apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Roasting a chicken doesn't have to be a special weekend affair. A small chicken really only takes about an hour to cook, so we can easily make it for weeknight meals, too! Put it in the oven when you get home from work and let it cook while you wind down from the day. It's that simple.

This hanging fruit basket has been making the rounds on the interwebs, and we're feeling strangely mesmerized by the design. It definitely walks the line between modern style and possible tackiness. What do you think?

Pulled pork is definitely a summer picnic kind of dish, but lately we've been craving it like mad. And it seems we're not alone! We've spotted several pulled pork recipes in the past few weeks that we can make while staying cozy indoors. Which one should we make this weekend?

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise: making your own chicken stock is a snap. You don't need to fret about exact quantities of vegetables or hoarding chicken bones in your freezer. You can make stock as soon as you finish roasting a bird using whatever vegetables are in your fridge. No matter what, it's guaranteed to beat anything you buy at the store!

So delicious in...well...almost any form, chocolate is notoriously fickle when it comes to melting it down for dipping, coating, or other candy making. Mess up the temperature and it can go from silky to chalky mess in the blink of an eye. Mark Bittman thinks he knows an easy way, but we're not entirely convinced. See for yourselves!

When we mentioned using our pastry brush to clean our coffee grinder, we called it a "rarely-used" kitchen tool. But the more we thought about it, the more we realize how often this little paintbrush comes in handy!

This whipped cream won't be going on top of the cake. No, it's destined to go inside! This unusual technique calls for folding whipped cream into the cake batter, and the result? The most luscious, velvety cake you've ever eaten. No kidding.

We pretty much answered our own question there! Yes, cast iron pans, skillets, and dutch ovens are super strong and sturdy. There's not a lot you can do to truly damage one permanently, as evidenced by the fact that many of us are using skillets inherited from grandparents. But the reasons don't stop there!

Whole wheat breads are an acquired taste, in our opinion. Some people love them, some people learn to love them, and some people (like us) never quite warm up to their bitter, earthy flavors. Enter this new recipe. If you've never really liked whole grain breads but wish you did, you've got to give this recipe a try!

We'll be honest - most mornings, we just give the coffee grinder a quick swipe with a damp sponge after whizzing our beans. But this does leave behind powdery grinds that build up in the nooks and crannies over time. So we've called in another handy kitchen tool to help us get the whole job done!

Risotto is one of those foods that we just can't live without. It's creamy and comforting, and it works as a vehicle for just about anything we want to put in it. Yet we don't make it very often at home because of the laborious way it's made: one cup of broth added at a time. We have to wonder if all that work is really necessary!

We've heard about Marin Brewing Company and read several mouth-watering reviews of their beer, but we haven't been able to lay our hands on a bottle where we live. This bottle was smuggled to us in a friend's luggage, and boy oh boy, were we excited to finally get a taste!

We've been doing a lot of thinking about Apple's new iPad and tablet computers in general this past week. A tablet like the iPad would combine a lot of functions that we currently do over several different devices (including paper) and then some! We're starting to edge into the "like" category. What about you?

There are a million and one tips out there for how to make a hard-boiled egg easier to peel, but far fewer on why eggs are so hard to peel in the first place. Let's take a look, shall we?