Roll goat cheese in your choice of coatings; here, cocoa and hazelnuts. Photo courtesy of Romanicos.

These are one of our favorite, fun-to-make hors d’oeuvres. Take a Montrachet log or other soft chèvre (goat cheese), cut it into slices and roll the slices into truffle-size balls. (If you don’t want to hand-roll them, you can press all of the cheese into a small bowl and use a melon baller to scoop them). Chill the balls to make them easier to roll in toppings.

Pick four or five coatings with varied flavors and textures—finely chopped pistachios, macadamias, almonds or walnuts; black, white or toasted sesame seeds; shredded coconut or sweet curry powder; Hungarian paprika and garlic powder; a mixture of fresh herbs; unsweetened cocoa powder (you can add a pinch of ginger); or other favorite flavors. You can layer flavors as well—cocoa and nuts, for example.

The coating process works best on waxed paper. Arrange the “truffles” on a plate. They’ll look like a beautiful box of bonbons—and each topping will make the chèvre taste different.

It’s National Deviled Egg Day, so here are tips to make perfect boiled eggs. (1) Test eggs for freshness: A fresh egg will sink in a bowl of water. Raw eggs that float are over the hill. (2) Fresh eggs peel more easily, but make sure they’re more than 3 days old. (3) To avoid a green ring around the yolk, don’t overcook.

Try this technique for easy-to-peel eggs with beautiful yellow centers: Place eggs in a pot of cold water, add a teaspoon of salt and bring to a boil. Cover the pot and remove from heat; let sit for 13 minutes. Drain and immediately place eggs in an ice water bath until completely cooled. They should be perfect, and you can proceed with your favorite deviled egg recipe.

Deviled eggs topped with a piece of Smokra,
pickled okra from Rick’s Picks. Photo courtesy Rick’s Picks.

A wedge of Parmigiano-Romano and a grater. Photo courtesy of UmamiInfo.com.

Buy good Parmesan or other Italian grating cheese from your cheese store, have it grated very finely at the store and keep it in the freezer. It’s instantly usable for pasta, omelets, soups, salads or anything that could use a flavor lift.

Don’t buy pre-grated cheese at the supermarket—it isn’t top-quality cheese, yet you pay a lot more for the service. Of course, the best solution is to keep a wedge of cheese in the fridge to grate as needed—but our frozen cheese convenience really works!

We love mixing grated cheese with leftover rice and a bit of milk and fresh-ground pepper (add cooked mushrooms or or other ingredients if you like) and heating it in the microwave for a mock “risotto.”

Need a sweet treat, like candy or ice cream, but healthier? Want to spend your budget of say, 100 calories? The new YoCrunch 100 Calorie Packs hit the spot, with just 10 or 15 calories from fat. Nonfat yogurt, a blend of sugar and erythritol (one of the sugar alcohols, a natural sweetener that replaces much of the sugar to reduce the calories without artificial flavor) unite to create this 100 calorie, 3.75-ounce treat. And there’s enough calorie budget let to add some famous YoCrunch mix-in. Flavors include:

YoCrunch 100 Calorie Packs are sold in six-packs. YoCrunch is certified kosher (dairy) by OU.

Read our review of YoCrunch Naturals yogurt and visit our Yogurt Section for reviews of our favorite yogurts, recipes, our Yogurt Glossary and much more.

100 calories of pleasure. Photo by Hannah Kaminsky | THE NIBBLE.

World Egg Day is the second Friday of October. Sorry that we’re two days late on this one, but egg lovers can celebrate any day of the year. Try some organic eggs and savor their flavor. They taste so much better than regular eggs, that one NIBBLE editor calls them “a different species entirely.” Use any eggs quickly: Regardless of the expiration date on the carton, the fresher the eggs, the better they taste (just buy fresh eggs from the farmers market to see the difference—in eating, cooking and baking). We celebrated World Egg Day with fresh organic eggs cooked in Plugrá European Style Butter, sprinkled with a touch of sea salt and fresh-ground pepper. We had a side of Wolferman’s English Muffins with strawberry preserves (choices from our article on The Best Strawberry Jam And Preserves). With food this good, it’s like being at a country inn!

It’s Moldy Cheese Day—yes, it’s an officially declared food holiday—so it’s time for a little mold education. If a blue mold develops on your cheese, that’s good and natural (think blue cheese). You can eat it; or if you aren’t into blue, scrape it off and enjoy the rest of the cheese. Red or black mold, however, indicates a cheese that’s past its prime. Cut it away. The rest of the cheese is still fine, though.

Love cheese? Devote an evening to matching cheeses with fruit pastes. Spanish membrillos made of quince are the most famous, but there are orange, lemon, fig and more delights from India, Brazil and other global spots. The concentration of fruit satisfies the need for a little something sweet at the end of dinner, when a cheese course is served instead of dessert.

All butters don’t taste the same—although they do have the same calories and cholesterol. For your calories, eat the best. Buy small amounts of two different butters and taste them against each other: straight or on bread. Then use up the butter you didn’t prefer in cooking or baking, save the better butter for bread, and buy a third butter to test against the “winner.” Like finding your favorite Chardonnay, keep trying every brand you come across until you find the one that stands out. If you think there aren’t a lot of choices out there, we gathered 80 butters—sweet and salted, domestic and imported—from five specialty food stores plus chains like Whole Foods. The right one does make a difference, whether on toast or pancakes, buttered vegetables or in mashed potatoes. Keep butter tightly wrapped in the waxed paper it comes in, and then in a Ziploc-type bag. Butter absorbs refrigerator flavors easily.

Cheese lovers spend time deciding which Cheddar or chèvre they like best, but never think to compare cream cheeses. There can be a noticeable difference in flavor—not only among mass brands, but with organic and artisan brands, too. The next time you’re planning to have friends over for bagels, get one of each brand. Cut off a small slice of each brick and taste it plain, noting the differences. Some are sweeter, some are saltier, some are gummier, some taste fresher and more natural. Just as you prefer the bagels from Store X to the ones from Store Y, you’ll also find your favorite cream cheese. It will make a difference in your cheesecake recipe, too.

Most people prefer sweet butter at the table, but there’s a contingent that favors salty. A solution to please everyone: Serve sweet butter and provide a cellar of delicious sea salt. Salt butter lovers can sprinkle a few grains on their butter, and enjoy the superior flavor and crunch of the sea salt over commercial salted butter. In fact, some award-winning salted butters are made by blending creamery butter with sel gris or another fine sea salt, and some top restaurants serve sweet butter with sea salt on top. Be artistic with black or red lava salts.