The Most Useful Things I Learned in Culinary SchoolSkills
The time and money of culinary school isn't worth it for everyone, but there are certain things that anyone can put into practice at home.
Dec 21, 2023
Three Ways to Create a Sugar Crust on Homemade Crème BrûléeSkills
Crème brûlée seems to be a dessert locked in step with Valentine’s Day: It’s classic, easy, and impressive. But what is crème brûlée without its crisp top of just-burnt sugar? Just custard, that’s what. Here are the three most common ways to melt sugar on crème brûlée, including one that’s newer to us. Sprinkle a thin layer of sugar over the top of the custard, and shake the dish to distribute it evenly.
Dec 15, 2022
7 Tips to Make Sure Your Jam Sets UpSkills
I am an equal opportunity fruit jam eater. I am just as happy with the loose, sloshy batches as I am the ones that have a firmer consistency. I love to use the runny varieties to flavor plain yogurt or as a sweetener for green smoothies. The slightly overset batches are perfect for serving with cheese plates or as the filling in a thumbprint cookie.
Dec 6, 2022
8 Steps to Follow When Converting a Cake Recipe to CupcakesSkills
On Cupcake Project, I’ve converted every imaginable kind of cake to cupcakes. I’ve made angel food cupcakes, pound cake cupcakes, upside-down cake cupcakes, cheesecake cupcakes, and more! It’s not hard to take your favorite cake recipe and translate it into cupcakes. Here’s the process that I’ve developed over the years. Here are eight steps to get from favorite cake to perfect cupcake recipe.
Nov 30, 2022
Grill the Best Steak of Your Life in 6 StepsSkills
No one wants to mess up steak on the grill. For one thing, a leathery over-cooked steak makes for an extremely sad eating experience. For another, steaks are expensive! From grilling pro Jennifer Chandler, we have six steps that will guarantee a perfectly grilled steak every time.When I asked Jennifer about steaks and explained my nervousness about grilling them, her excitement kicked up a few decibels.
Sep 1, 2022
8 Small Cooking Habits That Make a Big DifferenceKitchen
Being a good cook isn’t just a matter of knowing the big, impressive skills you can show off to friends and family, like roasting a turkey or making challah bread. It’s also about the small habits you practice daily, the ones that transform cooking into a more effortless and joyful part of your day. These 8 simple habits are easy to pick up, yet make a major difference in your cooking. 1. Make your cutting board non-slip.
May 12, 2022
Cocktail Conundrums: How Much Is Actually In a Dash?Skills
Like any cocktail enthusiast worth her margarita’s salt, I know the difference bitters make in drinks. In fact, my home bar is stocked with 14 different varieties, including a citrus trio I made myself. Despite my ardor for the botanical-laced infusions, I’ve often wondered if I’m measuring them correctly into my cocktails, because, what the heck is a dash, anyway? To figure this out, I set up a very scientific experiment in my kitchen.
Dec 31, 2020
The One Ingredient You’re Not Adding to Pie Crust (but You Really Should)
Tips from The Kitchn
What baking powder does for biscuits, it can also do for pie.
Sep 22, 2020
Cat Whisperer Jackson Galaxy’s Advice for Keeping Your Cats off the CounterKitchen
Jackson Galaxy is a bona fide cat whisperer. He’s the host of Animal Planet’s My Cat From Hell and coauthor of the book Catification — he knows what makes our feline friends tick. I spoke with Jackson about a topic that has plagued me for quite some time (and if you’re a fellow cat owner, it’s no doubt plagued you, too): how to keep curious cats off our kitchen counters. Jackson explained that cats see our countertops as socially significant places.
Aug 10, 2020
The 12 Most Useful Things I Learned Cooking in Pro KitchensSkills
When it comes to top-notch restaurants, head chefs often rack up the attention and acclaim. But ask anyone who has worked behind the scenes in restaurants and they’ll tell you: The cooks are the ones who make the kitchen run. They know how to peel 100 potatoes while simultaneously boiling perfectly al dente pasta.
Feb 13, 2020
12 Secrets for Better Holiday Baking from a Professional Pastry ChefSkills
From cookies and cakes, to pies and pastries, these little tips can make a big difference.
Feb 13, 2020
Here’s What Guy Fieri Cooks When He’s Feeling LazySkills
We all know what it’s like to come home hungry at the end of a long day and not want to spend a ton of time in the kitchen. Instead, we’ll turn to our default dinners — the fast, familiar bites we can toss together with whatever’s in our fridge or pantry (with bonus points if the end result is quick, cheap, and, of course, delicious). And famous food figures — from chefs, to TV hosts, to bloggers — feel that way too.
Feb 13, 2020
A Filipino Restaurant Taught Me to Make a Braised Stew Even BetterSkills
At the Filipino restaurant Tito Rad’s Grill & Restaurant, I was taught how to make Kare Kare, a stew with oxtail braised in a peanut butter sauce. Sounds fairly delicious, right? Well, they also taught me a way to make it even better — at the last minute. During the last 10 minutes of the cooking process, a variety of vegetables like greens beans and halved baby bok choy are added to the mix and then steamed until tender, just about 10 minutes.
Jan 21, 2020
Here’s Our All-Star (Tried-and-Tested!) Celebrity Thanksgiving MenuRecipes
We spent weeks testing a ton of famous recipes — from turkey to taters and beyond — and these were the winners that deserve a spot on your table this year.
Nov 17, 2019
Quit Making This Potluck Mistake!
Potluck Week
This is so easy to fix.
Nov 5, 2019
5 Tips for Skewering Foods for the GrillSkills
For some reason, eating something off a stick just makes it more fun. Maybe it’s because you’re probably eating outside, or maybe it’s because you don’t need utensils or even a plate. Regardless, skewers should be a staple in your grilling routine, so here are a couple of tips for successful summer skewering! Ever pick up a skewer and have the food spin and flop around it? Thread two skewers parallel to each other to make sure the food stays put.
Jul 24, 2019
Jeni Britton Bauer Shows How To Make Ice Cream in a Food ProcessorPeople
We recently shared six methods for making ice cream without an ice cream maker, but here is one more: Jeni Britton Bauer’s very simple method for making creamy ice cream with the help of your food processor. With this method, you freeze your ice cream base flat in a freezer bag, then crumble the frozen base into the food processor. The frozen chunks are processed until smooth, poured into a container and frozen completely.
Jul 22, 2019
Oakland Chef Tanya Holland’s 5 Essentials for Home CooksPeople
Folks in my Oakland, CA, neighborhood know about chef Tanya Holland because of her popular restaurants Brown Sugar Kitchen and B Side BBQ but her fame has spread much wider than our shared city. Maybe you recognize her from her appearances on The Talk and The Chew, or perhaps you’re a diehard Food & Wine fan like Ms. Holland herself, in which case you probably saw her Thanksgiving spread last November.
May 30, 2019
Expert Tip: You Don’t Need to Store Whole Grains in the FreezerSkills
Have you heard that whole grains and whole grain flours should be stored in the fridge or freezer? Keep them in the pantry and they’ll go rancid or be infested with weevils, right? Anyway, that’s what I tell myself every time I try to cram a bag of whole-wheat flour into my already-crowded freezer.
May 30, 2019
The First 5 Things to Cook in Your Cast Iron PanRecipes
A friend excitedly texted me last week: “I scored a well-loved cast iron skillet at a garage sale! What should I cook first?” These are my favorite messages to answer because I love cast iron cooking and I have strong opinions about where to start if cast iron cooking is new to you.
May 29, 2019
Why Chef Michelle Marek Stores Her Cast Iron Skillets on the Side of the CupboardKitchen
Who cooks and eats here: Michelle Marek, chef at Foodlab, and Anthony Kinik, film professor and food writer. Where: Montreal, Quebec Visit their blog: An Endless Banquet This week we peeked inside Montreal chef Michelle Marek’s kitchens — both of them! The one at home, and the one at Foodlab, the restaurant where she works. Today I want to go back to the home kitchen for a moment.
May 24, 2019
5 Tips For Taking Better Food Photos When You TravelPeople
By now, we’ve all been guilty of doing it. It’s one of the fastest epidemics that not even scientists can explain. Anthropologists and historians hundreds of years from now will find landfills of objects once known as a DSLR camera, lenses, hard drives and memory cards. To their surprise, they will discover that their ancestors and predecessors have been taking pictures, tons of pictures… of food?!
May 24, 2019
Country Biscuits with Ham & Red Pepper Jelly Cookbook Review & Recipe from Cooking My Way Back Home by Mitchell RosenthalRecipes
Home cooks have to be a careful when it comes to a cookbook written by a restaurant chef. There often can be a disconnect between what it takes to get restaurant food onto our home tables when we don’t have exotic ingredients flown to our doors and a dozen employees to prep them, not to mention years of professional training and the extraordinarily high btu’s of a huge, multi-burner professional stove.
May 24, 2019
Chad Robertson’s 5 Essentials for Working with Whole and Ancient GrainsPeople
The release of Chad Roberson’s Tartine Book No. 3 this week has created quite a lot of buzz in the food world. Building on his previous two cookbooks, but especially Tartine Bread, No. 3 takes us on journey into the fascinating world of ancient and whole grains. Not a gluten-free journey, mind you, but a passionate, innovative exploration into the ways these long-forgotten gains can add flavor, texture and character to breads and pastries.
May 24, 2019
Bryant Terry’s 5 Essentials for a Modern, Soulful KitchenPeople
Bryant Terry is an energetic and passionate man, self-described as an eco chef, author, and social justice activist. He first came to my attention in 2006 when he co-authored the book Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen with his friend Anna Lappe. He has since gone on to author two more vegan cookbooks, with a third one in the works. What does this spokesman for local, sustainable, and delicious food think are the top essentials for a modern, socially engaged, soulful kitchen?
May 24, 2019
Fuchsia Dunlop’s 5 Chinese-Inspired Essentials for Home CooksPeople
I first became aware of the British writer and cookbook author Fuchsia Dunlop when her book Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China was published in the US back in 2008. It’s a fascinating tale of how she discovered and fell in love with a culture much different than the one she grew up in, mostly through eating and preparing and educating herself in their cuisine.
May 24, 2019
Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s 5 Essentials for Wildly Delicious (Not Necessarily Vegan) Weeknight MealsPeople
Isa Chandra Moskowitz is famous for her fresh, bold approach to vegan cooking, with her inspiring vegan cookbooks and cooking videos, as well as her website Post-Punk Kitchen. But when we spoke with her about her five essentials for home cooks, she wanted to be sure we kept the emphasis on weeknight cooking — vegan or otherwise. “These tips and essentials apply to all cooks,” she said.
May 24, 2019
Don’t Forget the Wine! Jacques Pepin’s 5 Habits for Better CookingPeople
Small kitchen habits can make a big difference in your cooking, so we love learning about the everyday cooking habits of cookbook authors, chefs and other food professionals. What are the small habits they practice every time they step into the kitchen? This week we are talking to our favorite food experts to find out the simple cooking practices they rely on, and today legendary French chef and cookbook author Jacques Pepin shares his five basic habits for better, happier cooking every day.
May 24, 2019
Tom Hudgens’ 5 Commonsense Habits for Better CookingPeople
Small kitchen habits can make a big difference in your cooking, so we love learning about the everyday cooking habits of cookbook authors, chefs and other food professionals. What are the small habits they practice every time they step into the kitchen? The Commonsense Kitchen If a habit is indeed “a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up,” then I have many kitchen habits: Wash greens carefully.
May 24, 2019
A Surprising Lemongrass Tip from a Banh Mi ShopGroceries
While working on my latest cookbook, Queens: A Culinary Passport, I chatted with cooks and chefs from diverse ethnic backgrounds (Himalayan, Cuban, Cypriot, Szechuan and more). As I learned how to replicate their dishes in my own kitchen, I amassed a slew of tips from them that I began using in my everyday cooking life.
May 24, 2019
The Surprising Secret Ingredient in Greek Coffee FrappésSkills
I’ll admit it, I was a bit of a coffee snob. So it never occurred to me that instant coffee might actually, actually be the secret of some of the best coffee drinks on the planet. While working on my cookbook (and culinary guide to Queens), I learned that instant coffee was the secret to making Greek frappés. Hailed as the national coffee of Greece, the frappé is a frothy concoction of coffee granulates and water, made foamy thanks to a frappé machine.
May 24, 2019
A Kosher Deli’s Secret to Perfect Potato PancakesSkills
I always thought the key to the perfect potato pancake was hand-grating the potatoes and onion, as opposed to using a food processor. But Ben’s Best Kosher Deli says the real trick is using paper towels to soak up the excess liquid of the grated potato and onion. Put a double layer of paper towels together, and press down on the grated mixture, repeating a few times until a majority of the liquid has been removed.
May 24, 2019
A Chef, a Baker, and a Chocolate Maker Talk About Growing a Business from the Ground UpPeople
Cooking, baking, and owning a business of your own are dream jobs to many, and for good reason. There’s a certain romance in stirring a big pot of fragrant, melting chocolate, or in early morning light cast upon a tray of bubbling apple pies on their way to a farmers market.
May 24, 2019
A Himalayan Restaurant Taught Me How to Intensify Flavor with WaterSkills
When trying to get tips from Himalayan Yak manager, Gyaltsen Gurung, on a potato recipe called Sho-Go Khatsa (Aloo Dum), he kind of shrugged and said, “It’s just cooked potatoes.” But it taught me so much more than that. The recipe Sho-Go Khatsa for has moved up my queue to become a favorite side dish. Here’s how it goes. First, the potatoes are boiled until half-cooked.
May 24, 2019
The Surprising Secret to Authentic Greek Lemon PotatoesSkills
With a lemoniness that walks the line of almost being too tart without actually being so, creating authentic Greek lemon potatoes became an obsession of mine when I first moved to the Greek haven of Astoria, Queens. I marinated, roasted, and boiled the potatoes in a hefty amount of lemon juice, never happy with the subpar results. So when I started working on my cookbook, Queens: A Culinary Passport, I knew I had to delve into the secret of the lemon potatoes.
May 24, 2019
Crazy-Looking Caul Fat Is the Cypriot Secret to Easy SausageSkills
This was my first experience working with the natural spider web of caul fat, which is the membrane around the intestines (usually of pigs). And, much to my surprise, I fell a little in love with it. The Cyprus restaurant Kopiaste Taverna had introduced me to their specialty of sheftalia, a homemade Cypriot sausage made from ground pork, parsley, and onions rolled in caul fat. “It’s very unique and very popular in Cyprus. We sell hundreds of these.
May 24, 2019
The Most Important Chef Tip for Working with Sticky FoodsSkills
This tip is short and sweet but will change how you prep some foods for life. Repeatedly, when I was working with any type of stickiness on my hands, the chef made a note to wet my hands before touching it as to prevent sticking. For recipes like matzo balls, falafel, meatballs, and potato pancakes, using wet hands to roll into shapes worked to prevent any from clumping into large globs on my fingers.
May 24, 2019
We Asked Jacques Pépin What He Makes for Dinner at HomePeople
This week’s meal plan has recipes from two of chef Jacques Pépin’s latest cookbooks, both of which were companion books to his popular public television shows. I’ve watched Jacques on television since I was a little girl and wanted to find out what this legendary chef, who’s cooked for presidents and with Julia Child, makes for dinner at home! I chatted with Jacques about his long career (he’s turning 80 in December!
May 24, 2019
Here’s How to Do Thanksgiving Like the Pioneer WomanSkills
Thanksgiving is a holiday that is all about the food. It’s a time to go full steam ahead and pull out all the stops to fill the table with a sea of the most impressively delicious and indulgent dishes. And when delicious and indulgent are the name of the game, Ree Drummond, aka the Pioneer Woman, is the lady to turn to. These are the hallmarks of her most popular recipes that folks flock to on a daily basis.
May 24, 2019
Here’s How to Do Thanksgiving Like Alton BrownPeople
Cooking Thanksgiving dinner can sometimes feel like a giant science experiment. There are so many elements and factors at play, all with the hope of a spectacular end result. That’s why it’s smart to turn to a guy like Alton Brown, who takes a scientific approach to every part of the meal. He deconstructs classic Thanksgiving dishes in order to make them a bit more foolproof for all of us. Here are some of his best Thanksgiving tips for everything from turkey to leftovers.
May 24, 2019
Ina Garten’s Tips for How to Host Your Best ThanksgivingSkills
Ina Garten has given us so many cooking and entertaining tips throughout the years that we could fill an entire book with them (well, if she hadn’t beat us to it!). But I would argue that an entire chapter deserves to be dedicated to Queen Ina’s favorite holiday: Thanksgiving. On what for many of us is the busiest day of the year in our kitchens, Ina always manages to pull off the festive feast with ease.
May 24, 2019
Weight Conversions for Flour, Sugar, and Other Common Baking IngredientsSkills
For bakers craving consistency between batches of scones or accuracy when making a tricky cake, weighing ingredients is the key to success. Since not all recipes provide both the volume measurements (cups) and the weight measurements (ounces), here’s a handy list of the most common conversions for both dry and wet ingredients. Keep it handy — save it, pin it, print it — this holiday season and beyond.
May 2, 2019
Smart Tip: Crisp Up Fish Skin Instead of Pushing It AsideSkills
No one can blame you for pushing aside a piece of soft, soggy fish skin, but if cooked until crisp and crackling, the skin on a fillet is not just edible, it can be downright addictive, adding textural contrast and tons of flavor. The LA Times Test Kitchen has a simple method for ensuring the crispest fish skin.The technique comes from chef Thomas Keller, and is quite straightforward.
May 2, 2019
The Simple No-Fail Way to Make Delicious Tofu Every TimeSkills
Let’s clear something up at the start, shall we? Tofu does not have to be bland. There are many kinds to buy and multiple ways to prepare it. But let’s skip all that for a second: if you’re looking for simplicity, then there’s really only one cooking method you need to know to make tofu that’s delicious, versatile, and perfect for weeknight meals. Learn this simple, no-fail way to cook tofu, you’ll never be disappointed.
May 2, 2019
Secrets of the Best Chefs by Adam RobertsKitchen
It’s difficult to fully explain how fantastic this book is without just putting it into your hands and pushing you into a comfy chair for the afternoon. Adam Roberts has spent the past year traveling from kitchen to kitchen, gleaning secrets, tips, and recipes from the best chefs in the country. This is the result: a tome of collective culinary know-how that simultaneously entertains, engages, and educates.
May 2, 2019
My Best Tips for Power Cooking Sessions & Freezer Meal PreparationSkills
Having a stash of freezer meals on hand is a great way to save money on food costs and enjoy home cooked meals when you’re too tired to get yourself to the kitchen. While it might take some planning and effort, the benefits far outweigh the costs. Believe it or not, you don’t need any fancy packaging machine or a deep freeze in order to make meals for the freezer. You don’t have to spend all day doing it, either.
May 2, 2019
Planning to Do Any Baking this Fall? Then You Need This ToolTools
The cooler weather hits and like moths to a flame, we gravitate to the oven. The desire to bake — bake anything! muffins! cookies! pies! — is overwhelming. But there is nothing sadder than opening the oven and finding that an afternoon spent mixing, dividing, and anxiously waiting has resulted in a batch of burnt, lackluster baked goods.
May 2, 2019
No-Waste Tip: Save Leftover Bean Broth for Poaching EggsSkills
Besides perfectly tender and flavorful beans, another big bonus of cooking dried beans from scratch is bean broth, the tasty and nutritious liquid left behind in the pot. If you’re tired of using it in soups, Rancho Gordo owner and all-around bean guru Steve Sando has one surprising suggestion for extra bean broth: poach eggs in it! Leftover bean-cooking liquid is particularly flavorful if you cooked your beans with aromatics like bay leaf and garlic or smoked meats.
May 2, 2019
4 Tips for Baking Perfect Hamantaschen from Ovenly’s Erin PatinkinSkills
Whether you grew up eating them or not, homemade hamantaschen are a special treat. The triangle-shaped cookies, which are traditionally served during the Jewish holiday of Purim, come stuffed with jam, ground poppy seeds, and many other delicious spreads. And when made well, with a supple dough and warm, sweet filling, they can be ethereal. The problem is, making hamantaschen at home can be tricky.
May 2, 2019
Why I Save Shrimp Shells & TailsSkills
Peeling and cleaning shrimp isn’t my favorite task in the world, but sometimes it’s an inevitable part of cooking that I sigh over and just get on with. I don’t see the whole process as a waste of my time though, since I don’t just throw out the shells when I’m done. Here’s what I do with them that you should try too! Shrimp shells, tails, and even the heads are packed with delicious, briny flavor.
May 1, 2019
Mint in a Cocktail? Smack It First!Skills
Unlike the random sprig of mint that might show up on a restaurant dessert plate, mint in cocktails actually serves a purpose: It adds delicious herbal yet fresh flavors that provide a nice contrast from the sweet and more bitter flavors in a drink. But just throwing a sprig into your drink doesn’t do anything — you’ve got to smack it first!
May 1, 2019
When to Shake, When to Stir: Or, How James Bond Destroyed DrinksSkills
“A martini, shaken, not stirred,” instructs Sean Connery’s 007 in Goldfinger. An iconic line uttered by an even more iconic character. This oft-repeated quote has confused cocktail enthusiasts ever since. Do you understand when to shake, and when to stir a cocktail? Let’s shake it out.
May 1, 2019
5 Mistakes to Avoid When Making CupcakesSkills
Love cupcakes, but always run into some common problems? Well, I’ve developed over 200 cupcake recipes and baked countless cupcakes. In the process, I’ve experienced every possible cupcake fail. Don’t let any of these happen to you! This problem is easily fixable by piling frosting over the stubby cupcake. Who doesn’t love extra frosting? (See my popular all-frosting cupcakes as evidence.) But, why have a height-challenged cupcake in the first place?
May 1, 2019
The Best Way to Remove Scuff Marks from White DishesKitchen
If you have owned your white dishes for any length of time, by now you’ve probably started noticing a gradual accumulation of stubborn gray scuff marks marring that pristine, glossy white surface. These scuff marks don’t seem to respond to either repeat cycles through the dishwasher or determined hand scrubbing.
May 1, 2019
Why It’s Worth Cooling Your Baking Sheets Between Batches of CookiesSkills
If you’ve ever had the one batch of cookies emerge from the oven perfectly, only to have the second batch turn out flat and disappointing, don’t blame the recipe — it might actually be your baking sheet. Specifically, the problem might be your hot baking sheet. Dropping cookies onto a hot baking sheet — one that just came out of the oven and hasn’t had a chance to cool down — means that the butter begins melting even before the cookies go into the oven.
May 1, 2019
The Secret 2-Ingredient Butter Sauce You Need to Know AboutSkills
This past summer I had the opportunity to step behind the doors of a restaurant kitchen. This is a place I don’t venture often, but when I do get the chance to sneak inside, I am eager to grasp onto any little chef’s trick or tip I may come across in this uncharted territory. And on this particular occasion, I hit gold. The chef was preparing baby potatoes for our dinner that evening.
May 1, 2019
10 Essential Things You Should Know About Your Chef’s KnifeTools
Your chef’s knife is perhaps the most important and beloved tool in your kitchen, so naturally you want to be thoroughly schooled on every aspect of it. To help you out, we rounded up all the top intel on how to buy, care for, store, sharpen, clean, and use a chef’s knife. Remember, this is the tool that will potentially be with you for your entire lifetime, so it’s best to get really well-acquainted, really quick.
May 1, 2019
The Shortcut Caramel Sauce You’ll Want to Put on EverythingSkills
There are few cooking projects more satisfying than making caramel sauce or dulce de leche (a creamy caramel sauce popular in Latin America) from scratch. With caramel, you get to watch the sugar take on a gorgeous dark amber hue, stand back as it bubbles when the cream hits the pot, and then whisk until you’ve got a glossy, pourable sauce, indicating that you’ve totally nailed it.
May 1, 2019
Deborah Madison Explains When to Peel Winter Squash (and When Not To)Skills
Winter squash are the heroes of cold-weather cooking. Rich in vitamins and fiber, they bring a touch of sweetness to heavy dishes and enliven our plates with their bright, often deeply hued flesh. Long-lasting and beautiful, they can even double as a sculptural centerpiece until you’re ready to bring them to the chopping board.
Jan 4, 2016
The Good, the Bad & the Awkward of Being a Private ChefKitchen
If you like to cook (and we’re guessing you do, based on the fact that you’re currently reading The Kitchn), you’ve probably had at least a fleeting fantasy about saying goodbye to your day job and trying your hand at being a private or personal chef. One former restaurant chef who opted for the private chef life shares what the job entails in this Serious Eats essay. Here are a few of the things we learned. You get to play around with menus and cuisines.
Nov 12, 2015
4 Tips for Using a Sheet Pan to Make Quick & Easy DinnersSkills
With the right tools and mindset, getting a good dinner on the table doesn’t have to be stressful. Pull out your trusty sheet pan, and a beautiful — and mostly hands-off — meal is just a few simple steps away! I love using my sheet pans to orchestrate wholesome and flavorful meals without fuss. Here are my favorite tips for cooking the best sheet pan dinners. A sheet pan for home cooking measures 18×13 inches, with a 1-inch lip around the sides.
Apr 27, 2015
Two Experts Explain How to Care for Your Vintage CookbooksPeople
Whether you’re a true collector or just love picking up old cookbooks at garage sales or thrift stores every now and then, there are some easy things you can do to preserve your finds for many years to come. Some people actually like to use their vintage cookbooks in the kitchen, while others prefer to store them safely to maintain their value.
Apr 23, 2015
Why You Should Grate the Butter the Next Time You BakeSkills
A box grater makes quick work of shredding cheese or vegetables, but did you know you can break it out for your next baking project too? A stick of frozen butter can be quickly grated into fluffy shreds, and here are two reasons why you should use this technique next time you bake with butter. I always have a few boxes of butter around since I buy it at the club store and butter freezes well.
Sep 22, 2014
Do You Need to Dimple Burger Patties So They Stay Flat?Skills
When forming hamburger patties, I was always told that you had to make a shallow indentation or dimple in the middle of each patty — this would keep the center from bulging up as it cooked so that the patty would stay flat and even. I never questioned that technique until I came across even more methods on how to do this, so I just had to test them out myself! The basic theory is that as meat cooks, the proteins contract so that the whole patty shrinks and puffs up in the middle.
Aug 22, 2014
The Best Way to Taste Your Homemade Salad DressingSkills
On its own, each ingredient in a salad is fairly unremarkable. Lettuce, cut-up vegetables, nuts, dried fruit, maybe some cheese or protein. What brings it all together, though, is the salad dressing, so the dressing deserves some extra care and attention. Here’s a tip on how to make sure your dressing is perfectly balanced and seasoned properly for your salad.
Aug 19, 2014
Ways To Use Your Canned Tomatoes All Year RoundSkills
All week long, I’ve been talking about summer tomatoes and the various ways to preserve them so that you can eat them all year round. And truly, I think that there’s no better gift to yourself and your family than a pantry shelf full of home canned tomatoes. However, new canners often find that once they’ve put all that work in putting up those tomatoes, they have a hard time getting themselves to open up those jars and eat the fruits of their labor.
Aug 15, 2014
Lynne Rossetto Kasper Doesn’t Peel or Seed Her Tomatoes (And Neither Should You)People
When Lynne Rossetto Kasper, host of public radio show The Splendid Table, gives advice, I listen. This goes double if the owner of that mellifluous voice is standing right next to you, doling out knowledge with so much enthusiasm you’d be daft not to start taking notes. This past week, I attended a farm-to-table event hosted by Muir Glen Organics with Lynne and a handful of other food writers and tomato lovers from around the country.
Aug 15, 2014
5 Tips for Making Small Batches of Tomato SauceSkills
When it comes to preserving tomatoes, most people think that you have to go big. And while it’s true that during late summer it’s easy to get your hands on Romas and San Marzanos by the boxful, there’s also nothing wrong with thinking small. Here are a few tips for scaling down those big-batch recipes to turn just a few pints of tomatoes into delicious sauce.
Aug 13, 2014