Your mother’s stuffed-pepper recipe can be the groundwork for a tour of cuisines.

This is not part of the fuzzy series of cocktails. It’s the winter melon, almost as popular as watermelon in Asian cuisines. Its medium green skin is covered with a hairlike fuzz, which must be peeled. Underneath is a mildly flavored flesh that takes on the flavor of whatever it’s cooked with. You’ll find them in Chinese soups and stir fries.

Looking for an easy, cool dessert? Dress up a store-bought pound cake.

We present the top three winning recipes in the Calling All Chocolates contest from the 2010 Illinois State Fair.

The culinary competitions at the Illinois State Fair yield a treasure-trove of recipes. This year's fair was no exception. Here are a number of winning frecipes from the 2010 fair.

Food fans lamented the demise of Gourmet magazine, the first food periodical. It died Oct. 5, 2009, but the cookbook, “The Best of Gourmet: The World at Your Table,” preserves some of the magazine’s favorite recipes.

Driving 1,000 miles through parts of New Mexico gave me a taste of travel that began — and ended with chili. Green or red? That’s the question asked by many restaurant servers. I opted to taste them both.

Weekly food rail, with tips on the CDC's fruit and vegetable of September, an easy chili cheeseburger recipe and more.

Want to add an elegant touch to your family’s breakfast? Try apples. Full-flavored and plentiful, they’re the perfect solution.

Ever wonder why restaurant steaks taste so good? Besides getting first pick of the most beautifully marbled, thickest, juiciest steaks, restaurants enhance the outside with seasonings.

Since the great culinary era of the French chef Auguste Escoffier, eggs have occupied a very special corner in international gastronomy. Most home cooks view them as the easiest of foods to prepare.

Dotti Milner of Springfield, Ill., shares two of her blue-ribbon winning recipes from past Illinois State Fair culinary contests.

I grew beets for the first time this year, and just harvested a crop of the lovely fuchsia-hued veggie. As a kid, my mother prepared them in a sticky hot glaze made with sugar and vinegar. I’m still not a fan of that particular recipe, preferring to oven-roast them instead.

Forget the expert advice. Jim reports an easy way to cook sweet corn perfectly, plus a recipe to separate your teeth from the ears.

These English puddings consist of layers of bread, cake or ladyfinger cookies soaked in a liqueur and baked with dried fruit and custard. Another version includes gelatin and whipped cream and is chilled instead of baked.