Q: What are the best dairy substitutes for savory recipes? As in cheese- or cream-based dishes? I've read about replacing milk with almond milk or coconut milk for baking and sweet foods, but they sound like they would be too sweet for a pasta sauce or casseroles. 

So you've scraped a vanilla bean to use in in a recipe — don't toss it! Vanilla beans or pods aren't cheap, so you might as well make the most of them. Plus they still have plenty of fragrance and flavor. How about using them to make your own vanilla extract? 

While I love oatmeal and eat it for breakfast for months and months out of the year, right around this time in the season I look for something else. The mornings are warmer and sunny, and I long for something that feels a little less substantial, isn't as predictable, and doesn't remind me of cold weather wake-ups. Lately the answer is polenta. 

This week's end gives us lots to toast. Tonight, the alluring Jay Gatsby and his dazzling Daisy hit the box office in Hollywood's latest version of The Great Gatsby. On Sunday, moms everywhere get to celebrate. If that weren't enough, it's Friday, people! That means a delicious 10-Minute Happy Hour just for you.

Q: I love making homemade salsa, but when I buy cilantro, half the bunch always goes to waste. I use quite a bit in the salsa, but I just don't know what to do with the rest. Are there any good ways to use the rest up?

Sent by Whitney

Q: I am making the Overnight Buttery Streusel Coffee Cake for a brunch I'm having on Sunday. The recipe recommends using Kerrygold Butter, but I'm wondering what other brands people like to use for baking?

Sent by Elle

I have been insanely curious to try this gluten-free pale ale from Omission Beer ever since I first heard about it. Gluten-free beers are notoriously mediocre, but this one has been making waves of the omgwow! sort in the beer community. Until very recently, Omission's beers were only available in Oregon and a few select bars outside the state, so when I saw a bottle at my favorite local brew shop, I snatched it up and headed straight home.

I grew up in a household of musical-lovers. My sisters and mother and I spent hours snuggled up under blankets on the couch, watching Singing in the Rain and Brigadoon and other classics. One of our favorites was a 1935 piece of sparkling fluff called Naughty Marietta, with Jeanette MacDonald as a French princess who flees an loathsome marriage — all the way to the New World, where she meets the handsome Nelson Eddy, a militia captain who of course falls for her bubble-headed charm. 

Where is this going, and what does it have to do with roasted vegetables? There is a punchline in Naughty Marietta we loved to quote, giggling, where the practical captain indignantly instructs the princess in disguise, who has no idea how to cook a meal: "You don't cook a radish, you eat it alive!" Sorry, dear Nelson — you could sing the moon out of the sky, but you didn't know too much about radishes. 

When it comes to cooking in the kitchen, there's nothing more fun to make than cake! If you really want to step up the creativity and excitement, try your hand at making a cake with fondant. Whether you make it for a friend's birthday, or just make it for yourself, it's a learning experience that may become a new hobby.