Video: When hosting a dinner party, it can be easy to focus on the food and forget about the party. Fortunately, you don't need to do a whole lot (or buy a bunch of flowers) to make your home feel festive and welcoming. Just a few fancy details — like cloth napkins, and good salt — will elevate the evening in a decidedly elegant fashion.

A big bowl of hot pasta, each strand perfectly coated in a creamy sauce, is perhaps the perfect comfort food. If you're not so hot on dairy - or it's not so hot on you - this meal may seem sadly out of your reach. Fortunately, there is a very easy way to make a rich and luscious, pasta-coating sauce without using a single drop of cream or a single pat of butter.

Chicken breasts don't have a particularly strong personality, but they're a very amicable protein. No matter what flavour profile you're going for, you can depend on the chicken breast to provide the perfect protein canvas without distracting from or clashing with bolder, more pronounced flavours. Structurally, they take very well to stuffing, making them the perfect vehicle for almost any filling you can dream up.

It is, ironically, difficult to have a pleasant date night on Valentine's Day, when every "nice" restaurant replaces their normal menu with a mandatory and expensive prix fixe. Some couples actually like those dinners, and have a fun pre-packaged date night. Other couples like to cook at home, or to ignore the holiday altogether. But if you want to have a typical "date night" out on February 14, your options will feel limited. Here's how to navigate that strait.

Some people prefer sweet foods, others savoury. Sweet potato is equipped to handle both. Not only are these babies the perfect base for all sorts of fillings, they provide a bit more flavour (and nutrients) than their paler counterparts, and can be enjoyed morning, noon, and night. Here are three delicious options for breakfast, lunch and tea.

It can feel rewarding to spend hours in the kitchen making a huge meal from scratch. But if you want to carve out a little extra time for yourself, dinner rolls are the perfect corner to cut.

At a dinner party or a family-style meal out, who gets the last piece of food? In this excerpt of the dinner party how-to book Brunch Is Hell, Rico Gagliano and Brendan Francis Newnam lay out the three typical bad solutions (no one eats it, everyone shares tiny bites, an "alpha guest" hogs it), then present a witty five-point plan for awarding the last piece.

In this episode we're talking about dinner: What you should make, how you should make it, and why the idea of "dinner" is fraught for so many of us. We talk with Melissa Clark, staff reporter for The New York Times Food section and author of the cookbook Dinner in an Instant. We also chat with Dave Arnold, the Founder and President of the Brooklyn-based Museum of Food and Drink and author of the book Liquid Intelligence. And we spend quality time with Claire Lower, Lifehacker's food editor and the mastermind behind the "Will It Sous Vide" column.

Dear Lovehacker, I moved cities late last year and my old boss is going to be in town for a visit soon. He suggested that we catch up but my only availability was during the evening. I didn't even think that it could be a problem until after we arranged to have dinner. He has a wife and I'm not sure if I should be worried about what she would think, especially because I'm single. Am I just being paranoid or is there something a bit off about having dinner alone with a married man? Thanks, B.

Whipping up quick, tasty dinners on busy weeknights can be challenging. This "drunken" pasta requires only two ingredients: dry red wine and pasta, with the option to beef it up with things already in your pantry.

Between the apps, restaurant websites and regular old phone calls, it's easier than ever to make dinner reservations these days. But for whatever reason, people don't cancel reservations when they can't make it. It's rude, yes, but it also affects the restaurant in ways you may not have thought of.

Weeknights are busy enough without having to spend hours planning, cooking, and cleaning up dinner. Try this one-pan pasta for a fresh meal that will fill you up while cutting down on dishes.

There’s only one day a year that’s devoted to impressing your loved one, and Valentine’s Day for many can be a daunting experience. To help ease the culinary burden, I’ve created this easy to prepare and delicious beef recipe to help impress any date this Valentine’s Day.

If you like your burgers, kabobs, fish and steaks to be juicy on the inside and a little crispy on the outside, this trick will take your BBQ game to the next level. Chef Grant Crilly from the ChefSteps YouTube channel explains an easy way to get a great crust on any smaller cut of meat when you're cooking on a charcoal BBQ.

There are so many myths and strangely specific rules about when to eat to lose weight, but alone they do nothing to help. Eat a hearty breakfast and light all day. Eat small meals every few hours. Rules around when you eat are less important than you think, and even when they do help, they're not for the reasons you think.

You've set the table, lit the candles and now you're ready to dig into this meal you've been working on for hours. Set the mood with this soothing dinner music playlist.

Whether you're dining out at a nice restaurant, enjoying a wedding reception, or trying to look your best at a work event, proper etiquette is important. These tips are easy to remember and will keep you looking classy.