The Chopping Block Cooking Blog

Savory Monkey Bread

Growing up my mom always made something she called pull-apart garlic bread. It was pieces of bread dough covered in garlic butter, piled in a loaf or Bundt pan, and baked until golden brown. It was ...

How to Master the Farmers Market

Farmers markets, along with breweries with giant patios, a lakefront that may as well be the ocean, and a skyline like no other make summers in Chicago worth the cold, hard winters we endure. If ...

Picnic Panna Cotta: A Refreshing, No-Bake Summer Dessert

I was recently tasked with bringing dessert to a family dinner, but with the hot weather beating down on us I immediately knew there was no way I was going to fire up my oven to bake anything. So I ...

Fancy Figs? Make this Ice Cream

If you have a fig tree (or access to one), you know the season is short and sweet. It's literally about two weeks during early July where I live in Florida. During those couple of weeks, anyone who ...

Stack your Food

I was looking back on my food pictures on my phone, and I noticed one thing recently... I love stacked food. Simply stated, stacked food (or vertical food) is food you make in or serve in layers to ...

Box of Plenty: The Many Benefits of a CSA

Often times home cooks will be curious about what makes restaurant food taste different from home cooked food. This is actually a very interesting question, and there is no simple answer, but an ...

Apple-icious Treats

How odd to talk about apples now, right? We have an abundance of fresh Summer fruits and berries available, and I’m suggesting you cook with apples? But stick with me for a minute! What’s one of ...

How to Work with Phyllo Dough

Frozen phyllo dough is a great time saver: you can create appetizers, pastries and desserts without having to make the dough. Traditionally, phyllo dough is made by stretching a flour-and-water ...

Don't Miss Mushrooms at your Farmers Market

When I stopped by the Logan Square Farmers Market a couple of weeks ago, I visited River Valley Ranch Farm's stand. They are from Burlington, Wisconsin and are the oldest mushroom farm in the ...

Explore the World of Wine in our New Tasting Series

Back when I shifted my career from sommelier to educator and marketer, my first project was to create a database of every wine product sold in Chicagoland. When I reached 10,000 entries, the client ...