Apartment Therapy The Kitchn - Archive for the week of 2008-10-12

TV Food Drama: Pushing Daisies

Honey was a hot topic around here this week, so we couldn't help but mention the fabulous, over-the-top honey-related story lines on ABC's "forensic fairy tale" drama, "Pushing Daisies." The facts ...

What's Cooking This Weekend?
Weekend of October 18-19, 2008

There is still plenty of basil left on our overgrown weed of a basil plant, and we think pesto is in the cards this weekend. A handful of summer-ripened tomatoes and some bread and mozzarella would ro...

Technique: Making A Sauce Reduction

You've seen them on restaurant menus at fancy places. Braised Beef Medallions with Cognac Reduction. Roast Muscovy Duck With Cherry-Port Reduction. Venison with Rosemary-Basalmic Reduction. They m...

Learning to Love Green Cabbage: How to Pick Em', Cook 'Em, and Eat 'Em!

Cabbage is not exactly at the top of our list of favorite vegetables, but we're willing to admit that might be because we've never given cabbage a fair try. It's in season and very affordable right no...

MyFarm - Urban Gardening and CSA From Your Backyard
San Francisco

MyFarm is a group in San Francisco that is interested in turning residential backyards (and frontyards) into a collection of urban farms. If you want to have some vegetables grown in your yard, but d...

In Season: Daikon

Daikon are large, white Asian radishes used primarily in Japanese cooking. We've been getting them in our CSA lately, and we've got a tip on what to do with them......

Italian Ravioli Ejector Stamps from Sur La Table

We try to keep our utensil drawer lean and mean. We keep the unitaskers to a minimum. But that doesn't mean we can't look (and sigh over) a few focused tools that promise us that we'll do things like ...

Recipe: Spaghetti Squash with Ricotta, Sage, and Pine Nuts

We usually eat spaghetti squash with just a bit of butter or olive oil, salt, and pepper. This recipe hardly takes more time to prepare, but it turns the squash into a slightly fancier affair. Creamy ...

Conscientious Cook: How to Start Saving Money This Weekend

Whether you'd like to cut back your expenses because you're a student, you're feeling the economic pinch, or you'd just like to save some pennies, here are some basic ways to start rethinking your spe...

Survey: How Can We Help You?

We've been reflecting a lot these last few weeks on the state of the economy: in the office, with our friends and with readers across the world. My last two Thursday emails have been about ways to co...

Look! Apple Identification Day

Take a look at this picture! This table is full of apples that people brought in from their gardens to have identified by experts. ...

Tell Us: Do You Have Food Allergies?

Some of the biggest cooking challenges some of you face at home involve working around allergies (it may be the reason you started cooking your own meals in the first place). We're curious what al...

Harvest Spotlight Roundup: Apple Recipes

Last week we focused on local feta cheese for our weeklong Harvest spotlight. This week it was apples, and judging by your response to our question about favorite eating apples, we think that there ar...

Simple Cocktails with Fresh Apple Cider
Straight Up Cocktails

Sweetly tangy, and satisfyingly robust, fresh-pressed apple cider is springing up in greenmarkets and grocery stores everywhere right now. Equally delicious drunk cold straight from the fridge, or war...

How To Make an Edible Brain From Lime Jell-O
Delicious links for 10.17.08

Delicious Links - the Early Halloween Edition. ...

Fair Trade: Honey

Here at The Kitchn, we're passionate about local honey and love being part of the chain that connects a region's flowers, bees, beekeepers, and consumers. (Joanna highlighted one of these regional pro...

How To: Make DIY Breadcrumbs

It's hard to finish a big loaf of bread before it gets stale. And too often, we forget about it until it's hard enough to be a doorstop. But if you have five minutes and a food processor, you can give...

Recipe Source: Williams-Sonoma Recipe Archives

Well-known as a source for quality, if expensive, kitchen equipment, there's one way to enjoy Williams-Sonoma that doesn't cost a dime: their recipe collection!...

Using Black Paint In The Kitchen

Black cabinets, countertops, floors and appliances come in and out of fashion in kitchen design. But what about black paint? More and more people are painting at least one wall of the kitchen dark wit...

From The Email: In Praise of the Domestic Mango

A version of this post was originally sent to our email subscribers on September11th. To receive Sara Kate's weekly email, sign up in the column to the left or click here. Something tasty will arrive...

Recipe: Sticky Spiked Double-Apple Cake with a Brown Sugar-Brandy Sauce

It's harvest time, which means apples, which means that we've already made our harvest apple traditional recipe once - and we'll make it again. What's this recipe? An outrageously amazing apple cake, ...

Cook's Confession: What's Your Messiest Ingredient?

Okay, so it's impossible to cook without making some kind of a mess. (If you disagree, just humor us!) But there are always those certain annoying ingredients that make a mess no matter how carefully ...

Bogs Across America
Los Angeles, October 15-17 2008

Ocean Spray has set up a bog at the Hollywood & Highland center in Los Angeles this week for 3 days only. If you've ever wanted to learn about how cranberries grow and how they are harvested, head on...

Tip: Use an Apple Corer to Give Cupcakes a Filling

Whether or not you think cupcakes are a waning fad, as long as there are children in the world and muffin pans for sale, we think they'll stick around. If you've got an apple corer handy ('tis the sea...

Look! Another Yellow Kitchen

You know that we have a thing for yellow kitchens. They're so cheery and good for cooking; we feel positively inspired in a yellow kitchen. So we had to make sure you saw this bright one from the Fall...

Dinner for One: Sesame-Garlic Soba Noodles with Fried Egg

This is definitely one of those dishes that evolved from being home alone on a weeknight and having nothing in the fridge. Success! Who knew a handful of leftover soba noodles, the last egg in the car...

Survey: Do You Cook With Induction?

Yesterday I attended The Greener Home, a showcase of "sustainable products" for the home hosted by the International Housewares Association. As you can probably guess, there was a lot of bamboo (both...

Cooking Korean: Ojingo Bokum

If you've ever wanted to learn to cook squid, here's a good introductory recipe. Ojingo bokum is a dish of sauteed squid and vegetables in a spicy sauce. The flavors are savory and the dish is very ...

Survey: What's Your Favorite Eating Apple?

The post yesterday on Red Delicious apples and their inexplicable popularity in grocery stores sparked a lot of conversation. Now we're curious; what is your very favorite eating apple? Not pie apple,...

Apples - Four Ways
Delicious links for 10.16.08

Apples, apples, apples. Here are a few intriguing apple applications from around the web. ...

Fall Cooking: Back To Baking

Most of us keep our oven use to a minimum during the summer. But it's fall now, and pretty soon there will be calls for Thanksgiving pies and parties for holiday cookies. It's time to get back to baki...

Spanish Wine: New Regions and Grapes at Great Prices

Spanish wines are truly experiencing an explosion in quality and diversity. Gone are the tired oxidized wines of yore. Much more careful handling of the fruit both in the vineyard and winery as well a...

Midwest Food Roundup: Harvest Spotlight Edition

It's Harvest Month here at The Kitchn, so we're thrilled to see local food producers highlighted in this week's Midwest food sections. Read on for local cranberries, cheese, wines and lots of recipe...

Good Question: What To Do With Chicken Fat?

Here's a good question from reader Andrea. She writes: Yesterday I cleaned out my freezer and made stock out of a few chicken carcasses I had in there. Today as I was skimming the fat off, I wondered ...

Fall Breakfast: Ricotta, Fig, and Honey Tartine

When you have some ripe figs, it's best to treat them simply. We ate this for breakfast yesterday, and it was the perfect amount of sweetness with the creamy ricotta and crunchy, fresh bread......

Hot or Not? Potato Gloves from Contor Design

We spotted these potato gloves a few days ago and were stopped in our tracks. Gloves? Just for washing potatoes?...

Glow In The Dark Kitchen Wallpaper
Paris

Ever stubbed your toe stumbling into the dark of the kitchen for a glass of water or a midnight snack? Designers Ich & Kar have designed phosphorescent wallpaper to make sure that never happens again....

Good Eats: Vegan Crepes for Breakfast

What's cooking this week at Serious Eats? Vegan crepes, for one thing - and they look delicious. Every week we round up the best cooking at Serious Eats, and crepes are just the beginning this time. T...

Recipe: Cabbage Beet Coleslaw

This is the last post that will reference anything about my recent wedding, I promise. (I think.) But after the wedding cakes, the ice cream, and the butternut pasta, I do believe I saved the best for...

What To Do With Green Tomatoes

We're still pulling a few ripe red tomatoes off our cherry tomato bush, but there are plenty of green globes that probably won't ripen before the weather turns colder. The good news is that green toma...

Look! Pumpkin and Apple Votive Holders

We vote cute. These mini-pumpkins and apples hollowed out slightly to hold a flickering votive candle would be so pretty, organic, and seasonal on a dinner table or set around an apartment for a pa...

Goats, Coupons, and Food Dyes
Top food news for October 13-17

This week's food news is short and sweet....

New Secret Ingredient: Star Anise

We keep star anise on-hand in our kitchen and typically use it in savory braises and when poaching fruit. Recently, it's become our secret ingredient in a few of our other basic dishes. Find out which...

Look! Beautiful (and Cheap) Spice Storage Solution

One of our favorite blogs, The Traveler's Lunchbox, recently posted a marvelous spice storage solution. ...

Kitchen Tour: Eric Haeberli of We Love Jam

I'm standing in front of a house with with no numbers and a bright yellow door. It's a 1964 Eichler in the middle of a long row of Eichlers clinging to a hillside in San Francisco. I was there on an i...

What Are Your Favorite Foods By Mouthfeel?

Last week, my boyfriend made a trip to Los Angeles and brought me back a large container of curried jackfruit from Bharat Bazaar/Samosa House. This, by the way, is one of my favorite foods ever. I'v...

Craigslist Saves You Bucks in the Kitchen

There's a fair amount of Craigslist over at the main site, but we've kept it pretty quiet on The Kitchn ever since the site developed such a widely spread following (difficult to please readers across...

Good Question: When Is It Too Hot For Soup?

Here's a question from reader Bruce. He asks: I'm inviting some folks over for dinner on Sunday and was thinking about making tortilla soup. The forecast is a high in the mid-70s, probably upper 60...

Eric Ripert's New Website: Avec Eric

As you may know, we're hosting a clean-out-your-cupboard challenge with Eric Ripert. He's going to take what's in one of your pantries (or fridge) and turn it into a wonderful meal. Doubtful that this...

Good Quote: On Red Delicious Apples and Grocery Stores

"Red Delicious - We grow this variety because the grocery stores demand it, but we don't recommend it to our pick your own customers. While it is a good eating apple, almost all varieties surpass it. ...

Sense of Place: The Food and Cuisine of Alaska

While the need for food that fuels is paramount in Alaskan cuisine, that doesn't necessarily mean a sacrifice in flavor! Cooks make use of what's available, often brightening a meat-centric dish with ...

Candy Corn Cookies
Delicious links for 10.15.08

Pumpkin lasagna, adorable cookies, unusual produce (and ideas of what to do with it) and more in our Delicious Links today. ...

Summerset Farm: Santa Ynez Valley, CA

Lured by the sight of thousands of colorful winter gourds, we made an impromptu stop while driving through the Santa Ynez Valley last weekend. We found ourselves at Summerset Farm, a produce stand loc...

Times Top 4: Is Goat the New Lamb?
From the NY Times Dining Section 10.15.08

We're going with a Top 4 this week, since the Times is a bit thin on the home cooking front. However, there's an interesting read about Bill Niman, the founder of Niman Ranch (did you know he's no lon...

Blogging Cook's Illustrated: Gearing Up for the Holidays

We're hosting Thanksgiving dinner for the first time this year (gulp!), and Cook's Illustrated is there to help! In addition to their review of black pepper brands, the November/December issue is pack...

Talk To The Fishmonger
Paris

One of the bonuses of shopping at the farmers market is talking to the fishmonger. I like the manly fishmongers at the Bastille market on Boulevard Richard Lenoir, but they are usually too busy flirti...

Appetizer Recipe: Crab Apples Poached in Sweet Wine

We're talking about local apples this week, and we couldn't let the week pass without a mention of crab apples. Crab apples are the wild, cherry-sized fruit clustered on trees all over our neighborhoo...

Coming Soon: The Kitchn's Best Pie Bakeoff

The holidays are almost here! That crunching is the sound of Halloween just around the corner, leaves underfoot, and we know that the smell of baking pies and roasting turkeys will follow shortly. The...

Kitchen Storage: The Best Place to Keep Flour

We were at a friend's house over the weekend and saw something unexpected in her fridge: a bag of flour. When we asked, she insisted that this was the best place to store flour - not the pantry. Curio...

Northern California Farmer's Market Report: San Rafael

Last weekend, I went to the Sunday Farmer's Market in San Rafael, a short drive north of San Francisco in beautiful Marin County. As you can see, Fall is in full swing with pumpkins, chestnuts, olive...

Recipe: Butternut Squash and Parmesan Dip

Really, this could easily be a side dish as well as a dip. It's a simple preparation of twice-baked butternut squash: roasted to get it soft and scoopable, then blended with milk and parmesan and bake...

Good Question: How Can I Tell When Figs Are Ripe?

Here's a good question from reader Betsy. She writes: I was very happy to receive some gorgeous figs in my CSA this week. How do I know when they're ripe? They're a light purple color with light-col...

Food Science: How Sugar "Cooks"

We all know that sugar will melt when heated, losing its granular form and turning into a liquid. This we can see with our own eyes. But how it goes from a simple sugar syrup to dark caramel (to burnt...

Michael Pollan in Conversation with Sedge Thomson
Bay Area Event: October 19, 2008

Michael Pollan will be coming to the Bay Area and giving a talk in Alameda on Sunday, October 19th....

Recipe: Tarte Aux Pommes

This is the time for apples. I cannot get enough of the Honeycrips at the Greenmarket now, always buying two more than I think I want, since we usually down two on the stroll home. If you can stand i...

Frugality: Local Steak and a Fabulous Way to Cook It

Let them eat steak! In times when we're watching our budgets (and our waistlines) steak is a non-intuitive choice. Steak? Try cheap pork roast instead... right? Well, it turns out that a good steak ...

Quick Lunch: Sweet Potato with Maple-Pecan-Shallot Butter

Okay, so there's no protein to tide you over until dinner... But a baked sweet potato is one of our favorite quick, vegetarian meals. And the jazzed-up butter makes it so much more interesting. Get ...

Recipe Redux: Roasted Tomatoes with Shrimp and Feta

Did you know that we have over 500 original recipes in our archive? There are some gems way back there that we really need to revisit. Here's one that I had never tried, personally, until last night -...

The Cheesemonger: Don't Store Your Cheese in Plastic!

This weekend, in search of a snack, our resident Cheesemonger slid open her refrigerator's dairy compartment, only to find (and taste) a flagrant reminder of what NOT to do with cheese. And the worst ...

Harvest Spotlight: Chicago Honey Co-op
Chicago

If you're a Green City Market regular or frequent the Logan Square or Oak Park farmer's markets, you've probably seen the Chicago Honey Co-op's products. Perhaps you've tasted their honey and know it'...

Five Minute Microwave Chocolate Cake for One
Delicious links for 10.14.08

Microwave chocolate cake - in a mug? Seriously, and it only takes five minutes. Get the link below, along with a beautiful kitchen, creamy gooey pumpkin insides, and a very practical tool. ...

On Leaving the Dirty Dishes Until the Next Morning

We know that, to some of you, the thought of waking up to a kitchen full of sticky, crusty dishes is worse than any hangover. And usually we agree. We like to clean up as we cook, as much as possible,...

Ingredient Spotlight: Salt Cod

Called baccala in Italy, bacalao in Spain, and klippfisk in Scandinavia, salt cod has been a cooking staple in world cuisines for hundreds of years. Here in the United States, if you didn't grow up ea...

La Semaine du Goût 2008
France

This week until Oct. 19 is a national event in France -- La Semaine du Goût (or Tasting Week). Started 18 years ago, it is a week-long effort to help school children cultivate their taste buds by edu...

Open Thread 177

What are you cooking this week?...

Harvest Recipe: Miso Potato Salad with Yellow Wax Beans

Miso is one of those things we like to keep around, but don't use very often. We're always looking for ways to use another spoon or two of miso; after all, we can't eat miso soup every day. (Well, we ...

Harvest Spotlight: Local Apples

Apples are one of the most familiar signs of harvest. They are wildly common this time of year, bouncing out of farmstand bins and piled up at the market. And yet they're available year-round, the Red...

Where To Buy Fresh Durian

A reader saw a post I wrote a few months back on how to open a durian fruit and asked, "Where can you buy fresh durian?"...

How To Make Mini Chocolate Pumpkins
Delicious links for 10.13.08

Adorable mini chocolate pumpkins that aren't very difficult to make, plus air-dried (not fried) onion rings, all about pecans, and more below in today's Delicious Links. ...

Blogging The New York Times Magazine: The Food Issue

Yesterday's New York Times Sunday Magazine is the annual food issue, and we have to admit, we haven't made our way through the entire thing—there's a lot of material. We've done some reading, some s...

How Do You Feel About Seasonal Dishware?

Impractical? Perhaps. Gaudy? Mmm...a bit. But once a year we pull these Halloween plates out of storage and use them with a smile all month long - and often quite a bit longer! A look at the other pla...

Recipe Recommendation: Ribollita

Dana's post last week on cavalo nero kale reminded me that we're in ribollita season. Ribollita is a simple, earthy Tuscan soup made from whatever vegetable scraps and stale bread is on hand, and is ...

MealBaby: Making it Easier to Share Meals

It's officially fall, which means cold and flu season has begun. Do you have any friends stuck at home with a cold? How about any friends with a new baby, or friends who have just moved? Would you lik...

Harvest Spotlight Roundup: Four Recipes with Feta Cheese

October is Harvest Month at The Kitchn! During Harvest Month we're trying to show how eating frugally and eating well are not mutually exclusive. We're spotlighting some of the best local, seasonal pr...

Look! Flex-It Measuring Cups

We're rather taken with these new flexible measuring cups. Even though we're mostly turned off by silicone in the kitchen these days, we wonder if these are the exception. Why do we like these so much...

Have You Tried the Quicker Whole Wheat No-Knead Bread?

No-Knead bread is back! Mark Bittman returned to the phenomenally popular recipe in last week's Times dining section, tweaking and fiddling with the recipe to make it easier, faster, and whole-grain. ...

Baking Technique: How to Shape a Round Loaf

When shaping a round loaf - or any loaf, for that matter - your primary goal is to stretch the gluten and create surface tension. A taut skin helps the loaf to maintain its shape during the final rise...

Quick Suppers, Great Sandwiches, and No-Knead Bread
Top posts for October 6-12, 2008

What was hot last week? Magnetic flower fire extinguishers, quince, oatmeal for breakfast (and dessert), a delicious ...

Flickr Find: Glazed Pumpkin Scones

After seeing these scones while browsing Flickr, we went looking for recipes—but, surprisingly, they weren't easy to come by. See two we found, below, with a tip on how to get that spice-flecked gla...

Word of Mouth: Bouillabaisse

Bouillabaisse (buoy-ya-base), noun: A saffron-flavored fish stew from Marseille in the Provence region of France. Possibly one of our favorite seafood dishes, a traditional bouillabaisse does have so...

Virtual Trash Can
Paris

French collective 5.5 Designers has made a business out of selling tongue-in-cheek products designed to help us consume less by making better use of what we already have -- like their prosthetic chair...

Weekend Meditation: Get Your Marching Orders!

Well, as the old Chinese curse goes, we sure are living in interesting times. Watching the evening news is like riding a roller coaster, making a lot of us weary and queasy and, if we’re honest, ev...

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