I would like a tutorial on Lemongrass. how to pick good lemongrass, and what part to use.

I need better knife skills! Help, I'm such a slow slicer/dicer/chopper.

How to cut fish for sushi and sashimi and how to improvise with common spices.

How to de-pith citrus fruits. How to quickly peel the skin off roast peppers. How to mince garlic without using a doohickey that's impossible to clean. How to make a good spice rub/curry powder/taco seasoning. How to do big projects with minimal mess. Creative ways to use your cuisinart/ice cream maker/bread machine/mixer.

I'm with R_Claw... better knife skills. I've never understood how experienced chefs manage to chop fiddly things like onions so quickly and accurately.

How to use a knife steel. How to knead bread properly. How to slice and use fennel.

i'd like to add to the knife skills request things like cutting a whole chicken into parts, cutting fish, etc.
I'd also love to see more how tos on basic baking. like so basic, you don't need a mixer, etc.

I would love a tutorial on how to pick the best fruits and vegetables in the store or market. What to look for, which part should be firm or soft. Also, tips on how to freeze vegetables you may not use up before they go bad would be great.

I'm with aoede.
I'd like to know more on how to cut up fish, but not only fish, but other large cuts of meat. I recently bought a huge leg of lamb and had to hack it up so Icould preserve parts Iwasn't using right away. It would have been nice to have pretty cuts of it instead of looking like it had a rabid bear tare it apart.

Rolling out pie dough. Ugh. Or any kind of dough. Maybe, how to use a rolling pin . . .

i second the knife skills!

Knife skills, always--and I've never really learned how to make a good steak. (We were mostly fish people in my house growing up, but now I live with a meat eater). Also, maybe something on how to grill food indoors (i.e. without an actual grill?)

yes!! How to peel an orange! You know...cut it all pretty like so there's no pith and makes those pretty geometric slices!

i like recipes for making at home things you would normally buy -- pho or other take out items for example
i really liked the article about how to make your own dish detergent

poaching an egg. I've done it but a video would help because I always have separated bits of boiled egg white afterwards.

Another for knife skills! I have been trying to get into a reasonably priced class, but they always fill quickly. Which knives are must-have for an ambitious home cook? How do you use them?

Yes, poaching an egg! I've never even tried, it's so intimidating (which is weird, because I'm a pretty decent cook).

How about making ribs in the oven?
I have tried a few times but never could get it quite right.

How to tile a backsplash! It's the next project in our kitchen, after we put the countertops in.

It would be awesome to have a post on how to roll/shape a loaf of bread. I know there's a certain way to do it and always forget what it is, so my loaves have holes and are not as perfect as I'd like!

I agree with the egg poaching and bread making. I'd love to make fresh bread but am still a bit intimidated.

Judging from the reaction to the 'how to clean/eat a steamed crab' post, a how-to involving cutting up animals is right out (though I personally would find it tremendously useful)...

How about a tutorial on fun things to do with hot sugar?

Knife Skills... Omelette making... How to select the best produce!

I would like a tutorial on making souffle.
I've heard they are difficult and finicky, yet they look so delicious!

I also agree with heatherk... rolling out pie dough would be a great one !

So many things:

1. How to raise dough - I don't get the leave in a warm place part. How warm? How long?

2. Growing container gardens and potted herbs. Just some general recommendations/tips.

3. Making pancakes - how thick, how wide, when to add the fun stuff, recipes.

4. Second the tiling. Any DIY how-tos would be nice.

5. More wild game recipes. I live in Alaska and Texas and our primary meat source is hunting. Caribou, pig, deer, moose. Always looking for new ideas.

I would LOVE to actually DO a tutorial on how to make and roll out pie dough.

I've recently gotten more involved in cooking past "follow the recipe exactly" but whenever I read comments about recipes on websites, people are constantly switching/adding/subtracting to make it better. I would like to know how to do that too, but I'm afraid of wrecking the entire thing! So any basic guidelines on what does what would be great (like A makes things thicker, B thins things out, C can substitute for D, if you dont have any E, use F, etc).

Also, a how to on common kitchen conundrums. I cant think of any good examples right now, but it seems it happens often where I'm in the kitchen and go "hmm, it would be nice to know what to do right now..." Google is only so great some of the time.

i would love it if these tutorials were offered by experts. i was disappointed in the canning how-to and questions this summer.

to clarify my last post, a lot of the readers asked the expert specific questions that went unanswered, even though the blog post specifically said "ask a canning question"

http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/marisa-mcclellan/canning-questions-ask-marisa-mcclellan-094926

so what i would like to see is a how to and some interaction with readers on specific questions so we can all more fully benefit

Lot's of good suggestions above. I agree with mirrorrim-- I guess I would translate that to a kitchen chemistry series. (eg, the more you work gluten, the more it binds, the chewier the cookies...can get too chewy).

Also:

- How to deal with a whole chicken. I made my first Chicken with 40 Cloves and had a few moments of difficulty: I can never figure out which side the breasts are on, I don't really know how to tie it (not truss-- that's all over the net) and how on earth do you brown a whole chicken?

-- Kneading dough. I hear it can be very therapeutic, but I think if I tried it right now I would be worrying if I was doing it right the whole time.

Lastly, I'm available to tape demos if you can make your way to Silverlake, CA :)

- How to take care of knives properly.
- Knife skills.
- How to cut fish (clean a fish, fillet, cut sashimi, etc.).
- Recipes for vegetarian or vegetable-heavy entrees that aren't soups or pastas.
- Recipes and techniques for more asian dishes.
- Recipes for and how to use a slow cooker (I've had one for years but I've never used it!)

More how-to posts and tutorials on preserving and canning, including smoking, drying, and curing (plus a recipe or two for using the preserved item at the end is always a nice touch), please. I was also excited but then quite underwhelmed with the canning expert this summer too.

More posts about organizing the kitchen but especially any and all information on efficiently storing baking pans, whittling down one's batterie de cuisine for baking and cooking or growing a better one.

And another vote for growing and maintaining healthy herb plants indoors.

I would like to learn how to kill a lobster.

-Knife skills
-Storing knives
-food storage- especially seafood, bread, various fruits and veggies. What goes in the fridge, etc etc.
-The difference between various breads doughs and any tips and tricks on kneading, rising, etc.
-How to make various kinds of pasta (past the basic egg noodle- I want to know about whole wheat pastas, spinach flavored, etc etc)

How to cut up a whole chicken (much cheaper that way), the best way to knead and shape bread, making souffles, and pastry dough-specifically pie dough, it gives me the proverbial finger every Thanksgiving.

Fish. How to gut, fillet, scale etc.

Some basic butchery skills would be cool too. I think it would help understand where on the body cuts of meat come from.

How to cook with dried beans, but not for soup. I'm trying to cook dry beans once a week and can't find many recipes that aren't for soup.

How to make yogurt. How to make sauerkraut. How to make Kim Chee.

Yeah, Kassie! Add fermenting foods like sauerkraut, kim chee, and vinegar to my list too.

Or is that already one of the categories of preserving? See? I need to know more about this stuff!

Def. Knife skills. I just bought some nice, new Wüstoff knives and I would love to know how to use my new bird's beak vegetable knife. :)

How about basic cooking techniques? Such as: what does it mean "to poach a chicken" or "how to blanch a vegetable"? I know that I could probably google it, but I trust apartmenttherapy more -- and pictures would always help!

I'd like to learn a bit more about curing/using/cleaning caste iron. I've seen a number of ways to do it online and on tv, but I still can't seem to scramble an egg in my relatively new cast iron skillet. Any hints?

How to sharpen knives, how to break an egg with one hand, (have tried it always make a mess),how to make your own pasta, tiling a back splash would be great too.

I've got a couple of pretty good kitchen knives and I'm getting pretty good at using them, but I'd really like to learn how to sharpen them.

As someone who is taking on cabinet painting right now, I am very interested in an up-to-date tutorial. Most of the DIY sites are not accounting for better primers these days, and better wax-stripping agents. Most of their recommended processes would scare anyone away! We ended up at our local hardware store where we happened upon a man who restores old homes for a living, who was able to instruct us in the modern ways of cabinet updating! So much easier than we were led (by the internet) to believe!

Wow! Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone! This is great. We will tackle as many as we can, but of course this is an ongoing project (getting good tutorials up). That was the problem with the canning questions, btw - we only had space for 5, but it was good to see so many questions! Maybe we will do a more regular feature on that in the summer, with more detailed instructions.

I agree with many of the comments above, particularly info on how to make fresh pasta, preserving and butchering. I would be interested in learning about different coffee brewing methods and recipes for delicious coffee drinks from around the world.

What I really would love though, is some info on how to plan a weekly menu. I try to cook as much as I can on Sunday so the weeknight meals are easier. Right now that consists of roasting two chickens on Sunday, then having chicken risotto on Monday, chicken soup on Tuesday and chicken sandwiches on Wednesday. That’s as far as I’ve gotten and we are in a rut. I would love some feedback and ideas on how to plan ahead so I have some delicious/nutritious food all week long while minimizing time spent during the week.

What I'd really love to learn is how to scale recipes, especially for the quick-to-make stuff. I generally only cook for myself, and while most of my cooking is stuff I can freeze leftovers of so I can have quick dinners to pull out after I get done work (I work a lot of late afternoon-early evening hours and usually I'm starving by the time I get home), sometimes I just want to cook something fresh! Aside from that, any tips for cooking healthy on a budget would be great.

I am a poor chef...which means that I lack a lot of the fancy tools...so recipes without dutch ovens and food processors are more than welcome!

I also have messed up poaching chicken for soups or enchiladas lately...the chicken comes out rubbery and tough...would love to know what I am doing wrong.

on a side note: I have been loving the soup recipes lately! My chicken stock keeps disappearing!

I absolutely would love to see a kitchen chemistry series so I agree with mirrorrim and curbappeal. I always have to follow a recipe in fear of ruining it by putting my own spin to it.

One of my new year's resolution is to learn how to bake bread. It'd be great to learn the little nuances that are necessary to making a great loaf.

I planned on coming to these comments to sheepishly ask about knife skills (since I sometimes feel like such a noob on here!) It makes me feel better to see so many others want the same!

Some ideas:
1. Knife buying (what to look for, which ones to own)
2. Using a cast iron skillet (I barely use mine and I know I should more but for some reason it scares me)
3. How to figure out seasoning - what to add, what not (esp. dry herbs you have on hand)
4. "I bought this appliance/pan/tool and it changed how I cook forever" types of stories (yes not how to, but I'd love to hear)
5. How to grease your various pans - what type of grease for what pan, how to do it RIGHT

Basically, anything you cover I will probably need to learn :)

I'm trying to homemake as many things as possible to help control my eating, keep it healthy and avoid the preservative-laden processed food from the grocery. My boyfriend doesn't always feel as strongly as I do about these things and is completely unwilling to give up his Coffeemate French Vanilla creamer.
Please give a simple, all natural recipe for some homemade vanilla creamer, preferably one that uses plain ol' dairy creamer. I can't find one anywhere.

French macaron please.

How to know when things are cooked enough without cutting/poking into it. (Meats, breads, casseroles, baked goods, etc.)

I would love to learn about bread. In particular:

-Really easy bread tutorials for people who are afraid of things that use yeast or require kneading.
-How to actually fit bread baking into your life--it always seems like bread recipes require you to sit at home all day.

What about a post on sprouting? And how to use the resulting sprouts?

Or something on making yogurt?

I'm also terrified of anything I have to heat to a specific temperature. Can you make me less scared of my kitchen thermometer?

What various spices are, how to use them, etc.

Kitchen chemistry would be very helpful.

Poaching an egg. I technically know how, but every time I get this beautiful thing that then pops when I transfer it to toast or whatever, and water comes gushing out of it and soaks my toast. :(

Baking stone. What is it, how to use it, how to care for/clean it, what things (besides pizza and bread) is it good for, etc.

Oyako donburi. It's an "easy" chicken and egg dish on rice from Japan that everyone tells me is so simple but it always turns into soup when I make it. :(

Best way to store various items, like spices, garlic, tomatoes, onions, cabbage, bread, etc.

Different ways/tools to sharpen your knives—what they are, how to use them, where to buy them.

Fish dishes that would tempt someone wary of eating fish (I love seafood, but my husband's experience is limited to Long John Silver, which he didn't like). I'm particularly thinking of sushi and sashimi, but cooked fish would be helpful, too.

The differences between gas, electric coil, electric glass top, etc., stoves and what allowances to make for each when cooking. Same for ovens.

Best way to clean the fridge, inside and out.

Different kinds of tea, how to select a good tea, how to make a good cup of tea... etc. (I'm sure this would go for coffee too, but I'm not a coffee drinker.)

Obentos and other lunches that can easily be prepared quickly and eaten at work that aren't sandwiches. I'm so sick of sandwiches, and leftovers make me feel pathetic and frumpy. How to make them, what should go in them, ways to make preparation go faster, etc.

How to organize food in pantries and fridges? Stuff is always falling on top of each other or out of the cupboard/fridge.

...but the questions I want answered most of all because no one will answer it is: People always say to pick good quality oil, vinegar, and wine. But I'm a novice in cooking "fancy" dishes (i.e., a dish that isn't carbs smothered with cheese or gravy) and since I grew up in a home where no one drank, I know squat about wines. WHICH ONES ARE THE GOOD ONES? Give me names, please! Example: Get cold-press extra virgin olive oil. Fine, but I've tried several and none taste the same. One is grassy, one is fruity, one is nutty... Which do I pick?! Same for vinegar (white, rice, balsamic, etc.) and wines (preferably something I can find at the grocery store and trust it'll be a good choice for cooking or serving to guests. I have no idea for either).

PS
I know this is just me, I don't care even two bits about canning. None for me, thank you. :P

Oh, and kid-friendly dishes that don't make the grown ups feel like they're eating at Kiddie Land. I.e., fancy/grown up dishes that kids won't be repulsed by.

Proper care of knifes and how to sharpen them.

I also struggle with recipes that call for a vegetable by size. How much should a small green pepper yeild or a medium onion?

Another vote for growing herbs indoors!