Summer is finally here. Welcome the heat and try our strawberry basil salad this week. more ›

If you're like us, lunch hour is an endless ground war against monotony first and excessive expense a close second. You've tried everything within the circle around your office, and you're bored. In an attempt to shake up that routine, we've been seeking out tasty lunch spots that won't set you back more than around 15 bucks for you and a buddy. Artisan Cellar, somewhat hidden in plain sight on the first floor of the Merchandise Mart, fits that perfectly. more ›

Francesca's restaurants are becoming as ubiquitous as owner/chef Scott Harris can find locations to open them. If you've got $8 to spare, then the special today only at Francesca's Forno (1576 N. Milwaukee; 773-770-0184) might be worth stepping in. more ›

Sometimes, we want to cook a side vegetable and a salad, but we don't really want to do the work of either. Face it, all of us are sometimes lazy in the kitchen - the key is having a couple of great, quick recipes so that you can be lazy AND well-fed! more ›

Over the next couple of weeks, we're going to be featuring a few dishes from Marcus Samuelsson's latest cookbook, New American Table. This offering, an entree salad with caramelized scallops and a slaw laced with herbs and spicy vegetables, is a great quick meal for a weekday evening when you're looking for something light. It has more ingredients then our typical "Simple Cooking" offering, but it's not nearly as much work as you might think. Simply toss up the salad, sear the scallops and off you go! more ›

After about a year of cooking exactly the same Brussels Sprout recipe (which is delicious) we needed some variety. We wanted to keep the combination of bacon and sprouts, which is delectable, but add in something new - and preferably cut the cooking time down from the hour-plus that roasting them requires. more ›

A really excellent Caesar salad is a dish that separates the decent home cook from the great one. We've all had the bad Caesar - pre-cut lettuce from a bag, brown at the edges, drowning in a sauce with too much mayo and not enough flavor. Never again! If you can take just a few ingredients and treat them very nicely, you can make a starter that will have your friends and family glowing with happiness. Or, you can scarf it all down yourself. The instructions are in the photo captions, but a quick opening note: This salad can be customized any way you like. In the style of an authentic Caesar, we used an egg (boiled for 1 minute), rather than mayo. We did not add anchovies, as the original recipe uses Worchestershire sauce, which has anchovy paste. If you want to bulk the salad up, feel free to add some homemade croutons. Most of all, keep tossing - a great Caesar must be well blended. more ›

As much as we love eating beets, apparently we love buying beets even more. There always seems to be some lying at the bottom of our refrigerator’s crisper drawer. Since we’re averse to wasting good produce, we had to come up with something new to do with them. more ›

With the warmer weather upon us, we've been outside exercising more and not really into the heavier meals we enjoyed during our winter hibernation. What we've been digging is a well-made salad for a meal, but salads can get really repetitive and boring if you're not careful. more ›

We love doing something unexpected to a standard dish to make it rise above the norm and salads are no exception. We recently served a simple spring salad with sliced dates, a yellow heirloom tomato and goat cheese. The dressing was no more than a pear infused white balsamic (available at Whole Foods for about $3.50), salt, pepper, and a good olive oil. What elevated the salad was the final topping: candied walnuts. more ›

Where protein is concerned, chicken is easily the biggest mainstay in our diet. It's affordable, lean, and easy to prepare; it provides us with the flexibility for a wide array of recipes; and we're never bored with eating it. On the other side of the spectrum is mayonnaise. We don't mean satiny emulsions like aioli fragrant with garlic or dill, mind you. We're talking about the white man's poison, Hellman's ca-ca. more ›