Charge your cooking by taking a class in something different, and impress your friends and family with your homemade bagels (or baklava, croissants, pizza—anything).

While it’s not a challenge to buy bagels, baklava etc., imagine the thrill of hot bagels emerging from your own oven.

Bagels are one of our favorite foods—authentic Old World bagels, not the bloated specimens many have evolved into. It’s time to learn how to bake perfect ones.

We have our eye on a bagel-making course at New York’s International Culinary Center (Saturday, June 26, 2010, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., $195). At the end of class, we’ll eat the piping hot bagels—sesame, poppy seed, salt, onion and garlic—with cream cheese, lox and all the fixings.

Check out the classes at your local cooking school for something that catches your eye. Cooking classes are also a great bonding experience—with spouse, parent, child or pal.

• Find recipes for challah and Irish soda bread in our Bread Section.

Imagine making bagels at home instead of
running out for them on Sunday mornings.
Photo courtesy French Meadow Bakery, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week.

You can pull a salad together in a snap if
you store cleaned greens. Photo courtesy
Equinoxe.

1. Line a plastic bag with paper towels and gently insert lettuce, spinach or other greens.

2. Seal the bag, carefully pushing out any excess air as you close it. Refrigerate the bag.

3. Alternatively, if you have room in the fridge, you can line a bowl with paper towels, insert the greens and seal with plastic wrap (or use a bowl with an airtight lid).

Clean, dry lettuce will stay fresh for several days, and often as long as a week; other greens may have more or less time. That’s why it’s best to refrigerate each type of green separately, since they’ll wilt at different rates.

However, if you have tossed salad greens that aren’t already dressed, use this technique to refrigerate the salad.

• Find more salad and vegetable ideas in our Vegetables Section.

A simple cupcake becomes an Easter treat with three simple changes:

1. Use colored cupcake wrappers (shown here, Reynolds Baking Cups).
2. Make pastel-colored frosting in the shape of a “nest.”
3. Place 3 jelly beans in the nest.

• Find additional Easter cupcake ideas from Reynolds Kitchens at CupcakeCentral.com.
• See the history of cupcakes.
• Find more cupcake and cake recipes in our Cakes Section.

Don’t wait until Easter Sunday: Your friends
and family want these cupcakes now.
Photo courtesy Reynolds Kitchens.

Hint flavored water makes a colorful,
calorie-free Easter gift. Photo courtesy
DrinkHint.com.

Just refill the bottle with tap water. You’ll get a second infusion of the flavors still clinging to the inside of the bottle! Some brands even provide a third, milder infusion of flavor.

Then, refill the bottle to carry your regular supply water to give the plastic bottle as much of a life on earth as possible, before it gets recycled.

By the way, sugar-free flavored water is a nice Easter gift idea for friends and family who are on strict diets. Put the bottles in a basket, and be sure to include Hint water, which often gives that third infusion.

Hint water comes in “spring flavors” such as Blackberry, Honeydew Hibiscus, Mango Grapefruit and Raspberry Lime—a total of 10 choices. For a dieter or a healthy eater, they’ll be more appreciated than a bag of colorful jelly beans.

The waters will also be a hit at the Easter dinner table.

Until April 1, you can order artisanal, hand-dipped orange or coconut truffles. Dean’s Sweets truffles are made in small batches without any preservatives. There are no nuts or nut derivatives in any of Dean’s Sweets.

To get your “Passover truffles,” call 1.207.899.3664 (Eastern Time: 11 to 6 Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, 11 to 7 Friday and Saturday, 11 to 4 Sunday, or leave a voicemail). The price is $17.50 for 8 pieces, $27.50 for 16 pieces; any combination of flavors.

See the truffles online at DeansSweets.com.

If you have favorite Passover chocolates, please let us know.

Bring them to a seder or enjoy them
at home. Photo courtesy DeansSweets.com.