Dining: I love to use different types of sausage for this bread pudding. I recently discovered some wild boar and red wine sausage at our local Los Paisanos family owned butcher on Smith Street. It was an incredible substitution for the pork sausage here. Comment.

Dining: These are a great appetizer to serve while you are waiting for everyone to arrive. They can be prepped up to two weeks ahead and frozen. Pop them in the oven 20 minutes before your guests are expected. Early arrivals will hope the other guests get stuck in traffic. Comment.

Dining: This is a great soup, full of wonderful earthy mushrooms. Roasting the mushrooms concentrates their flavor. It is an elegant first course that acts as a preview of the delicious meal to come. Comment.

Dining: Everyone loves roasted garlic mashed potatoes, and the parsnips add a subtle sweetness that I adore. The toasted breadcrumbs sprinkled on just before serving may be gilding the lily, but I love the buttery crunch it lends to the creamy mash. Comment.

Dining: I love something sweet next to all these savory dishes, and these baked pears are perfect. As an added bonus, they smell like absolute heaven in the oven. This is a great “signature” dish for you or your kids to make. It’s so easy and delicious, it’ll become a new tradition for sure. Comment.

Dining: This recipe will help use up that box of clementines! The cranberry sauce can be made up to one week ahead and stored tightly wrapped in the refrigerator. Comment.

Dining: There’s only one way to punctuate the perfect meal — and that’s with Melissa Murphy’s perfect apple pie. We ran this recipe last year and offer it again as a tribute to its lasting greatness. Comments (1).

The Best Thing We Ate This Week: Saul Bolton’s merguez sausage at his new restaurant, The Vanderbilt, is the best thing we ate this week. Comments (1).

Dining: Our elite team of tasters put the Sarah Zorn sandwich through the meat grinder, if you will. With video … Comment.

Dining: They may be newly minted Vendy Award winners, but Fernando and Yolanda Martinez are still the same as they were before Saturday’s decisive victory over outer-borough vendors. As such, they gladly gave us the recipe for the simple-but-perfect guacamole from their home state of Pueblo. Comment.

Dining: Sometimes the greasiest spoon serves the tastiest food. So to suppliment our guide to the best late-night food, GO Brooklyn’s Ben Muessig offers his guide to his favorite 24-hour diners. Comments (2).

Dining: There can only be one winner of The Brooklyn Paper’s first-annual “You’re Going to the Burger Bash!” contest, but our burger-eating team of Mike “Rib-Eyd” McLaughlin and Gersh “Good Cholesterol” Kuntzman attest that there were certainly no losers. All five finalists served up excellent hamburgers that gave the judges fits trying to pick the single best one. Here are the recipes, so you can try them all at home. Comment.

Dining: Watch our exclusive video about how Kyle Huebbe got the news of his triumph! With video … Comment.

Dining: Marc Dennis not only puts his insects where his mouth is, but he invites you to join him. Here are some recipes that are posted on his Insects are Food Web site. Comment.

Dining: It ain’t just dumplings, as our iron-stomached reporter discovered (to his gastronomical enjoyment). Comment.

Dining: Our top chef gives us another great summertime recipe. Comments (2).

Dining: Everyone has enjoyed the widely lauded burgers at Dumont and Mullane’s, but have you savored Brooklyn’s unsung burgers? Get on the patty wagon with this handy GO Brooklyn guide to the borough’s most underrated burgers. Comments (6).

Dining: The calendar waits until June 21, but in Sunset Park, summer actually begins in late March. Comments (2).

Dining: The Brooklyn Paper joins the New York City Wine and Food Festival to take you — and your burger — to the Burger Bash this fall. Don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime contest opportunity. No purchase necessary! Comments (2).

Dining: Our official baker, “Sweet” Melissa Murphy, returns with a classic summer staple: the barbecue sauce. Comment.

Dining: Gino Cammarata has closed the best gelato joint in the borough to open a small plates restaurant (yes, there’ll be ice cream). Comments (1).

Dining: Becoming a wine snob has never been so easy, thanks to new “courses” at the Park Slope restaurant and wine bar Bussaco. Comment.

Dining: Brooklyn Heights is gearing up for the return of the popular restaurant Armando’s, but the soon-to-be-reopened Italian joint might not be able to hang its famous — some say infamous — neon lobster sign in the landmark district. Comments (2).

Dining: Chocolatier Jacques Torres has again made mouths water by spilling the beans on his latest treat: DUMBO’s Willy Wonka is expanding into ice cream. Comments (1).

Dining: Our top chef offers her contribution to The Brooklyn Paper’s spring fever coverage. Comment.

Vox Pop: The Arby’s sandwich chain is going to open a location in the historic — and landmarked — site of the former Gage and Tollner restaurant on the Fulton Mall in Downtown Brooklyn. We asked shoppers — all potential customers for those fast-food roast beef sandwiches — what they thought. Comment.

Dining: A Greenpoint restaurateur is having a go at reinventing the city’s most ubiquitous culinary standby — the corner bodega. Comments (2).

Dining: Our top chef offers her contribution to The Brooklyn Paper’s all-pig coverage. Comment.

Dining: Park Slope’s laid back, novel-writing, blog-posting, coffee-drinking culture may have finally found a beachhead in Brooklyn Heights. Comment.

Dining: The problem with your favorite restaurant is that it excels only at one meal a day. But Ortine, which just opened on Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, serves all three meals every day, and does it exceptionally well. Comments (1).

Breaking Chews: It’s a great time to be a North Brooklyn foodie. Two new restaurants have opened in as many weeks, bringing fresh eats to the burgeoning culinary scenes in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Comments (2).