The Kitchn Archive: 2014

Last year, after admiring two of our uncarved pumpkins as Halloween came and passed, I tried something I’d been wanting to do for a long time. I’d seen many Pinterest posts and articles promising how much better homemade pumpkin puree could be than the good old canned variety, and I thought, “Why not?” One fall afternoon (and it took ALL afternoon, let me remind myself), I took on the task of cutting open, de-seeding, peeling, roasting and pureeing my own pumpkins.

Buying water, especially fizzy, carbonated water, seems to be a bit complicated today. There are so many different labels, not to mention brands, that make the whole process a bit confusing. Here’s the scoop on the three most popular kinds of bubbly water: seltzer, club soda, and sparkling mineral water! While carbonation may occur naturally in mineral water, all other carbonated waters get effervescence from being highly charged with carbon dioxide.

It’s hard to imagine life without cheddar cheese — there’s a block of it in my fridge at all times, ready to be sprinkled onto scrambled eggs, melted into grilled cheese sandwiches, or stirred into bechamel sauce for homemade macaroni and cheese. But cheddar cheeses can be confusing: some are white, some are yellow or orange, and some cheddars are labeled mild, sharp, or extra sharp. Cheddars seem to be the only cheese with that label, so what does it all mean?

Tiny little mustard seeds are used in cuisines all around the world, flavoring curries, soups and pickles. This easy-to-find spice comes in two forms, whole seeds or ground, and forms the basis for countless varieties of the condiment we know as prepared mustard. Here’s a guide to the various forms and how to use them! Mustard seeds come from various mustard plants. The plants produce beautiful yellow flowers which then turn to pods that contain the seeds.

When I first heard that it was impossible to break an upright egg in your hand, my boyfriend and I stood over our kitchen sink and tried for about 10 minutes with no luck. We tried cracking am egg in a vertical position, and we also tried cracking an egg on its side just to compare. Nothing seemed to work. How can it be so easy to crack an egg on any kitchen countertop, but then the pressure from your hand not make the slightest difference? So, I put this theory to the test one more time.

When I first met my husband, he lived in a small apartment with a teeny-tiny galley kitchen that could barely fit the both of us in there without some awkward dancing and shifting. While he had a good set of kitchen equipment and was careful to stay away from extraneous gadgets and appliances, he had one thing that I thought was a bit odd and random: an electric griddle. Over the past 10 years, I’ve now come to embrace this inexpensive but bulky appliance, and here’s why!