Apartment Therapy Tagged: Cooking by Feel

Weekend Project: Stocking the Fridge

We home cooks like to be prepared. Who knows when we might get the urge to whip up a pasta sauce or succumb to a craving for chocolate chip cookies? We've talked about the sweet and savory dry-storage...

Sense of Place: The Ingredients and Flavors of California

Ah, California! How do you come up with a list of "typical" foods from a place that can grow just about anything? With all it's micro-climates and mild weather, California is truly a foodie heaven. Ta...

Quick Tip: Flavor Soups with Cheese Rinds

We go through a healthy amount of Parmesan and Pecorino cheese in our house, and we used to just throw the rind away. This was until we discovered this trick used by chefs and Italian grandmothers for...

Sense of Place: The Food and Cuisine of Louisiana

A word of advice: If anyone from Louisiana offers to cook you dinner, just say yes. The food from this region will light your taste buds on fire - sometimes both figuratively and literally! For those ...

Food Science: The Anatomy of a Pie Crust

While you're busy dreaming up delicious pies to serve at your holiday dinners - or submit to our Best Pie Bake Off! - we thought we'd give you a tour of the part of the pie that sometimes gives us tro...

Sense of Place: The Flavors and Ingredients of Louisiana

Like Florida and Alaska, we felt that the Cajun and Creole cuisines of Louisiana deserved a mention all their own. Here you see a blending of Native American, French, Spanish, and African influences t...

Quick Tip: Boost Flavor by Toasting Spices

When cooking with whole spices, toasting them before grinding amps up their flavor and aroma in the final dish. Here's how!...

New (Old) Find: Vintage Le Creuset Gratin Dish

We bought this dish at Cookin' in San Francisco because it is our favorite color (yes, brown) and our favorite size. Big enough to serve several guests a dip, small enough to hold a cobbler for two......

Sense of Place: The Food and Cuisine of Hawaii

(Clockwise: loco moco, spam sushi, and coconut cream pie) A casual visitor to Hawaii might leave with the impression that the "native" cuisine is limited to the kind of fare found at luaus. In reality...

Top Five Things to Do with Ricotta

There was a time when we'd use a cup or two of ricotta for a specific recipe and scratch our heads over what to do with the rest. Not wanting to waste it, we started adding spoonfuls to our everyday r...

Cooking Beyond the Recipe: Change the Size of the Dice!

Here's a simple way to play around with flavors and textures in a favorite recipe: change the size of the ingredients when you're chopping! What does this do? Read on......

Sense of Place: Flavors and Ingredients of Hawaii

Aloha! Let's take a jump off the mainland and see what the Hawaiian islands have to offer on our culinary tour of the US!...

Sense of Place: Southern Flavors and Ingredients

We only have a few regions left on our culinary survey of the United States, and Southerners will be quick to point out that we've been saving one the best for last. And they'd be right! The foods tha...

Cooking Tip: Fool-Proof Method for Cooking Any Kind of Rice

White, brown, long-grain, or otherwise, this method works. No ratios of water. No guess work. No fuss. It just simply makes good rice. Every time. Here's the scoop:...

Quick Tip: Salt As You Go

Most recipes don't mention adding salt until near the very end, but you'll get better flavor in you finished dish if you salt as you go. Why? How? What? Read on!...

Sense of Place: The Food and Cuisine of the Pacific Northwest

The food from the Pacific Northwest is simultaneously unique and familiar. Typified by simple preparations with just a few key ingredients, the cuisine takes the best the land has to offer in any seas...

Good Quote: On Cooking Without Recipes from Chef Jason Bond

During his cooking demonstration at our New England Aquarium seafood dinner, Chef Jason Bond of Beacon Hill Hotel & Bistro offered up this bit of wisdom regarding vegetables and other produce: "If th...

Sense of Place: Flavors and Ingredients from the Pacific Northwest

When it comes to the Pacific Northwest, it might be better to talk about what doesn't grow here than what does! The hills and valleys throughout the region form micro-climates that support an incredib...

Heirloom Tomatoes with Oranges and Basil

We did a lot of cooking by feel this weekend. Not feeling like going out on Sunday or poring over recipes, we opted to stay in and use what we had on hand. This is something we threw together....

Quick Tip: How to Roast Peppers

"Roasting" in this case is a bit of a misnomer. We might better call this technique "charring"! In either case, roasted peppers are a delicious addition to salads, frittatas, and a whole lot more. He...

Quick Tip: Roasting Tomatoes Under the Broiler

A while back, we made a recipe for a fire-roasted salsa that called for broiling the tomatoes in the oven. At first skeptical, we were amazed at the smoky flavor the tomatoes picked up when cooked thi...

Sense of Place: Southwestern Flavors and Ingredients

Take a good helping of South American and Mexican cuisines and add in a splash of old-world Spanish ingredients. Blend with a healthy dose of Native American fare and sprinkle on some frontier trail f...

Sense of Place: Food and Cuisine of the Midwest

When it's not meat and potatoes, it's...well, it's still meat and potatoes, except it's disguised as casserole, soup, or meatloaf! Meals in the Midwest are a hearty mix of German and Scandinavian cui...

Sense of Place: Flavors and Ingredients from the Midwest

The flavors of the Midwest are fairly close to those of New England. In both regions, the emphasis is on taking advantage of a short growing season and putting away for the winter. Here in the Midwes...

Word of Mouth: Aromatics

Aromatic; noun: Any herb, spice, vegetable or combination thereof that is used to infuse flavor into a final dish and add to its aroma. This is another building block for cooking without recipes! Onc...

apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Posts tagged “Cooking by Feel”