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Grilling got you down? Try one of these recipes from McCormick.

I can't tell you how sick I am of my grilling regime. Way too plain old Dick and Jane.

So "Master the Flame. Master the Flavor" McCormick's grilling slogan caught my eye as I need serious help especially with the 4th right around the corner. Yes, I would like to master the grill -- create something tasty.  The company offers up some great, easy-to-follow, recipes for steak, beef, burgers, pork and ribs, chicken, seafood and sides, all of them of course involving a shake or two of their spices.

Nutrition info and easy directions are included with each recipe. Rip and ride my friends...that's print and cook to all you non motorcycle riding friends. Better yet send these recipes to your phone so when you are in the store they are at your fingertips. Love it. Visit McCormick for all the details and fire up that grill.

Celebrate the 4th of July So Sweetly With These Treats

Every party needs dessert. This summer, keep your guests engaged long after the grill is cooled off with some choice sweets. Transform a cupcake into a 4th of July tribute with Martha Stewart's Flag Cupcakes. Start with some patriotic cupcake wrappers to bake your treats in. Choose chocolate or vanilla cakes and top them off with some Swiss Meringue Buttercream frosting. This frosting is absolutely delicious and very simple, calling for sugar, egg whites, butter and vanilla extract. Top your cupcakes (you can have the kids help) and then turn them into flags with fun decorations. I like to use blueberries for stars, while Martha uses blue buttercream. Red licorice sticks are perfect for the stripes. This is a simple, fun, kid-friendly recipe that you can even freeze if you want to make ahead of time. If you want to make your dessert table stand out, set the cupcakes up in one of these fancy dessert stands. 

For the adults, strawberry shortcake trifle is a cool summer favorite. I like to make mine with strawberries and blueberries for that Memorial Day touch. Paula Deen's recipe on Food Network is my favorite - the custard is made with cream cheese, condensed milk and whipped topping - delicious! The glaze calls for sugar, strawberry Jell-O, water, fresh strawberries (and blueberries, if you choose). 

To assemble, start with a layer of angel food cake, followed by a layer of glaze, then a layer of custard. Layer this way until your bowl is full, and watch your guests enjoy. I guarantee you won't have any leftovers from this part of the meal!

Fourth of July? We Have an App For That!

Looking for something great to bring to that big Fourth of July cookout? We can hook you up with some great appetizers, like these fancy deviled eggs from behindtheburner.com. These are great because they have some different ingredients: cottage cheese and horseradish, specifically.  

You'll need 12 hard-boiled eggs, with yolks separated after they're cooked. Use your food processor to mix yolks with 1/3 cup cottage cheese, 1/4 cup mayonnaise, 3 tbsp scallions, 1 tbsp horseradish, 2 tsp mustard and 1/8 tsp salt. Blend and fill the eggs, topping with cayenne pepper or a sprig of parsley.  

Or, if you want to get fancy and bypass the normal cookout fare, try these ham and goat cheese canapes. Built on a French baguette, these are quick and easy appetizers that will get you a lot of fans. Combine 1 cup cooked, chopped ham with 2 tbsp goat cheese, 2 tbsp cream and Cayenne pepper to taste. Fry your pieces of bread with butter until brown, then top with the mixture and brown in the oven for a few minutes. Top with your favorite herb and off you go! 

Hungarian Delight - Cream Puffs

After exhausting the Greek and Italian dessert options, I remembered another sweet treat that I'd always loved as a kid - cream puffs. What I didn't know was their ethnicity - Italians often tried to adopt the recipe, but their Hungarian background is the real thing.  Touted as similar to French profiteroles, cream puffs are light enough to enjoy without feeling like you ate something too decadent.

What I like about them is the option to fill with either traditional whipped cream filling, or vanilla ice cream. The ice cream is a unique option but you have to eat them faster than if they were just filled with cream, so keep that in mind. 

To make, you need water, butter, salt, flour, eggs, heavy cream, and semi sweet chocolate. It's a fairly easy recipe to make. The trick is to get them out of the oven at the right moment, when they're just starting to brown and they're puffy overall. 

A pastry bag is the easiest way to fill a mini, but if you're creating a regular size puff, simply cut the top off and insert the filling, then cap it. Drizzle chocolate over and serve!

Who said only Italians can make the best desserts?

Italian Delight - Tiramisu

All this talk about Greek sweets got me thinking about my own Italian background, and I have to admit - we have the best desserts. I know French desserts are lovely too, but you can't beat Italian sweets. From gelato to biscotti to tiramisu, an Italian finish to a meal is guaranteed to satisfy your worst sweet cravings. 

For a different recipe, I tried this tiramisu courtesy of FoodNetwork.com. You need: 6 egg yolks, sugar, mascarpone cheese, espresso, dark rum, ladyfngers, and bittersweet chocolate shavings. 

With your electric mixer, beat your egg yolks and sugar, adding in the cheese and finally a tablespoon of espresso (I'm usually pretty generous with the espresso, but that's your choice). Dip your ladyfingers into a mix of the remaining espresso and rum (quick dips or they'll fall apart) and place them at the bottom of your baking dish. Layer the mascarpone mixture, then another layer of ladyfingers and a final layer of mascarpone. Garnish with shavings, cover and chill. Bellissimo!

My Big Fat Greek Baklava

A friend of mine attended a Greek wedding recently and returned with some great stories about the culture. Growing up Italian, I love learning about other traditions - and I love learning about the food that other cultures enjoy. And of course, being a Greek wedding, she told me about the delicious baklava. Of course, my mouth watered. I've always loved this treat but never tried to make it before, so I set out to remedy that.

I went to Emeril for advice, and ended up using his recipe. It's really a very simple dish, calling for a pound of phyllo, walnuts, cinnamon, salt and butter for the dough and filling. The syrup is a combination of sugar, honey, water, lemon juice, cinnamon sticks, lemon zest, cloves and cardamom. When you lay out the first layer of phyllo, make sure they fit your baking dish. I had to trim mine to make them fit. Make sure if you leave them out you cover with plastic wrap and a damp towel while you're getting everything else ready. 

Once your filling is mixed (nuts, cinnamon and salt, and you can use your food processor to chop the nuts), brush your phyllo with melted butter and begin layering the nut mixture on the sheets, continuing until you've used all your sheets. Bake for about 40 minutes, then drizzle your syrup over the finished product. Perfection!

Pop Food! A World Cup Dinner Party Featuring Bobotie and Soccer Ball Cupcakes.

Alicia Sanchez, host of Pop Food, prepares a delicious Bobotie, a savory South African casserole, followed by soccer ball cupcakes. Invite some friends over to share a traditional South African dinner with a little pop culture while enjoying the 2010 World Cup.

The Best Wine Resources

As you delve more deeply into the world of wine, know that you're surrounded by resources to further your knowledge and propel you to the level of expert. The internet alone has more websites devoted to wine than you'll ever need - but here are a few good ones. 

Intowine.com is a fun resource, offering pairing tips, articles on wine regions, how to choose your wine cooler and rack, and other helpful ideas. There's even a wine calendar for wine events. My new favorite is keepwinesimple.com, which has wine terms, a section for beginners, how to make wine at home, and where to travel for the great vineyards. 

If you like reference books, there's a list of ten top wine books at winecountrygetaways.com, another good resource. I recommend "The Essential Wine Book" by Oz Clarke, one of the most comprehensive guides to wine I've seen yet. 

To expedite your wine lessons, try a wine of the month club. There are a number of different clubs, for beginners up to the most seasoned wine expert.  For instance, the Discovery Tour Wine Club offers two bottles each month for $29.99. Wine clubs, if you have the money, are a great way to try wines you'd not be exposed to otherwise and increase your knowledge. 

A world of wine knowledge is at your fingertips, so pull up Google and get searching. You might even find yourself blogging about your newfound knowledge!

What's in Your Wine Toolbox?

Choosing the perfect bottle of wine is only the beginning. If you're really going to have fun with your new wine hobby, you'll want to make sure you have the right accessories to open it, to cork it, to house it - there's a veritable tool box of items you can choose from to accessorize your wine. 

I have to admit that uncorking the bottle has always thrown me a bit. In my defense, I've gotten much better at it. The right corkscrew has helped tremendously. I really love the stationary corkscrews, where you can place your bottle of wine and simply pull a handle and pop! I have a great hand corkscrew too that works really well once I got the hang of it (yes, I've opened bottles badly and broken corks - very embarrassing). 

Then there's the fun of buying the right wine glasses. There are glasses for red wine, for white wine, fancy glasses and serious glasses. I love picking out the right glass for a party or a special guest. Once you pick out your wine glasses, you need somewhere to put them, right? I like the hanging racks - they're decorative, they keep the glasses from taking up cabinet space, and they don't get broken or dusty. 

And you can get the wine glass charms to help identify glasses too - they have lots of different themes and styles. I love these Ladies' Night charms - so much fun! There's a lot more to wine than just drinking it. It's a whole new world. Cheers!

Which Wine Would You Like With That Fish?

I was buying some cod for a dinner with friends the other day when I found myself facing that age-old question that every wine-drinker-but-not-quite-a-connoisseur finds themselves up against when planning a semi-formal dinner party: Which wine goes best? Is a strict red with pasta, white with fish deal? How did I go about finding the answer to this question without having to immerse myself in some kind of wine-snob class?

I did some research and found a great chart that boils it down for you. Some of the pairings were ones I'd heard before, but I didn't know there is typically a red and white choice for each type of food, not just one or the other. Which is helpful for me, because white wine stirs up some kind of allergy for me that prevents me from drinking it, which is a shame because I love a good Riesling. 

I also found some tips on how to buy wine, both in stores and restaurants. My favorite option is still to find a small store with a knowledgeable staff and ask their opinions, but it's good to have an idea of what parameters to think about first, including price, food pairings and the overall preference of a group or person. Some good basics to start with are here but I've found the best way to soak this information up is to hang around savvy wine people. You learn a lot just by listening to them order wine, discuss the choices with the waiter, and by ultimately noticing how the wine complements your food. You'll even find yourself experimenting with wine gadgets like these. 

Stick with your wine lessons even if you're dabbling by association. Everything is a learning experience, and you'll find that as time goes by, you're becoming more familiar with wine etiquette, practices and tastes and be able to solve your own wine dilemmas. 

And that cod goes wonderfully with a nice Pinot Noir, in case you were wondering.