If you have the time and patience, you can make your own slice-and-bake dough. "Make your own cookie dough in advance, shape into logs and freeze, then slice and bake when you need them," says Jpan99. "Toll House cookie dough can be whipped up in 10 minutes and tastes so much better than anything slice and bake." And gooddog has an impressively simple three-ingredient recipe for delicious chocolate cookies: melted chocolate, graham cracker crumbs, and sweetened condensed milk. Melt, mix, and bake for 8 to 10 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. "I sometimes add an optional fourth ingredient like nuts, dried cherries or peanut butter or cinnamon chips if I want to get fancy," says gooddog.

If you do go the prepackaged slice-and-bake route, you can dress up the cookies to make them more your own; blue room recommends pressing a pattern or candy into the cookies, or drizzling them with melted chocolate or caramel. wyogal's pretty tip is to make "stained glass cookies" from plain sugar cookie dough: "[S]lice the cookie, make a cut-out with a small cookie cutter, [and] in the cut out, put some chopped up Life Savers candies. Bake."

Discuss: Best brand of "slice and bake" cookies?

Cookie dough image from Shutterstock

The concentrated liquid preparation that standish mentions reminds John E. of the concentrated cold-brew coffee he likes to make and dilute with cold milk over ice, or with hot water—though it doesn't have the syrupy, gel-like texture of the stuff standish remembers. "Cold brewed coffee is quite strong but seems to be less bitter with less acid," he says. "I put a pound of ground coffee into a kettle and pour 12 cups of water over it and let it steep for 24 hours in the refrigerator. After straining the coffee, I put it into .5 liter water bottles and freeze it for future use."

Discuss: Strange coffee prep while traveling?

Discuss: Yams vs. Sweet potatoes

mamachef admits to loving cantaloupe and honeydew melon dipped in blue cheese dressing. "Try it before you shudder," she advises. gingershelley agrees that this is a match made in heaven—especially if prosciutto and black pepper are involved. Jpan99's special treat is a wedge of extra-sharp cheddar cheese spread with Bonne Maman raspberry or strawberry jam. "And sometimes, [I] place the jam and cheese on a mini pretzel twist!" says Jpan99.

But jhopp217 has the ultimate sweet, salty, rich, spicy I-can't-believe-I'm-admitting-this concoction: "I actually made a peanut butter, maple syrup and Sriracha sandwich fairly recently." Perhaps not so different from this peanut butter and jelly sandwich made with fresh jalapeños!

Discuss: Those weird things you eat when you are in your kitchen

Butter image from Shutterstock

Uncle Bob likes large lima beans with andouille sausage and cornbread, while dberg1313 likes to use them for Boston baked beans.

Discuss: Dry large lima beans - going the way of the dodo?

Midlife thinks a great deal of wine understanding can be learned, but above a certain level, it really is a natural talent. "People's palates vary and so do their sensitivities to aroma and taste (which are completely intertwined)," says Midlife. But most people can learn enough to get by—at least enough to avoid ordering wines they know they won't like.

There are two basic steps to mastering wine, goldangl95 posits: First, learn wine "shorthand" (the sensory meaning of terms like "green apple," "hot," or "metallic"). Second, drink and experiment. "If you live near a wine growing region, go out and taste. Look at the descriptors the wineries have put out for the wine and start matching their descriptors to what you are tasting," says goldangl95. "There is nothing better than tasting 30 wines in a day to start getting a feel for a region/varietal."

IndependentWine thinks there's no substitute for at least some formal wine training. maria lorraine recommends signing up for a community college wine-tasting class—especially if you can find out who the best teacher in your area is. And one final tip on sensory learning: "It helps if you smell everything: every basket of berries, all fruits, all your spices and condiments, herbs, vegetables, flowers, everything," says maria lorraine. "That will help build your flavor memory in your brain."

Discuss: Is understanding wine a talent, or can a novice oenophile learn?

Wine tasting image from Shutterstock

Sweet onions (including Vidalias) that haven't been cured for dry storage can be individually wrapped in paper towels and stacked in the crisper, says Karl S—they keep for months that way.

Discuss: Storing onions and garlic

Sweet onion image from Shutterstock

Draining results in a thicker, creamier yogurt. "Greek yogurt is just regular yogurt with the whey strained out," says Kajikit. "My grandfather made yogurt and yogurt cheese and farmer's cheese letting each one drip through a cloth and then throwing away the water," says rccola. "When it gets dense enough, use it as a spread on toast or fruit, especially bananas with nutmeg."

But the whey contains nutrients that some hounds are reluctant to waste. "Yogurt whey is a combination of sugars, proteins and minerals, particularly calcium," says JungMann. "The more whey you drain from the yogurt, the more sugar and calcium you drain, however you do end up with a more protein-dense final product."

If you like the richer texture of strained yogurt but don't want to lose the whey, drain it off and save it for another use. ipsedixit likes whey for cooking oatmeal or baking bread. It lasts a long time, too, says JungMann—a month or more in the refrigerator—and it freezes well. No reason not to keep it for some future use.

Discuss: When yogurt separates - mix it in or drain it?

Discuss: Name that filling!

Photograph by DaveCook

"The filet never has bones, catfish doesn't have nasty scales, and the meat is sweet and never fishy. It is a winner for people who don't much like fish. I fix it oven-fried—give it a squirt of PAM and roll it in bread crumbs then bake it at 425 degrees so that the outside gets crunchy. Because it's so sweet it goes well with a tangy sauce so I either make a sweet-and-sour pineapple sauce (onion, green pepper, a can of crushed pineapple, vinegar, sugar, thicken with cornstarch and serve the fish with rice) or a fresh salsa and have the catfish Cuban-style with black beans and rice." - Querencia

"I know of no USDA approved processing centers for poopy (yes, that is actually what donkey meat is technically called!). If you are traveling I should point out however that Venice is far from the only place that serves it. Saucisson d'Ane is a specialty of the French town of Arles (and horse sausage is common throughout the Camargue area). Actually you may have already tasted it. I remember reading that it is pretty common to add horse and donkey to the pork in many European dry sausages, common enough [that] the USDA was working on a way to be able to DNA test sausage meat to determine what animals were present." - jumpingmonk

Fried dough in various guises is a staple. For many hounds, this means churros. "Oh those fluffy, crunchy-on-the-outside cinnamon-sugar coated delights," says Popkin. kattyeyes knows sweet fried dough as pizza fritte. "I don't mind a hit of the brush with melted butter, either, before sprinkling the sugar on," she says. The English version, says smartie, is fried doughnuts hot out of the frier, dusted with caster sugar. "[T]hey taste like funnel cakes in a way but are doughier," says smartie. And sunangelmb loves the fried dough balls called zeppole at Italian carnivals: "So light and delicious, they were like eating sweet balloons."

Forget fried dough—swamp thinks the best festival food is crawfish Monica, a rich pasta dish with plenty of cheese and cream. kattyeyes' favorite is the beer-battered apple slices known as appelflappen, dusted with powdered sugar. "They used to hand out stickers 'I only came for the appelflappen' and I would wear mine proudly ALL DAY," she says.

In DunkTheBiscuit's area, fairs usually have a curry stall serving little tubs of vegetable masala and chapatis. "You balance the very hot tub on top of the hot chapatis in a paper napkin in one hand, and juggle to break off bits of bread to scoop up the curry with the other hand," says DunkTheBiscuit. "The precarious situation is part of the experience." jmcarthur8 loves lemon shake-ups (made-to-order lemonade), and tzurriz has four favorites: "Pickles, the mushrooms simmered in amazing sauce all day long served in a styro bowl with a toothpick, hot sweet pecans, and fried green tomatoes. YUMMMMMM!"

Discuss: Fair & carnival food

Image source: Fried dough image from Shutterstock

If you're determined to cook with the fruit, try making it into ice cream, says ladooShoppe. And seamunky likes it in smoothie and sorbet form—perfect for summer.

Discuss: Fresh Soursop - What to do with it?

arktos recommends the tiny dried anchovies frequently used in Korean cuisine—they make an amazing addition to seafood stock or gumbo. Val agrees: Along with kelp, they give a lovely flavor to broths.

Dried seafood is hardly an inferior substitute for fresh, but a different ingredient altogether. "[T]he changes in seafood from its fresh state to dried are amazing," says bulavinaka. "Like in fruit, the flavors are more concentrated and intense." And the real kicker, says bulavinaka, is the intense, meaty umami taste dried seafood can impart. Finally, if you're not satisfied with what's available to you commercially, it's worth the hassle to dry or smoke your own fish. "[I]t's satisfying to have a hand in what you're eating," says Puffin3.

Discuss: dried seafood

Image source: Dried squid image from Shutterstock

David11238's source for scallops is Blue Moon Fish of Long Island; escondido123 used to get them from friends or from a local clammer while living in Providence. Unfortunately, those who live far from the coast may just have to dream.

Discuss: Raw Sea Scallop - Heaven Served on Neptune's Plate.

Image source: Raw scallop in shell from Shutterstock

Nigella seeds also find their way into panch phoron, a Bengali spice blend of five whole seeds that also includes fennel, cumin, black mustard, and fenugreek, says kathleen440. "It goes amazingly well with potatoes," she says. "Try it in a breakfast hash!" Or bake some nigella seeds into Indian naan.

If you can't find nigella seeds in your local Indian, Bengali, or Armenian grocery store (assuming you're lucky enough to have one of those), they're available from Penzeys Spices, says AmyH.

Discuss: Nigella/charnushka seeds.

"Basically add enough salt to kill all the other guys and only the salt-loving halophytes remain to happily chomp away at the dead fish. And just like different yeasts will give different characteristics to beer, different bacteria will give different characteristics to fish sauce and different regions will have their own unique local blend of bacterial strains. Bacteria. . .where would we be without them!?! So many delicious foods they help produce!" - seamunky on the production of fish sauce

"Better is my custom grind made from over ten kinds of hot chili peppers affecting different parts of the tongue, some smoked dry. I add it to almost everything and especially pickles. Unlike fresh ground black pepper, chili pepper grinds do not cause pain in moderation [but] instead are a flavor enhancer that opens taste buds. Making a perfect custom chili grind has been a hobby for decades. Is great sprinkled on food everywhere [I] would use salt. Enhances pickles, olives, and capers." - smaki on enhancing store-bought (or homemade) pickles

Bird's nest is consumed primarily for the health claims attributed to it, says Crazy Egg. "My mom would buy whole bird's nest and cook it in a crockpot with water, rock sugar and a little ginger," Crazy Egg says. gourmaniac also had bird's nest as a child. "It was rehydrated and slightly picked over again and added to a broth made from a freshly killed chicken," says gourmaniac.

Since bird's nest is valued as a health food, don't expect a flavor explosion. Like shark fin, bird's nest is basically tasteless, says kobuta. If you must cross it off your list, you can find it prepared in bottles of sugared water in Chinatown, says Crazy Egg; look for an off-white color without dark bits, and make sure the nests are in large pieces, rather than small. Bird's nests will usually be kept behind the counter with other expensive ingredients like shark fin and abalone, gourmaniac says. However, kobuta says, "[w]hat you find in the canned drinks or soups is likely the low grade stuff (if you find any at all) so not sure you'll get a real bird's nest experience from that."

Discuss: Bird's Nest

Image source: Bird's nest soup from Shutterstock

What do you do with it? magiesmom recommends using it as you would wheat berries or barley; it's great in a pilaf or salad, she says. Number likes to boil kamut grains until they're tender (important note: Don't add salt to the boiling water, or the grains will never soften) and then toss them with vegetables that have been roasted until caramelized and sweet, along with olive oil and lemon juice. You might also try making some dried apricot and kamut granola or kamut with mushrooms and blue cheese for whole-grain variety.

Ground into flour, kamut is very similar to wheat, but sweeter, says ipsedixit, so if you're baking with it, adjust your sweeteners down a notch.

Discuss: What to do with kamut?

Photograph of CHOW's Dried Apricot and Kamut Granola by Christopher Rochelle / CHOW.com

What's in this salt and pepper preparation? Often, the "pepper" refers to Sichuan peppercorn. In many Cantonese restaurants in San Francisco, the chefs make a proprietary blend of aromatic spices, including salt and Sichuan peppercorns, Melanie Wong says. The spice mix is added to more salt and cornstarch and used to dust the protein before cooking. The peppercorns are "not used in quantities large enough to cause noticeable numbing," Melanie Wong says. "But if you ask for a bit of powder on the side and give it a sniff, the floral qualities of Sichuan peppercorn are apparent."

Other times, the "pepper" might be black or white pepper, huiray says. "In my experience and expectation it would be literally black or white pepper (piper nigrum) and salt (sodium chloride) as the predominant condiments in these dishes, augmented with chile peppers, ginger, spring onions, sliced onions, etc. depending on the chef or dish," huiray says.

And in many American Chinese restaurants, the "pepper" is fresh chile pepper, JMF says. Food is dusted in cornstarch, then stir-fried in a wok on high heat. "Add hot pepper, usually jalapeño, and fry for 30 seconds, then add cornstarch dusted food and fry in the hot pepper flavored oil until just barely cooked," says JMF.

Discuss: Indo-Chinese "Salt and Pepper" Dishes?
Chinese salt and pepper dishes: Sichuan peppercorns??

If you're the kind of Chowhound who's intrigued by harsh, earthy flavors, you owe it to yourself to taste pu-erh. Like wine, pu-erh tea comes in a variety of grades and ages. The "raw" product is untreated and young, and the "cooked" or "ripe" tea has been aged and fermented to develop the flavor, says will47. "Basically, the tea is composted in a controlled way," he says. "Bad ripe tea can have a 'fishy' or 'pondy' type flavor (which will tend to lessen over time), but a good quality ripe pu'er shouldn't have those flavors."

For high-quality pu-erh at a low price point, you'll almost always get better tea from a tea shop than from a grocery store, says will47. And ipsedixit recommends pairing less fancy tea with dim sum, and saving the really good stuff for drinking on its own; it would be wasted if paired with dim sum, as your palate will be affected by all those greasy, delicious chicken feet!

Discuss: Best tea for Dim Sum?