Grilled meat may be a staple of summer barbecues, but grilled cheese should have a place at your outdoor feast as well. I don't mean taking a slice or two of cheese, slapping it between two pieces of bread, and putting it in a pan to create a grilled cheese sandwich. No, I mean literally grilled cheese.
Caramel is delicious, but it can be a tricky flavor to incorporate into baking. Traditionally, caramel is a liquid, and that doesn't always suit dessert preparation since adding extra liquid to baked goods can ruin them. So how do you get that buttery, toffee-like flavor?
We keep at least half a dozen hard-boiled eggs in the fridge for times when we're on the go and need a quick snack. Often, we eat them sliced in half with a pinch of sea salt and black pepper, or we just make some deviled eggs or a quick egg salad—but these gets old very quick, and our creativity tells us to do otherwise.
There are countless recipes for mug cakes (and breads) on the internet, but not all of them are good. Mug cakes promise a warm, moist, and fluffy cake after a few minutes and with minimal work... but sometimes, all you end up with is a chewy, rubbery mess.
The potato masher is one of the most dreaded tools in my kitchen; it always gives me flashbacks to when I had to mash potatoes for Thanksgiving dinners while growing up.
You've probably noticed artichokes at the front and center of your local grocery store or farmer's market recently, as spring is artichoke season; They may look like strange, complicated vegetables if you've never cooked them before.
Chips are one of the most overpriced snacks on the market, and they're wildly unhealthy... even though they don't need to be.
When to throw meat away is a common question, and one I often ask when faced with meat sitting in the fridge after a few days. With vegetables, you can usually tell on sight (or with this guide) when they're past due, but meat is not as simple.
Knowing if your meat is cooked properly is both the difference between a delicious meal and an inedible one... and the difference between making your guests sick and keeping them safe.
I hate wasting money. To be fair: I doubt there are many people out there who relish the idea, but I especially hate it. And I also dislike spending in excess of what I need. This happens all too often, I feel, when it comes to recipes that involve using sausage.
The end of a weekend can be depressing knowing just how bad Monday morning will be when you get back to work, but that feeling is tenfold when coming back from a lengthy vacation with zero work responsibilities.
Polenta can cause risotto-like anxiety for the most experienced cook. First of all, making polenta is time-consuming—it can often take upwards of 45 minutes (unless you use this shortcut). And in the midst of this long cooking time, you're constantly stirring to keep the polenta from becoming lumpy. Even after taking the utmost of care, the polenta can still turn out too loose, too firm, or too grainy.
During my time living in dorm rooms and small apartments, I would find myself in need of many different appliances—a food processor for making hummus, a blender for vegetable smoothies, or even a mortar and pestle for muddling mojito-bound mint leaves. Luckily, there was one tiny, inconspicuous tool that solved all of these problems: the coffee grinder.
If you're a frequent baker like myself, you've probably realized that one box of cake mix makes quite a bit of cake. If your goal is to make a simple Bundt or an easy dozen cupcakes, all you really need is half the box mix—which leaves the other half for another baking occasion.
Hanukkah, also known as The Festival of Lights, commemorates the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem in 168 BCE. (Jews and secular publications, such as academic or scientific papers, use BCE—"before common era"—rather than the Jesus-centric BC, or "before Christ.")
Regardless of your culture or your age, eating with your hands is fun. Flouting social convention and just digging in with your fingers provides a whole other level of epicurean enjoyment. And one of the most entertaining hands-on foods is monkey bread. Food historian Tori Avey provides a comprehensive history of the origins of this pull-apart treat, including the important detail that no actual monkeys are involved in the making of monkey bread. Originally a savory culinary creation from Sou...
Please read the following in Rod Serling's voice. Picture, if you will, a mother. She comes home after a long day at the office, relieved that she took some chicken breasts out to thaw and will be able to make a quick and easy dinner for her family. She opens her refrigerator to get the chicken, but to her horror she does not see it… she forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer after all. What will she make for dinner now? How will she feed her family? She has entered…the Panic Zone.
Vegetables are perhaps the most important part of our diets, but often times they're an absolute pain to prepare. Cleaning every fleck of dirt off of dozens of leafy greens takes ages, and eliminating the more fibrous parts of certain veggies can be extremely tedious.
Nothing makes my stomach growl and my mouth water quite like the smell of roasting chicken. It's a pretty universal reaction, too—there's a reason every grocery store places its rotisserie grills and delis near the entrance, after all.
Hair dyers are pretty straightforward tools, but they can actually do way more than just dry your wet hair or defog your bathroom mirror. From the kitchen to the backyard, a blowdryer can help you solve common problems around the house and beyond, and here are our 10 favorite uses.
In the world of breakfast, a great trench of injustice divides French toast and pancakes. Just look at the average brunch menu. While pancakes are treated to a wealth of variety (chocolate chip, silver dollar, blueberry, banana, and even some with pop culture references), French toast is often regarded with a one-size-fits-all attitude.
It goes without saying that a pizza stone is one of the keys to making a perfect pizza. The science behind pizza stones is relatively simple: the stone conducts and holds heat, which keeps the oven temperature steady even when a cold ingredient (such as an uncooked pizza) is introduced. This not only helps the pizza cook more evenly, but also allows the bottom to get crisp.
When I get struck by a craving for something SCJ (savory, crunchy, juicy), nothing fits the bill better than a BLT. But why settle for the sandwich form when there are so many other possibilities? Some of my favorite alternative ways to serve up a BLT are 1) as a salad, 2) in tomato cups, 3) in mini bread bowls, 4) as lettuce wraps, 5) as a dip, and 6) in bacon cups.
A friend of mine is a classically trained chef, and she often invites me over to her house to eat whatever goodies she has concocted. A few years ago I asked her the cliché question that every chef is sick of answering: "What's your favorite food?"
I like to think of myself as a pretty calm and even-keeled person. I rarely get angry or annoyed, and I don't even get peeved very frequently.
Whether you call them chickpeas, garbanzo beans, or Egyptian peas, these little morsels are one of my favorite snacks—when properly seasoned, that is. Being mild in flavor on their own, they're incredibly versatile and fun to experiment with. (They're also incredibly healthy.)
When you look at an Italian flag, what do you see? Green, white, and red? Well, I see a Caprese salad. And no, I do not need to have my vision checked. It simply means that I have the eyes of a chef.
Your grater and microplane may look like single-purpose tools, but they're actually one of the most diverse appliances in your kitchen. Sure, everyone knows to use a grater on cheese and a microplane on citrus zest, but why stop there? Here are 10 things you may not have thought to grate:
When I first heard about the Thermomix, an all-in-one kitchen appliance from Australia, it sounded like an old SNL commercial parody: It slices! It dices! It heats! It kneads! Is there ANYTHING this machine CAN'T do?
From our work life to our home life, we have an awful lot of projects, tasks, and activities that require more productivity than play. After working for an entire day in the office, no one wants to face even more that needs to be done at home.
Stop! Do not pour that leftover wine, coffee, or bacon grease down the drain. And those herbs that have been in your fridge so long they've literally turned on you? And what about when that recipe only calls for two tablespoons of heavy cream, a quarter cup of tomato purée, or three cloves of garlic? Unless you plan on using the leftovers again in the next week or so, don't bother refrigerating them because they won't last.
Few things in life are as exciting and magical as fire. And setting things on fire while cooking? Well, now you're speaking my language. I'm not talking about grilling, though I do love some outdoor cooking. No, I'm talking about the most badass trick in any cook's arsenal: the flambé.
No offense to water, but if I could survive on coffee alone, I would. I swear I'm not addicted... I just really, really, really love the taste of a cuppa joe, whether it's hot, cold, frothed, milked, flavored, plain, whatever! And while my favorite thing to do with coffee will always be to drink it, recently I've become crazy about using coffee in cooking.
Ask ten different people how they feel about boxed cake mixes, and you'll likely get ten different answers. Some baking purists will berate them and throw them in the same category as garlic presses and knife sets sold on infomercials. Many people will say that they prefer not to use mixes, but keep one in the pantry just in case. And I dare you to find a college student that doesn't sing their praises.
While I frown upon any form of uneaten cookie, sometimes we overestimate our late-night cravings for baked goods leaving us with extra cookie dough at 4 a.m. If you're in the privileged dilemma of not having enough excess dough to make another batch of cookies but just enough left over that you can't justify tossing it, don't fret. Here are five effortless and unexpected ways to salvage it.
It's an unspoken rule that diseases are not things that you want to purposely consume. So if anyone ever offers to cook you something made out of a disease, just kindly say no... unless it's huitlacoche.
No one ever wants to experience pain, whether it's as small as a stubbed toe or as great as recovering from surgery. Yet so much of our lives causes pain, lasting or brief in its form. With a few mental tricks and unusual home remedies, you can relieve some of the most common aches and ailments that arise painlessly.
Soda bread, corned beef and cabbage, and colcannon are all great dishes to serve up on St. Patrick's Day, but desserts really let your inner leprechaun come out to play. Not only can you have fun incorporating all kinds of tasty Irish liquors into baked goods, you get to dye things green.
Cheese might be one of the most satisfying snacks around, whether you prefer a slice of snappy Irish cheddar or a creamy, rich portion of Brie. It's been called "dairy crack" by a respected physician and for good reason: eating cheese produces casomorphins, which effect the human body like opiates. It also contains trace amounts of actual morphine.
Cheesecake is pretty awesome. It's super versatile, allowing you to change crust bases and toppings quite dramatically and still end up with something that's elegant and delicious. Which is why it's a great dish to add to your dessert repertoire! There are a number of approaches to making a cheesecake base: classic, new york style and no-bake. Today we're going to go down the more classic route.
