What’s Cooking at Wegmans

When customers at Wegmans Food Markets try out any recipe on the grocer’s website and rate the dish with one to five stars and your comments through Oct. 8, they’re automatically entered in a drawing from which nine winners will be chosen at random. Eight will win a $100 Wegmans gift card to, while one grand-prize winner will receive a three-day trip for two to New York City, hotel accommodations, $500 spending money, and dinner with Chef Cesare Casella at landmark Big Apple eatery Salumeria Rosi Parmacotto.

“It’s nice to see what other people think when you’re trying a recipe for the first time,” says Allison Keenehan, recipe team coordinator at Rochester, N.Y.-based Wegmans, which operates 78 stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland.. “Did they like it? Was it easy to make? Do they have suggestions to pass along? Reviews are helpful to other home cooks and to us.”

All interested customers need to do is sign in to wegmans.com and select any recipe they haven’t reviewed before from the nearly 1,700 on the site. Casella’s Italian-inspired creations are featured both online and in the fall 2011 issue of Wegmans Menu magazine. Many recipes also have accompanying videos starring Wegmans chefs preparing the dish or demontrating a technique the recipe uses.

Home chefs can score dishes on how affordable, easy and healthy they were, as well as upload an images or videos of their own and share their reviews on Facebook.

The site also provides “Wellness Keys” nutrition information and the ability to add needed ingredients to a virtual shopping list.

“Now’s a perfect time to become a reviewer, whether you’re a first-timer, or returning,” says Wegmans Meals Team Leader Cheryl Zappia. “Every week that you submit a new review, your name is entered in the drawing, so everyone has several chances to win.”