Surprising Ideas

While living in Japan, I learned to eat almost every type of food with chopsticks. It didn’t take long to realize I had been eating salad like a chump my whole life.Think about it. Spearing a flat, floppy piece of lettuce with a fork is at best a mild challenge and at worst an awkward way to smear dressing over half your cheek. Poking a fork through a rock-hard crouton usually cleaves it into two pieces of rock-hard crouton, which you have to try to scoop onto your fork.

My husband has been in hot pursuit of the flawless French omelet for months, studying our stove’s quirks and calibrating the ratio of butter to pan surface (I cover my eyes at this point). He would be appalled to learn that his hard-won mastery may be jeopardized by a shortcut in that most modern of machines, the microwave. Can a one-minute microwave omelet challenge the greatness of the classic omelet?

I try to be a good house guest, especially when invited to stay at a friend’s country home in Italy for a month, free of charge, with my three children. When my host, originally from South Carolina, expressed her sadness at her inability to find one of our un-official state foods in her new home, you better believe I tried to make it happen. Here’s how I made pimiento cheese, from ingredients we found in a regular grocery store in the Italian countryside.

After the first few blissful days of staying in a hotel, I start to get tired of eating out for every meal and begin craving the simple, comforting foods I make for myself at home. So when a reader asked for advice about cooking real meals while staying in a hotel, I read the answers with interest — and then excitement. So many smart tips!

Living on the West Coast means some really really long plane rides back to visit family in Minnesota and Massachusetts. A package of pretzels is not going to cut it, and I’ve struggled with ideas for packable, airplane-approved meals that will also satisfy my hunger pangs. As unlikely as it may seem, Asian dumplings have become my favorite mid-flight meal.I have to give a shout out to Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks for this travel meal idea.

We all know that the amount of juice lemons and limes generate varies greatly based on the size of the fruit, temperature, and how long the fruit has been sitting on your kitchen counter. But did you know there’s a surefire way to get the most juice — one that doesn’t require any new tools or gadgets? And this method can produce as much as three times as much juice! Watch the video after the jump for a eye-opening demonstration. Slice it lengthwise!

With their bright colors and futuristic appeal, Dippin’ Dots are a kid favorite at carnivals and beyond, but we’re much more interested in this adult-friendly update: alcoholic Dippin’ Dots! Gizmodo has the full step-by-step instructions for making your own version at home.Liquid nitrogen is the key ingredient in these flash-frozen ice cream bits, which remain cold enough to stay solid in the spoon, but instantly melt in your mouth.

Although making pancake batter isn’t difficult, it doesn’t always make for a speedy morning. But you can make weekday pancakes a reality with this simple freezer tip. Best of all? It doesn’t involve reheating cold pancakes. Instead of baking up a double batch of pancakes this week and stashing them in the freezer, just double the batter and enjoy half for breakfast and freeze the rest of the batter for another day.

There’s no denying the convenience of an already-ground spice, but I’m here to make a case for why you should consider adding a few whole spices to your seasoning line-up. Four words: better flavor, fresher longer. Convinced?!One of the things that makes spices like cardamom, cumin, and nutmeg so very delicious is the oil they contain.

Salt to taste. Such a simple and innocent instruction. We’ve all read those words a million times over the years without thinking anything of it. Ever wonder what it really means?As an ingredient in dishes, salt plays two very important roles. First, it reduces bitter flavors. Second, because it reduces bitterness, adding salt allows the aromas and tastes of the other ingredients in your dish to shine through.

If you’ve ever been interested in making your own sausage, but put off by the equipment needed to do it, Bon Appetit has a smart method that uses just one low-tech tool: a Chinese soup spoon. In the video above, Chef Kris Yenbamroong demonstrates how to stuff sausages with a spoon, using the narrow end to gather the casing and the wide end as a sort of funnel to more easily stuff in the sausage mixture.

It’s a party nightmare: guests have arrived, the food is in the oven, and all of a sudden the smoke detector starts going off. Besides assigning a guest the task of frantically flapping a towel in front of the smoke alarm, what else can you do? Try this easy tip to keep your cooking alarm free.It’s happened in every apartment I’ve lived in.

We’ve all been there: You want to throw together a quick soup but you don’t have any stock on hand. The first question that pops up is whether stock is necessary. The answer depends on what kind of soup you are making. A stock is more important with a simple broth-based soup, whereas a more complex pureed or cream-based soup might be OK with just water. Ideally, though, you will always use stock, as it is the foundation of your soup and really adds flavor.

I’ve been focused on high-protein snacks lately, and a tried-and-true taste is a hard boiled egg. I love them dearly and usually boil a full dozen at a go. Some weeks I eat them all and some weeks I turn to the freezer for help! Although egg whites don’t take too kindly to freezing (they will leak water and turn funny colors), the yolks are perfect for freezing. To do this, simply cut your egg in half, discard or eat the whites, and then toss your yolks in a zip top bag.

Have you ever tried your hand at molding your own chocolate? It doesn’t have to be a special occasion and there’s no expensive molds required when you have a well stocked pantry. Want to see which three items you can use in your kitchen for perfectly molded custom sweets? 1. Cornstarch 2. Powdered Sugar 3. Brown Sugar For years I’ve used the first two items on this list almost exclusively when molding my own chocolates or candy.

If you’re planning on grilling this Labor Day weekend, we have a safe and easy way to check the propane level in the tank of your gas grill — all it takes is a cup of water. To check the level of gas in your propane tank, bring a cup of water to a boil and pour it over the side of the tank. Now feel the tank and look for the point where the tank goes from feeling hot (empty) to cool (filled with propane). That’s your propane level. So simple!

“Preheat oven to 350 degrees.” This may be one of the most common phrases in the cooking universe…and also one of the most misleading. If you fret over the accuracy of your oven’s internal temperature reading, you’re working too hard. Here’s why:In a nutshell, it’s impossible to control your oven temperature, so you should stop worrying about it altogether—or so writes Slate writer Brian Palmer.

Leela’s artful chopstick collection/wall art!Most non-Asian cooks aren’t aware that chopsticks are more than just an eating utensil. They also make great cooking tools. In fact, there are special cooking chopsticks (saibashi in Japanese) that are a little longer and sometimes joined at the end with a string for just that purpose.

No cake carrier? No problem. Here’s an easy way to keep your frosted and whip-cream-topped desserts looking as pretty as ever.First, lay out an extra-long piece of plastic wrap on your counter. Set the cake on its plate in the centre. Insert toothpicks around the circumference of the cake and a few in the middle. Make sure there is a half inch or so of toothpick visible above the frosting or whipped cream.

We are seriously big fans of the avocado around these parts. Here’s your avocado tip of the day: Did you know you can use avocado in your baking? It’s a simple way to cut out some fat! By substituting avocado for some but not all of your butter in baking you can cut the fat by almost 40%. Although we’re not big on watching such things, we are big on substitutions that we always have in the house and these days we have the green globes around more than butter!

On a scorching summer day, you’re probably more likely to grab an iced coffee than a steaming cup of joe. But a study has shown that drinking a hot beverage on a hot day actually can cool you down. How? As you might imagine, consuming a hot drink does add heat to your body, but that heat actually increases the rate at which you sweat, which can help cool you off.

The trick is actually to salt the eggplant before cooking it. As bizarre as this may sound, it has yet to fail me. Here’s how to do it.The older and bigger the eggplant, the more likely it is to taste bitter and become soggy in the pan. Peel away its tough outer skin with a vegetable peeler and cut the eggplant as directed in your recipe. If cubed or cut into strips, toss the eggplant with a generous amount of salt and place it in a colander over a bowl or the sink.

We’re canning, you’re canning, just about everyone is canning these days. And we think that’s pretty fantastic. But before you fill your kitchen with steaming-hot glass jars and pounds of tomatoes, we have a few insider tips that might just make your next canning session go a lot more smoothly. A few weeks ago, I had the extremely happy privilege of attending one of Marisa McClellan‘s canning classes during the tour for her recently released book, Food in Jars.

Planning a low key burgers and dogs menu for this year’s 4th of July BBQ? Take a look at this simple tip that will take your hot dogs to the next level! A little prep work will turn your dogs into spiral condiment-grabbing and conversation-hogging BBQ stars. More than just a novelty way to serve hot dogs, this technique allows for better and more even cooking on the grill. Use a thin skewer to pierce the hot dog lengthwise and cut the hot dog on the diagonal while turning the skewer.

When I first started canning, I made huge batches of jam. Between the cleaning, peeling and chopping, I’d be dripping with sweat and every inch of my kitchen would be covered in sticky fruit residue. Despite the fact that each jamming session took hours and hours, I did it that way because that’s just how I thought canning was supposed to be.

When I was very young and learning how to bake, I was shown something called the Water Displacement Method. I haven’t seen this method for measuring solid fats mentioned recently, so perhaps it’s gone out of fashion. Is this still being taught today?

Finding a ripe avocado at the supermarket is hit or miss, so what can you do if you need an avocado right away? Tasting Table shared a food science tip for quickly ripening avocados with help from an unexpected source: a banana!Ripe bananas release a lot of ethylene, the hormone that triggers ripening in mature fruit, so placing one in a closed paper bag with your under-ripe avocados will speed up the process.

Most of us probably consider chopsticks to be more of a utensil than a tool, but Chef David Barry from the Culinary Institute of America has some compelling reasons for using them in the kitchen. Namely, the best scrambled eggs ever.In an article he wrote for Fine Cooking, Chef Barry recommends using chopsticks instead of spatulas or wooden spoons to stir a skillet of scrambled eggs.

Turning dried-out bread scraps into homemade bread crumbs is a simple way to minimize waste, but pulsing bread chunks in the food processor can be a messy chore. Melissa Clark discovered an ingenious way to easily transform stale bread into mounds of bread crumbs without the usual overheating processor or gunked-up blade:Use the grater attachment! She dries out slices of day-old bread in a 300°F oven, then pushes them through the feeder tube on her food processor.

It’s almost Valentine’s Day, so let’s take a moment to appreciate one of food’s great partnerships: avocado and eggs. We’ve tried adding avocado to scrambled eggs or using mashed avocado in place of mayonnaise in an egg salad, but this idea is a new one: baking an egg directly in an avocado half!Basically, you remove the pit from a halved avocado, hollow out a little more space if needed, and crack an egg into the hollow.

Do you love toasty coconut? And granola? Then you’ll love this suggestion from Melissa Clark: make your granola with coconut oil! Virgin coconut oil not only has a number of health benefits, it also lends a warm, nutty flavor to granola.Clark shares her recipe for Double Coconut Granola in her newest cookbook, Cook This Now.

We’ve been on a chocolate cake bender around here. Last week Leela shared her decadent Double Chocolate Sour Cream Birthday Cake, and now we’re talking about another intense chocolate cake from Serious Eats that we made last week. It’s also to die for—thanks to 1 1/4 cups of, yep, mayonnaise. Has anyone ever tried a mayonnaise chocolate cake?

Did any of your parents try to dye eggs green when you were little as a nod to Green Eggs and Ham? The results were always gross. These green eggs, however, we’ll take any day—a simple egg salad with mashed avocado mixed in. Turns out it’s healthier than the original, too. You use half the mayonnaise.