There are few things more satisfying than fulfilling a craving with instant gratification. Companies like Pillsbury and have made this possible with the introduction of their famous Ready to Bake Cookies line: just rip open the package, break off the cookies along the creased lines, place on a cookie sheet, and bake.
Few things are as frustrating as grabbing food from the fridge just to discover that your leftovers have gone bad. When it comes to cheese, you may have taken every last precaution to keep it as fresh as possible—sealed plastic containers, saran wrap, parchment paper—but to no avail.
I'll bet this scenario will sound familiar to you: you're in the middle of making a spectacular dessert that will knock the socks off of your guests, and you've almost finished gathering all of your ingredients to create your mise en place. The last ingredient listed is powdered sugar, and you reach for where it's stored, when—drat! You don't have enough for the recipe.
Onions add essential flavor to almost any dish, whether it's a sauce, main dish, or salad. They are one of the humblest "superfoods," full of vitamins and nutrients but generally inexpensive, which is why they're also one of the most widely eaten ingredients in the world.
Piracy, it can be argued, is the scourge of the internet. But when it comes to music, sometimes it's best to give a listen to a track or album before deciding to spend your hard-earned money on fully supporting it.
Star Trek Communicator badges rule. If you're a Trekkie, you know they are iconic to the TV series. The Next Generation, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine all had these awesome communicator badges.
Taking care of your car requires effort, whether you take it to the pros for washes, waxes, and detailing, or you spend time to make it shine yourself—and it often seems that, right after your car is sparkling again, rain or midnight moisture appears to cover its surface in water spots. With a small tweak to your typical car care routine, you may be able to keep your car's surface and windows shining longer and better: you just need to add a little hair conditioning liquid.
If you've ever turned on an episode of Iron Chef or Top Chef, chances are you've seen a contestant in gloves and goggles, yielding a canister that looks far more fit for a chemistry lab than for a kitchen. Wonder what's in the canister? Liquid nitrogen, the go-to tool/ingredient of molecular gastronomy, and one of the trendiest items in many gourmet chefs' kitchens.
Most primary cocktail ingredients just sound delicious. Lime and tonic water? Yes, please. Bitters and simple syrup? Sign me up. Egg whites and... wait... egg whites? In a cocktail?
Summer cookouts and barbecues come with a lot of delicious foods, but to me, there's nothing better than dishes heaped with avocados. From guacamole to simply eating an avocado right out of its skin, I devour this fruit constantly—but it's one that can be tricky to find perfectly ripe.
Even though you may love onions, cutting them is probably a completely different story. You've really got to be a pro at slicing and dicing them without getting frustrated, and even then they can still make your cry—literally. But if you don't want to wear a pair of goggles to keep those tears from falling, you have to cut your onions in a very special way.
Homemade ice cream is so good and you can make it with just a few ingredients and no special equipment. Most cookbooks and magazine recipes expect you to have an ice cream maker at home, but you can imitate the churning effect of an ice cream maker by shaking or tossing around the ingredients inside a tightly sealed ziplock bag.
Since the new Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan is brand new, I recommend installing it on a separate partition on your hard drive. This will keep your current Yosemite system safe from harm, and will let you easily switch back to it should El Capitan become unusable for any reason.
Every year, when summer rolls around, I get excited because it's grilling season. And every year, when summer comes to a close, I get sad because grilling season is ending.
There are several reasons that you might want to restore the factory firmware on your device—maybe you need to send your phone back for warranty purposes, or perhaps you're getting ready to accept an over-the-air update and need to unroot first. In some cases, reverting to the stock firmware can even resurrect a soft-bricked phone.
Both the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge have had root methods available to them before the phones were even released, but the problem with these existing root methods is that they would trip the KNOX counter on your device.
I have a confession: I hoard glass jars. I buy mason jars whenever I get the chance. When I finish a jar of pickles or mayonnaise, there's no way that glass jar is going in the recycling (thankfully, they're easy to de-stink). And when my sister gives me a basket of her homemade jams, she can forget about ever seeing those jars again.
I'm a firm believer that a sandwich is the ultimate food. It's filling, but not heavy; it has carbs, protein, veggies, and sauces; and it's easily customizable. Add that all up and you've got the absolutely perfect lunch.
Food waste is a topic near and dear to my heart, but the truth is, no matter how dutiful we are about finding ways to double-down on food scraps, a lot of stuff goes into the trash needlessly.
Meringues are a French and Swiss dessert made of whipped egg whites and sugar, and they are light, sweet, and crispy confections. To make traditional meringues, you beat egg whites into soft foamy peaks, and then keep whipping as you gradually add sugar until the peaks become stiff. Once you've reached the right consistency, you bake them at a low temperature in the oven for a long time. They take both technique and time.
As a kid, my favorite part of Easter were the days leading up to the holiday, when my family would dye eggs. This became an enormous event in my household, as dozens and dozens of perfectly white eggs would become little oval canvases for arts and crafts.
You can capture some pretty amazing videos using the slo-mo and time-lapse capabilities in the stock Camera app for iPhone 5s, 6, 6 Plus, or iPad Air 2, but there's no way to really combine them unless you shoot different videos and splice them together with a separate video editing app.
The Galaxy S6 won't hit shelves until later this spring, but that didn't stop the Android community from working its magic and pulling a handful of apps from the device's stock firmware. Several of these apps rely on framework elements that aren't present on current-generation Samsung Galaxy devices, but the new version of the Smart Remote app can be installed without much difficulty.
2015 is quickly shaping up to be the year of the cord cutter, with various media companies finally warming up to the concept of offering live streaming content. In the wake of Dish Network announcing a streaming cable service called Sling TV and Sony unveiling a similar platform in PlayStation Vue, NBC has decided to stream the Super Bowl and all of its festivities online. Before we get to all of the many ways you can stream Super Bowl 49 between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks ...
Are you stranded in a hotel room with no kitchen, but craving the comfort of a home-cooked meal? Fear not, I have found some interesting ways to cook food without the luxury of an oven, stove, microwave, or even a toaster!—also known as "hotel room cooking."
Garlic: almost every cuisine in the world considers it a staple, and for good reason. Its pungent flavor gives depth and character to food. Dishes made without it seem bland and forgettable. And on top of all that, it's been studied for its potential anti-cancer properties (and don't forget: it's been mythologized for warding off vampires).
When Android 5.0 rolls out to the Nexus 5, several changes and new features will come along with it. The over-the-air update is already rolling out, and if you don't want to wait, you can get it right now.
It's pretty logical for your MacBook to sleep when you close its lid, but under certain circumstances, you may not necessarily want this feature to kick in.
Coffee shops are a relaxing place to get work done on your laptop; there's free Wi-Fi, fresh coffee, and people generally leave you alone. Inevitably, those cups of coffee will go straight through you, resulting in a much-needed bathroom break. But while you're attending to your bodily functions, who's attending to your MacBook?
There are a lot of great new features in iOS 8, but not everyone is enjoying them. Some of you may just genuinely prefer iOS 7 over iOS 8, and some of you may be experiencing lag on older devices like the iPhone 4S, however minimal it may be. Whatever the reason, if you don't want iOS 8 on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, there's still time to downgrade back to iOS 7.1.2.
"Cooking" with liquid nitrogen seems like one of those activities that should be strictly limited to pros who are appearing on Top Chef, but it's the only way you'd ever be able to make Dippin' Dots at home. If that isn't enough of a reason for you to get some LN2 for your kitchen, check out this dose of pretty:
It seems like gesture controls are all the craze these days. From camera-opening gestures to "Air Gestures", it's getting to the point where we hardly need to touch the screens on our phones to control them.
Apple has just released iOS 8 beta 5 to developers, which is speculated to be the second-to-last beta build before they launch the gold master (GM) edition at the end of this month.
Coffee is a topic that everyone has a strong opinion about, especially when it comes to brewing the perfect cup. Even if you buy the best beans and grind them yourself, chances are you're skipping one necessary step to make sure your coffee tastes the best it can: cleaning your coffeemaker the right way.
White or light-colored dinnerware is a classic: it looks crisp, clean, and elegant. The only problem is that after you've used it for a few years, the surfaces bear a lot of grey scuff marks from forks, spoons, and knives being dragged across the surface.
It is really quite easy to flash a custom recovery to your Nexus, and there are many excellent tutorials on how to do so (see the How-To below): The Easiest Way to Install a Custom Recovery on Your Nexus 7 Tablet « Nexus 7.
While FIFA may be one of the most corrupt organizations in the world (depending on who you talk to), that won't stop millions of us from tuning in this Thursday, June 12th, to watch the first game of what's going to be a month-long World Cup affair.
If you've ever seen one of those Samsung commercials from about a year back, you know that the Galaxy S series of phones come with a feature that allows you to do certain things by making gestures in front of your screen. They call this feature Air Gesture, and it enables you to perform certain functions without even touching your phone.
To flip, or not to flip, that is the real question. When you're nervously standing over the stove or grill, what do you do with that steak before you?
Integrated rather secretively into iOS 7.1, CarPlay gives a better hands-on experience when driving, working with the car's built-in display to help you find directions, send and receive calls and text messages, control music, and more—without having to fumble around with your small iPhone.
