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Posts tagged “cooking without recipes”

Recipe Template: How to Make Beef Stew

Rich, long-simmered stews are as satisfying to eat as they are to make. It's all about building layers of flavor and then stepping away from the stove to let the low heat gently do its magic. You don'...

Great Garlic: How to Change Garlic Intensity in Any Dish

Personally, we can't get enough garlic. If the recipe calls for a clove or two, we're bound to put in three or four. But not everyone has the same opinion and not every dish needs the same kind of gar...

Baking Sticky Toffee Cakelets
Anatomy of a Recipe

Sara Kate's delicious Sticky Toffee Cakelets are impossible to resist. Don't you want to run a finger through that toffee sauce and take a lick?! Besides being delicious, these miniature cakes come in...

What's the Difference? Gelatin Powder, Gelatin Sheets, and Leaf Gelatin

We've been having a bit of a debate at Kitchn Central stemming from a comment left on our post about Spanish Desserts for Fall. Reader MSN asked about substituting gelatin leaf (called for in one of t...

Looking at Microwave Potato Chips
Anatomy of a Recipe

Making a batch of super crispy, low-fat potato chips in the microwave is still one of our very favorite ways to take care of a late-afternoon snack attack. They're so easy to make, and it's fun to jaz...

Cook's Tricks: How to Properly Season a Dish

For a long time, we were intimidated by that innocent little phrase at the end of the recipe: "Adjust seasonings to taste." If we don't know what the dish is supposed to taste like, how are we suppose...

Re-Inventing a Summer Classic: Bacon, Lettuce, and...?

Looking at that BLT poster this morning made us crave the real thing. But tomatoes are mighty scarce in some parts of the country right now due to a crop blight in New England. This has forced us to b...

Looking at Jamie Oliver's Chicken in Milk
Anatomy of a Recipe

This recipe for cooking whole chicken is still one of our absolute favorites. Between the tender slow-cooked meat and that incredible lemon-sage sauce, there’s so much to love! Just how does this ch...

What's In This Mushroom Casserole?
Anatomy of a Recipe

We all have those recipes that we go back to again and again. They're so good and satisfying, and they come out perfectly every single time. Ever wonder why? Today, we're taking a look at one of our f...

Good Quote: Cooking Without Recipes from a Hmong Grandmother

During the segment on Hmong cooking in last week's episode of Splendid Table, we were struck by one quote in particular. Sami Scripter describes her experience of talking to the Hmong elders about rec...

Weekend Project: Close the Cookbook!

One of the themes that pops up here at the Kitchn is wanting to do more cooking by feel and with less need to follow exact recipes. Well, with all the fresh produce in the markets right now, this is o...

Pain de Viande: Bison Meatloaf
Guest Post from Janice at Real Food Made Easy

Marion and her sister over at “She said, she said“ have been writing about nostalgic/comfort food such as tuna casserole and meat loaf. Well, that got me to hankering after meatloaf, so, what’s ...

Weekend Project: Make Granita!

No ice cream maker? No problem. Make granita instead! All you need is a little freezer space and a mound of the freshest fruit you can find. Here's how!...

Recipe Review: Quesadilla Pie from Simply Recipes

We've been on the hunt for good weeknight recipes lately, and this quesadilla pie from Elise Bauer sounded like it would fit the bill! No fancy ingredients, no extensive prep work - just assemble and ...

Cooking By Feel: Baked Pastas

In this week's Cure assignment, Cure-takers are planning a menu. All along I've been encouraging people to cook by feel a little more and use formal recipes a little less, so I hope these menus involv...

Easy Entertaining: Do You Have a Signature Dish?

Chefs have them, so why not us?! Maybe it's the dish that everyone always runs for at potluck dinners or the dessert that you've slowly perfected over the years. Maybe it was your mother or grandmothe...

Quick Meal Template: Grain + Green + Egg

This has become one of our go-to weeknight meals. It's fast, it's healthy, and it's a great way to use bits and pieces of things from your pantry or freezer. This dish is something of a hybrid between...

Weekend Meditation: Taking Refuge

Sometimes when life gets too full of stress and obligation and disappointments, I lock my door, bury my cell phone under the bed pillows and start chopping carrots. When all the carrots are chopped...

Cooking by Feel: Moving Beyond the Recipe

Learning and teaching each other to cook by feel is one of our recurring themes here on the Kitchn. Jenni Field of the blog Pastry Methods and Techniques agrees and has some strong words about recipes...

Blogging Gourmet: Grocery Shopping in a Recession

There is a short but interesting article on Gourmet's website about how one writer has done a 180 in how he shops for food. No more expensive ingredients and lofty recipe goals; now he shops without a...

Survey: Do You Always Follow A Recipe Exactly?

I've always believed that I should follow a recipe to a T the first time I made it, a rule I've pretty much stuck to. That way I have a good idea what the cook was going for and can base any improvis...

Weekend Project: Create (and Cook!) Your Own Soup Recipe

If one of your New Year's resolutions was to do more cooking without following a specific recipe, soups are a great place to start. They're relatively easy to make and very forgiving of mistakes. Here...

Mastering the Frittata: Take One!

Once we resolved to master the frittata this year, it was very tempting to quietly work on it behind the scenes and then reveal our new skill down the road with a big TA DA! Instead, we decided to tak...

Basic Techniques: Eight Ways to Build Flavor

Have you ever made a dish that smelled great but tasted flat, unexciting, or one-dimensional? Don't give up on that recipe! Next time you make it, try boosting the flavor with a few of these technique...

Recipe Basics: How to Cook Beans in the Slow Cooker

If you've been following along this past month, you know that we love beans. We also love our slow-cooker. Lucky for us, it just so happens that beans and slow-cookers make excellent friends! Here's h...