The food TV chefs prepare make our mouths water. From one scrumptious creation to another, they fly through preparation without frustration or error. They make us think we can do the same with similar ease and delectable, picture-perfect results. Some of us have noticed, though, that these TV chefs don't always adhere to the same safe food handling guidelines we've been taught to follow.
There are two types of Halloween lovers: Those who like culturally-relevant costumes and serving precious ghost cupcakes, and those who live to freak their friends the hell out in the most disgusting way possible.
If you're here, you're probably one of the seven people dedicated to making Mac n' Cheetos a permanent part of the Burger King menu.
Store-bought marinades and sauces have an ability to jazz up the simplest items. But after a while, those favorite tastes seem a bit repetitive and mundane, and that got us to experimenting with different add-ins to make our marinades stand out. Fruits, herbs, spices—all of the usual suspects were delicious, but not spectacular.
Greek yogurt has always been in my regular snack rotation. Packed with more protein than plain yogurt, it fills me up and stabilizes my energy with its low levels of carbohydrates and sugar.
Smelly foods are what make my culinary world "go 'round," so to speak. I grew up with fish sauce, learned to cook with and love fermented beans and veggies, and am one of the biggest garlic advocates I know... other than my husband, who thankfully shares the same smelly food sensibilities. (Let's put it this way: anyone that can stomach stinky tofu can handle anything I could possibly cook up.)
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.
Many home chefs are deterred from whisk-intensive recipes such as mayonnaise because they seem to require more than two hands—which is obviously the maximum number we possess. One hand is required to stabilize the bowl, another must be whisking constantly... and a third hand is needed to pour a steady stream of oil.
In my opinion, there is no candy greater or more timeless than Sour Patch Kids. They're the ultimate treat: sweet and refreshing, yet sour and tangy. These contrasting flavors are what make Sour Patch Kids perfect for the people of all ages—especially your kids. So let's make dishes that incorporate this awesome candy into your cooking rotation!
Preparing and serving seafood can be a daunting task. Fish is so delicate that one extra minute of heat can turn a juicy, flaky filet into a dried-out disaster. But that same fragility also allows us to use unconventional methods to chemically transform the fish into its cooked consistency.
Beer isn't just for drinking anymore. There are many useful and surprising things that an ice-cold brewski can help you accomplish, from household chores to better-tasting food. It can even help you look and feel healthier.
You know what's in your folders, so it's not always necessary to label them and ruin that clean look you're going for on your iPhone's home screen. I mean, how many folders am I going to have to title "Stuff" or "Junk"?
Oatmeal isn't the most glamorous breakfast, but it's definitely one of the best. It's healthy, filling, delicious, and easy to personalize. And, if you have instant packets, oatmeal is also a very quick and easy breakfast.
I grew up in a rural town, and that meant that we dehydrated a lot of food. Even with a hungry family of five, there was no way that we could eat all of the season's tomatoes before they molded, or all of the orchard's apples before they grew soft, or all of the wild mushrooms that we picked. And so our dehydrator was always getting a good workout.
While honey is one of the most popular ingredients on kitchen shelves the world over, honeybee pollen is still a relatively rare find in most households. It's not hard to guess why: eating pollen just sounds weird... it would probably sell a lot better if it had a more appetizing name, like honey. Furthermore, it looks unlike any other common ingredient, and the smell can be off-putting to some. But it's good, it's healthy, and it's altogether pretty awesome!
Most cooks know they should stir pasta a few times while it's cooking, for obvious reasons: as the noodles cook, they release a glue-like starch that makes them stick to one another. Stirring prevents them from clumping together in an unwieldy, inedible mass. Now Mark Bittman in The New York Times discusses a great technique from Italy that helps you produce a plate of tender, toothsome pasta evenly coated in rich sauce every time, but it involves stirring the pasta at the end of its cooking ...
Kitchen tools are a personal thing. One hard lesson for me to learn is that just because something is popular doesn't mean that it's right for me. Take the slow cooker, for instance. Many rave about it, but I never cottoned to the thing. However, the more research I do, the more I think the pressure cooker might be a game changer for my cooking style.
If you're a child of the '70s, then you'll probably remember Pop Rocks, those fizzy little candies that created such a buzz. They went out of style in the States for a while, but now they're back with retro status. I was surprised to see them in my kids' Halloween bags a few years ago, and one taste brought me back to my childhood.
Using breadcrumbs in the kitchen is the perfect way to add crisp and crunch to the usual salad, entrée, or dessert. As chef and media personality Mario Batali once said, "There's almost nothing I wouldn't put homemade breadcrumbs on."
There are hundreds of delicious ways to enjoy caramel, from chocolate confections to sticky caramel apples and carnival bags of caramel corn. Caramel might be the special sauce that makes every dessert taste better, but it's also surprisingly simple to make.
A few years ago I went hog-wild trying to achieve a zero-waste lifestyle. I didn't succeed, but the experiment taught me that we throw away things we could—and should—be using more.
The world of spices can be bewildering. They promise to make your food more flavorful if you know how to make the most of them. Unless you know a couple of essential tricks, however, it just seems like you're adding bits of colored powder to your food.
You're in the middle of cooking and a car alarm, cute kitten, or neighborhood brawl made you step away from the stove for a few minutes longer that you should have. It happens to almost every home cook. Most of the time, nothing dramatic happens, but every now and then, you end up with something like this:
Who doesn't enjoy sitting down to a nice dinner with a cocktail in hand? After a long day, a drink is a great way to unwind. Yet your favorite spirits can do more than just help you relax after work. By utilizing alcohol in the kitchen, you can enhance everything from how food tastes to your health.
Chances are that you've been using your microwave just to nuke leftovers, but they can do so much more than heat up last night's dinner—microwaves can help you peel garlic more quickly, get more juice out of lemons, disinfect your kitchen, dry out herbs, give beauty products new life, cause exciting explosions, and even arc weld.
As some of you had asked me to make a video explaining how to order food in Lebanon, this is a video dedicated exactly to doing that :)
Ordering delivery or takeout is an event. Most of the effort is put into actually choosing a joint to order from and figuring out what you want, so when you finally get the food, you don't want to have to worry about anything else—including dishes.
When you come home from the grocery store, you probably put away every single fruit and vegetable in the bins and drawers in your refrigerator. Any fifth grader knows that fridges work to preserve food, thus everything should go in there, right? Nope!
If you look at the label on your favorite processed snack, there's a good chance you have no idea what half the ingredients are. It's nothing new, but with natural and organic foods becoming huge trends, we're hyper-aware of all the "chemicals" we eat.
There is always an easier way to do something whether you want to clean, organize, freshen the smell, get water into a bucket that won't fit in your sink. The same principle applies when cooking. Sure you could cook food in an oven, microwave it, boil it, fry it, cook it with a solar cooker, but there is an easier and inexpensive method.
Have you accidentally been locked out of your mailbox, or lost the key for a cabinet holding all your important documents? For being such small locks, the ones on mailboxes and cabinets can be deceptively difficult. This tutorial shows you how to pick a four cylinder lock easily. You'll need some basic lock picking tools, scaled down to match the small size of the pick. Once you have the right tools and technique down, it's just a matter of being able to get past all the pins.
Purchasing a present for your sweetheart on Valentine's Day is stressful enough. If you go with something too personal - like some expensive Spanx underwear because she always complains about her muffin top - she'll get offended, but if you go with something too cliche and general - like a box of chocolates - she'll think you don't care.
This video tutorial is in the Arts & Crafts category which will show you how to make a faux suede looking card with Stampin' Up! Take the creamy caramel card stock and punch out a large star using the large star punch. Now use the bone folder to curl the star you punched out. Flip the star over and repeat on the other side as well. You will see the edges coming apart. Then peel the star apart and what you will get is a piece of card stock that looks like suede and is really soft. Now you can ...
In this video, we learn how to create a modern bokeh effect in GIMP. First, start a new image and then change it to the size that you want. From here, click on the paint can and then fill your box up with a color. Then, create a new layer and name it "bokeh background". Click on this layer and then use the paintbrush tool to paint a small brush with color onto it. Start to paint on small dots and you will see that there are small tiny star like dots that start to appear. Then, fade these out ...
In this video, we learn how to repair small cracks in wood projects with Bob Schmidt. Even though the cracks are small, they may catch your eye when you walk into the room. You can minimize this with just a little bit of work with a screwdriver. First, grab your screwdriver and rub the middle of it on the corner of two pieces of wood. This will rub out the two pieces without changing the stain on the wood. If you have a missing crack on baseboard, you can do the same thing, which will lessen ...
In this tutorial, we learn how to make verdigris with copper and vinegar. Verdigris is a compound of copper that is blue and powder. You will need: copper metal, vinegar, a big jug, and a small beaker. Now, place the small beaker inside of the jar, then fill the bottom with vinegar. Next, put the piece of copper metal inside of the jar making sure it sits inside the small beaker. Seal this and put it in a safe and dry place. Leave it for a good month, then when you come back you will have a n...
When you live in a small apartment with a nonexistent closet it's easy for organization to go out the window and your shoes and clothes to go anywhere they land after you take them off. But there's a better way to store your shoes, ladies.
You need 5 balloons-2 gray, yellow, black and white and a pump. Inflate yellow balloon leaving 4 inch tail. Knot the end. Alternate sausage bubbles and pinch twists 8 times. This will create two squares. Inflate the black balloon leaving a 2 inch tail. Make 4 small bubbles and 2 flower petals to make wheels. Inflate gray balloon. Leave 5 inch tail. Make 3 small bubbles for hands-twice. Pinch twist. Make small bubbles for the shoulder. Inflate second gray balloon leaving a 5 inch tail. Make 2 ...
Hard drive space is cheap and abundant these days, and it's probably a great time to upgrade to a huge one. Now all you've gotta do is clone all of the data from your old drive to the new one. This video will show you how to use a program called Aconis Migrate Easy to do the whole process quickly and easily.
In this video, we learn how to make bento. First, you will need to purchase small quail eggs from a Japanese market, then place dried seaweed cut into two small circles on the top. Next, cut the middle of the egg with a knife, then pry it open to make it look like a knife. After this, take a small sausage and cut it at the bottom so there are eight pieces hanging, and it looks like a squid. Place an "x" cut out of seaweed on the top and cut the middle to make a mouth. Slice a strawberry while...
