Meet The Team / Cheryl Brown

For some reason, eggplant is often neglected by home cooks. Maybe because it's hard to get excited about it visually (dull brown when you want something bright green or red or orange), or because the texture and flavor can be unappealing if cooked incorrectly, or because it doesn't groove with the protein you took out to defrost, or just... because.

This dish is a game changer. It capitalizes on eggplant's plump shape, brings plenty of color into play, uses Middle Eastern ingredients to boost flavor and incorporates chopped eggplant flesh into the lamb stuffing, so texture isn't an issue. Deliciously clever.

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot of having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

This is a beautiful example of less being more. Rough-shaped pizza dough brushed with a bit of oil and topped with squash, goat cheese and herbs -- simple yet delicious. What more could you want?

Create something similar in your own home, tonight: Pizza dough (fresh or frozen) is available at most supermarkets or at your local pizza place, and, if squash and goat cheese aren't your thing, choose a topping combination that is, such as tomato and mozzarella, mushrooms and fontina or roasted red peppers and ricotta. Go crazy . . . no one needs to know.

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot of having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

The blogger herself says it best: "I subscribe to a ton of food blogs, and generally get a handful of recipes delivered to my inbox each day. The gems get filed away under the bulging To Make list. Very rarely do I receive a recipe that sounds so good it produces a Run-Don't-Walk level of urgency. This salad is of the Run-Don't-Walk variety."

It's a satisfying main-course salad, especially with addition of black-eyed peas and black beans, but light enough for a warm summer day thanks to the bright, tangy dressing, sweetened with agave nectar (talk about a great secret weapon!).

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot of having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

The Slashfood team always has their eyes open for off-the-beaten-path Valentine's Day gifts, especially of the chocolate variety, which is how we stumbled across this particular item: a 3-ounce hollow MK2 Fragmentation milk-chocolate hand grenade.

This is what happens when a group of guys -- guys who hunt, guys who camp, guys who don't bathe for days at a time -- start thinking about crazy things to do with a surplus of Belgian chocolate. Grenades might not be the first thing that comes to mind for many of us, but, then again, if our day jobs involved selling chocolate fountains (and the chocolate to go with them) to high-end Vegas resorts, it just might be.

The wood-crate tin packaging is an inspired finishing touch (it even locks), and we love the Martha Stewart-esque suggestion of storing your real ammo in it once the chocolate is gone. Plus, who could resist the heartwarming notion that this grenade offers "a more peaceful way to resolve any conflict"? The company also makes chocolate bullets and chocolate guns, in case this doesn't do the trick.

When you see something as delicious looking as this, becoming vegetarian not only seems perfectly feasible, but desirable.

All it takes to transform a humble can of chickpeas into this elegant dish is garlic, shallot, bay leaf and olive oil (oh, and some time in a 400-degree oven). The cook responsible for the above masterpiece also has a thing for Swiss chard, and thus stirs some in on occasion for a completely satisfying side dish.

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot of having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.