfect food for a hot summer day that most people are content to eat it in its simplest form –- right off the rind or cut in chunks.

Drinking Rogue Brewery beer is almost like revisiting an old friend.