If there’s one day you deserve a cocktail this year, it’s April 17. Mail off your taxes, then unwind with a themed drink.

Peeps get all the glory this month (just check out this Peep Cake), but their plain-old marshmallow cousins can get dressed up for Easter, too. We found this fun trick in the new cookbook Sugarlicious ($18; Harlequin) by Meaghan Mountford: Insert lollipop sticks into marshmallows, then submerge one marshmallow at a time in water. BlotRead more »

Can you make an entrée from this Chopped mystery basket? Try your luck, then see what host Ted Allen made. The Challenge: Create an entrée using peanut butter, chicken breast, sauerkraut and frozen cherries. You must use all four mystery ingredients, plus any others you’d like. The Prize: The inventor of the best recipe usingRead more »

Liven up a party crudité platter with a trip to the hardware store: Terra-cotta planters make great (and cheap) dip bowls. Line the inside of the pot with parchment paper, then fill with hummus and “plant” some vegetables in the dip. (Photograph by Charles Masters)

Chuck Hughes, host of Cooking Channel’s Chuck’s Day Off, reveals his favorite hometown dishes in Montreal. Bifana Pork Sandwich from Rotisserie Portugalia At this Portuguese barbecue joint, thinly sliced pork marinates for hours before it hits the grill, then it arrives at the table piled on a soft Portuguese roll. “It’s simple and it’s thatRead more »

Cherry blossom season is in full swing in Washington, D.C., and this year the city is celebrating 100 years of its cherry blossom trees. National Cherry Blossom Festival coordinators have been recruiting dozens of local bars and restaurants to serve dishes inspired by D.C.’s famous buds. You can sample all of them — including thisRead more »

Make chocolate chip cookies exactly how you like them with these tips from Food Network Magazine: Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies (pictured above) bake longer than the average cookie so they end up brown all over, not just around the edges. Superfine sugar makes for a fine crumb and crisp texture. Vegetable oil helps the batterRead more »

While you’re watching the Oscars, Wolfgang Puck is preparing to feed more than 1,500 Hollywood big shots at the Governors Ball. Here’s his routine. Believe it or not, Wolfgang isn’t a movie buff — he sees only one or two a year. He got the gig cooking for the Governors Ball 18 years ago becauseRead more »

Some restaurants let you have your chocolate and drink it, too. The Peninsula, Chicago When The Peninsula needed a cocktail to complete its chocolate buffet spread, bartender Aaron Johnson developed three, and all of them ended up on the regular bar menu. This S’mores Martini (pictured above) causes the most fuss: Patrons smell the barkeepsRead more »

As the two-time host and champion cooking coach on Worst Cooks in America, Anne Burrell has seen her share of bad cooking. Not ordinary bad-dinner-party-at-the-neighbors’ bad cooking, but unfathomably bad, practically gag-inducing cooking. “I’ve seen food so burned, so over-spiced that it’s inedible,” Anne says. “My favorite was a guy who boiled a whole chickenRead more »