I can’t think of a prawn dish I don’t enjoy, but the rate with which I inhale a prawn cocktail is alarming. There are only two components to the dish — prawn and sauce — so making a good prawn cocktail is all about maximizing the flavour in each. To do this, you’ll need to do a bit of roasting (and brining).

The saddest meal of the year is always the one you eat right after visiting family for the holidays. Mine is usually more of a free-range fridge scrounge than an actual meal, and I always have a lot of questions: Are those leftovers too old to eat, or am I just a coward? Who ate all my cheese? Why didn’t I stuff my suitcase with fruit cake?

Cheese plates are a mainstay of holiday party appetizers, but finding new ways to zhuzh up the usual suspects can be a challenge. Allow me to introduce you to your new best friend: baked cheese.

In the case of the hard-boiled egg, the yolk provides all of the flavour. Though it is a reliable and easily accessible source of protein, the white is aggressively bland, and no fun at all without seasoning. Salt (obviously) works well, but if you wish to outright infuse the white of an egg with tons of nutty umami, you should reach for the miso.

Video: Crafting a good cheese plate, board or platter is all about balance. Beyond a variety of cheeses, you need sweet and salty accompaniments to highlight and contrast the funky, creamy, savoury qualities of the dairy.

Video: Opening up your house to a bunch of hungry friends can be quite fun, but you can quickly rack up some pricey party expenses if you're not careful. But there are a lot of ways to serve fancy food without draining your bank account, and we're going to show you how.

Eating bone marrow is an experience best described as "viscerally decadent". Once roasted, the luscious meat butter inside the bones can be scraped out and spread on toast, mixed with rice and vegetables, or eaten on top of more meat for a crazy carnivorous experience.

Cheeseballs really live up to their name. Not only are they a literal ball of cheese, but there's something kind of charmingly corny about them. Like a tacky Christmas sweater, they're more class clown than class act - lovable, goofy and charmingly unpretentious. They're also infinitely adaptable, and insanely easy to make.

There is no such thing as "leftover cheese" but, if you are a cheese collector such as myself, you probably find yourself with little nubs and ends of various dairy treasures. You could keep making increasingly tiny cheese plates, or you could make fromage fort.

When it comes to non-meats, pineapple is my absolute favourite thing to grill in this entire world. The caramelised, almost bruléed sugars and smoky flavours are magnificent in a cocktail, and the charred fruit makes a superlative burger or pizza topping. (That's right, pineapple on pizza is good; haters to the left.)

Given the festive nature of the holiday season, cooking can veer towards the elaborate, so it helps to have some quick and easy dishes that impress without a ton of effort. As such, I recommend that everyone keep a stock of puff pastry in their freezer, and use it liberally to whip up appetizers, snacks, and desserts.

Drinking your Bloody Mary is all fine and good, but the good people at delish have devised a way to have your Bloody and eat it too, and it looks delicious.

Stuffed peppers of any kind are a most-welcome party snack or appetizer, but hand-stuffing each little pepper can be time consuming. To save time but still enjoy the glorious combination of peppers and their complimentary fillings, try re-imagining them as a dip.

Tiny, toasty, melt-y ham and cheese sandwiches are a very comforting finger food, but they become something quite special when you serve them inside a loaf or warm, soft bread.

Hummus may be the most popular bean-based dip around, but almost any legume can be made into a dippable, delicious spread, and Bon Appetit has an easy formula for making your own.

We tend to think of dips as white, creamy liquids with flecks of herbs or other greenery hanging out in there, but Serious Eats has a recipe for one that is unlike anything I've ever dipped a carrot in, and it contains pork, miso and walnuts.