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Looking to discover new products, stretch your food dollar, and dazzle your friends with savvy kitchen skills?

Look no further. We've scoured the food and consumer magazines, sampled newly released condiments and gathered up some of the best advice, tips and "nifty nuggets" of food wisdom from all sides of the Great Miami.

And the best part is – we share.

The spice and grilling folks are acting like mad scientists in the laboratory coming up with various pepper blends and spice rubs to add zip to grilled meats, seafood and vegetables. No one's been busier than the folks at McCormick, who have come up with Smokehouse Ground Black Pepper (infused with applewood smoke flavor) and Worcestershire Ground Black Pepper Blend ($1.99 for 2-ounce tin). But McCormick's didn't stop there, unveiling new GrillMates Seafood Rub, Cinnamon Chipotle Rub and Salmon Seasoning. For more information, and to order in case these products aren't on the shelf of your local grocer, go to www.mccormick.com.

The March 2008 issue of ShopSmart — from the same folks who bring you Consumer Reports — shares secrets to cut your grocery bill, and live to tell about it. The magazine suggests checking out Internet coupon sites such as www.SmartSource.com, www.Coupons.com and www.CoolSavings.com. All three sites require the user to download software to print coupons, ShopSmart says, though SmartSource.com does not require registration. And the magazine offers this tip to avoid the barrage of offers that can follow registration at some coupon sites: don't give your everyday e-mail address — open a free e-mail account on a service such as Gmail or Yahoo and use that address instead.

Every Day With Rachael Ray magazine's June-July double issue tested a slew of handheld mandoline-style slicers and declared the Oxo Good Grips Hand-Held Mandoline Slicer ($20, oxo.com) the best, noting it was "inexpensive" and "compact" and allowed the user to adjust the thickness of slices. The same issue offers recipes that allow home chefs to "cook one meal now, freeze two meals for later" and a feature on "Satisfying your family's appetite with dinners for $10 or less."

A ready-made pancake and waffle batter called Organic Batter Blaster Original Pancake & Waffle Batter ($5.99/18-ounce can) has shown up on some local grocers' shelves. The refrigerated product comes in a metal container with a nozzle similar to Reddi-Wip that allows breakfast cooks to squeeze a plastic tip and slowly shoot aerosol-propelled batter into a griddle for pancakes or onto an iron for waffles. (Make sure you follow the directions and shake thoroughly, nozzle-down, before dispensing). Are the results as tasty and fluffy as well-made, home-mixed batter? They are not. The texture is a bit denser and chewier, but the flavor is a close approximation, and for a convenience food, it's not bad. According to the company's Web site (www.batterblaster.com), the ready-made batter is available at Dorothy Lane Markets, Dot's and Meijer stores.

ShopSmart's July 2008 edition offers up the following tips for storing hard-to-keep foods:

Bread: If you're not going to eat it fast, you can keep bread in the freezer for up to three months. To refresh thawed baguettes, rolls and other breads, unwrap and heat them in the microwave for a few seconds.

Butter: To preserve freshness, wrap and freeze what you don't use; unsalted butter will last about four to five months, salted butter, about six to nine.

Cooking oil: Buy oil in opaque or dark containers if possible and store it in a cool, dark place. Buy only what you can use within three to six months — or one month for very fragile walnut and other nut oils. If you're not using it fast enough, keep the oil in the fridge, and bring it to room temperature before using.

Crackers: Crackers and chips can get soggy fast if they're not sufficiently protected in a humid environment. So be sure to wrap the package in an airtight container or use a plastic clip.

Ice cream: To prevent ice crystals from forming, keep the surface of ice cream level and cover it with plastic wrap before putting the lid back on.

It's a secret ingredient of some of the most prestigious chefs in the Miami Valley — but you can buy it too. Smoked Spanish paprika shouldn't be confused with grocery-store paprika or even Hungarian paprika, the folks at Spanish foods company La Tienda say. Smoked Paprika has a much deeper flavor and is decidedly smoky. And you can order a "sampler pack" of 2.5-ounce tins of three different Smoked Pimenton Paprikas — sweet, bittersweet and hot — from La Tienda (www.latienda.com) for $14.95. A little dab will do ya, so these tins go a long way, and the paprikas are a fun ingredient for cooks to experiment with in the kitchen.

Dorothy Lane Market has introduced private-label (as in DLM brand) gelato and sorbetto — think ice cream (with less fat) and sherbet, but more intensely flavored. Both are manufactured by Matt Madison, a Cincinnati man who makes the Italian-style frozen desserts in small batches from Italian equipment and flavor bases imported from Italy. My favorite gelato flavor is hazelnut, though the "Killer Brownie" is a crowd-pleaser, too. And among the sorbettos, check out the lemon basil — it doesn't sound like those two flavors would go together, but they do here. All are $4.99 per pint.

Kraft has announced a "reinvention" of its 50 or so salad dressings — they no longer contain artificial preservatives, and some have been reformulated. At least one that received an overhaul is worth trying if you like robust, intensely flavored Italian-style dressing: The Tuscan House Italian. It's now made with extra virgin olive oil and contains "five times the Parmesan and Romano cheese" as its predecessor (one presumes it started with very little if Kraft quintupled the amount). The dressing is concentrated enough to use as a marinade, and if you pour it on salad, a small pour delivers plenty of flavor. The suggested retail price is $2.99 for 16 ounces, $3.99 for 24 ounces.

Cook's Illustrated magazine doesn't hand out accolades lightly, but the magazine had kind things to say about a new PAM product called PAM Professional High Heat ($3.99 on local shelves) in its April 2008 issue. "We sprayed one skillet with the original (PAM) and another with PAM Professional, then placed both over a medium-high flame. After 2 1/2 minutes, the original PAM was nearly black and smoking, and the PAM professional was crystal clear, just as it had been when it went into the skillet. ... If you use cooking spray for high-heat stovetop cooking, you should consider PAM professional."

Did we mention that Cook's Illustrated doesn't hand out accolades lightly? When 21 of the magazine's staffers sampled 10 ready-to-serve vegetable broths, it recommended only one: Swanson Vegetarian Vegetable Broth ($3.63). And the magazine pointed out that even its "winner" contains chemical additives designed to enhance flavor, and nearly double the salt of the magazine's favorite chicken broth, Swanson's Certified Organic.

The July 2008 issue of Cook's Country magazine — put out by the same folks that bring us Cook's Illustrated — taste-tested eight Dijon-style mustards and proclaimed ol' reliable Grey Poupon as its favorite, describing the American-made mustard as "potent" and "bold" with a "nice balance of sweet, tangy and sharp." Last among the eight rated mustards and listed as "not recommended" was the Plochman's Premium Dijon, which the magazine's tasters described as "watery" and "sour," and which was proclaimed as "sissy mustard." Ouch.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2258 or mfisher@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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