Rather than reaching for aspirin the next time a headache strikes, try grabbing a drink of lemonade instead. Not only can it help ease your head pain, but it can also help relieve stress, anxiety, and depression. But not just any old lemonade will do the trick—reach for the lavender lemonade.
You've heard the old saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Well, the same goes true for snow. When Mother Nature dumps loads of the white stuff onto your neighborhood, then make the most of it with treats like maple snow candy, snow ice cream, and snow cocktails.
There are certain foods and beverages that can actually brighten your smile or improve your dental health when you chew or sip them. Once you understand their chemical properties or textures, you can look to items you already have in your cupboards or refrigerator to help keep your teeth looking and feeling their best.
Dulce de leche is a beautiful, caramel-like spread that you can slather onto bread or use to flavor cakes, cookies, or flan. You can also use it as a drizzle for ice cream, chocolate candies, and pastries. It tastes like heavenly toffee, translates roughly to "milk candy," and is popular all over Latin and South America. A version of the confection is also popular in the Philippines, in Russia, and is known in France as "confiture de lait." The traditional way to make dulce de leche is to slo...
Coffee is one of the world's most popular drinks, and its fans are also usually devoted to a certain method of brewing. Some love the Keurig, others the French press, and still others swear by cold brewing. However, one of the oldest and easiest ways to brew coffee is also one of the best. If you love coffee, you should really think about getting a Turkish ibrik (also known as a cezve).
Having someone send you flowers will almost always lift your spirits. Wilting, dying flowers, on the other hand, aren't so great to look at and smell even worse. While there are time-honored tricks to keep flowers alive longer (change the water regularly, put a penny in the bottom of the vase, and cut stems diagonally are three that come to mind), it turns out that a few items in your kitchen are pretty useful at making sure those blooms stay perky.
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:
Baking soda is a powdery miracle. Not only is it the secret ingredient to making mashed potatoes fluffy, it can help you make authentic-tasting soft pretzels at home and caramelize onions in half the time. It's actually got lots of surprising uses you might not know about, and one of them is that a pinch or two can correct sour and bitter tastes in your food.
The best sangria I ever had in my life was made by a Spanish friend for my birthday party. The ingredients included a giant box of Franzia red, one bottle of Bombay Sapphire Blue, one cup of sugar, a liter of 7-Up, and some cinnamon sticks. She put everything but the 7-Up in a giant zinc bucket from Home Depot and insisted that it had to sit overnight so the flavors could blend (and so the Franzia wouldn't taste so, well, Franzia-ish).
The debate over whether to deep-fry or roast a Thanksgiving turkey can get pretty heated. Both have their merits, but it's hard to argue with that crispy, golden brown skin and moist texture that the fryer gives. But what's better than a deep-fried turkey?
How many of us actually drink enough water? It's one of the easiest ways to improve your health, but most people don't get nearly as much as they should. We've grown so accustomed to soda, coffee, and sugary juices that water just seems bland by comparison. That's why drinks like VitaminWater are so popular. They're marketed as being just like water, but better tasting and with even more vitamins, minerals, electrolytes, and antioxidants. Who wouldn't want all the benefits of drinking water a...
It's always a good idea to have a pack of mints on hand, especially right after a cup of coffee or a lunch made with loads of garlic. Whether you're going on a date, to the dentist, or to an interview, bad breath is a major faux pas and totally avoidable. Simply pop a mint! But not just any old mint — homemade ones not only freshen your breath but can give you a sense of pride every time you need one.
To add flavor and moisture to your chicken, beer can chicken can allow you to cook a whole chicken on the grill. This tutorial outlines how you can do it to get moist, flavorful chicken. It also ensures that your meat cooks evenly. To begin, combine 1 teaspoon of sugar and salt, 1 1/2 teaspoons of paprika, 1 teaspoon of ground black pepper, 1/2 teaspoon of onion powder, 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder, and 1/2 a teaspoon of cayenne powder. Stir these ingredients together. Next, rinse your chick...
Sugar (a carbohydrate) is dehydrated with concentrated sulfuric acid. Since a carbohydrate was once considered just hydrated carbon, if you remove the water, carbon would be left over. The acid rips the water out of the sugar and the heat generated by this reaction causes the water to turn to steam. A black mass of carbon is produced.
This is an easy recipe to make delicious sugar glazed carrots with caraway seeds. All you need is carrots, caraway seeds, butter, sugar, and a touch of water.
Learn how to make edible sugar glue using household items. Cool sugar art video.
The best chemistry experiments are those you can perform with items already laying around your house. With only some sugar, salt substitute and an instant cold pack, you can make your very own gunpowder! Being able to make homemade gunpowder without a trip to the store can be a lifesaver, no matter if it's just for testing out a Civil War-era musket, blowing up stubborn tree stumps, or preparing for battle when imperialists overrun your country.
Impress everyone by bringing a beautiful homemade tart to the next celebration. You can use seasonal berries or even other fruits to create a colorful and flavorful dessert that will make any occasion seem extra special. With its rich pastry cream and tangy fruit wrapped in a flaky, buttery shell, the fruit tart is a classic dessert. Make this version with one or more of your favorites berries.
Try this delicious recipe for tomato chutney, Indian style. Watch this how-to video and learn how simple it is to make. It goes great with just about any Indian recipe you make.
You can make this delicious vegan Moroccan chickpea stew. It serves six and requires only 10 minutes for preparation time and cooks in about an hour.
Video: . Step by Step Video
Sprinkles are a gateway to excitement, whether it's a birthday party with friends or an ice cream sundae by yourself. It may seem like these colorful creations can only come from the grocery store, but it's actually pretty easy to make beautiful sprinkles in your own kitchen.
The headline above may have some spice addicts shaking their heads, but, believe it or not, there are people out there who either don't like or can't handle a ton of spice.
Besides being one of the super nutritious "superseeds," chia seeds also absorb liquid and then take on a jelly-like texture. These properties make chia seeds the perfect hack for an easy, healthy jam compared to the normal jam-making process—which usually requires lots of sugar, pectin, and boiling for thickening.
Oven space is scarce on that fated fourth Thursday of November. Even if you can find a spare space for pumpkin pie on the bottom shelf, you risk turkey drippings overflowing from above and ruining your beautiful dessert — not to mention a burnt crust from different temperature requirements. The bottom line is: oven real estate is valuable, and it's tough to multitask cooking for Thanksgiving when every dish requires baking or roasting.
Step aside, vodka—whiskey will soon be the best-selling hard liquor in the United States. The whiskey renaissance has been largely attributed to the current trend for locally- and artisan-produced goods. Local whiskey distilleries are rapidly increasing in number across the nation while bars in every state are including the old-fashioned cocktail on their menus in an attempt to capitalize on the trend (which we can probably thank Mad Men for).
Did you know that cookies are one of the most popular holiday desserts? Sugar cookies in particular are so easy to make and easy to decorate. They are the perfect treat for your office, friends, and family…or just yourself!
The idea of a no-churn ice cream seems like the ultimate dessert hack. But, in fact, this concept has been around for at least the past 100 years in what Italians call semifreddo.
No one wants to appear stupid. Whether you rely on lengthy, complicated vocabulary to show your smarts, or enjoy highlighting your speedy mental math skills, everyone prefers emphasizing intelligence over hiding it.
French toast is one of those things that everybody kind of knows how to make, but few people know how to do really well. And while the dish originally does hail from France (its original name, pain perdu, means lost or wasted bread), it has become a beloved American breakfast dish.
The paper towel is a wondrous invention. It allows cooks to wipe up really gross stuff without having to constantly do laundry and drain fried foods so they're crunchy and crispy instead of oily and heavy. But did you know that your humble paper towel has several other uses besides the obvious ones? Read on to find out these essential hacks.
Biting into a perfectly ripe mango is living proof of nature's goodness. The flesh is at once creamy, smooth, tart, and sweet. Plus they're incredibly good for you.
You probably already know that cooking involves a ton of chemistry. Bread rises because of the reaction between the flour and leavener, and the delicious crust on your steak is formed by the Maillard reaction. Understanding the chemistry going on behind the scenes is one of the best ways to improve the quality of your food—it's much easier to fix a problem when you know what's causing it.
Cooking may be an art, but baking is a science. It requires precise measurements since the outcome is based on chemical reactions. Using too much or too little of one ingredient can be the difference between perfect, crunchy-yet-chewy cookies and the dreaded "one big cookie." That's why frozen cookie dough and pre-made bread and cake mixes are so popular. They're easy to throw together, and pretty much guarantee success every time. But what if you're feeling so lazy that you don't even want t...
Here's a technique I used to whip up a batch of super cheap and easy to make smoke flares! WARNING: Ignition of an incendiary or explosive material may not be legal in your area, so check local laws before attempting. Use of this video content is at your own risk.
Kids have an infamous reputation for thinking vegetables are icky. After all, when compared to more fatty and grease-loaded foods like Hot Cheetos and french fries, it seems veggies just taste too...healthy. Which is apparently not a good thing in the eyes of a sugar and salt-obsessed child.
In order to prepare and decorate a Wildlife Safari Cake, you will need to pre-prepare royal icing and a pre-made cake.
In this video, we learn how to make wholemeal pizza at home. You will need: 3 c wholemeal flour, 1 tbsp yeast, 1 pinch of salt and sugar, small amount of olive oil and 1 1/3 c water. First mix all dry ingredients together, then add oil and water little by little until it makes a dough and everything is well mixed together. Now, flour your hands and your surface and place the dough on top of it. Knead the dough until it is a dough consistency. Now place the dough into a bowl and put a damp clo...
Mongolian flank steak starts by making a marinade from one half teaspoon sugar, one teaspoon corn starch, one tablespoon of vegetable oil, one table spoon of soy sauce, one teaspoon of rice wine, and one teaspoon of sesame oil. Stir up the marinade. Cut a three quarter pound flank steak into pieces about one quarter of an inch thick. Put the meat in the marinade and chill it in a refrigerator for one hour. Cut a bunch of green onions into one and a half to two inch pieces. For the sauce, take...
Karen Solomon shows how to make bacon. You need 2 1/2 to 3 pounds of pork belly with no skin or bone. Rinse the belly with water and pat really dry. Mix ingredients for cure which includes 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses, 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper, 2 tablespoons kosher salt and 1 teaspoon curing salt. Curing salt may be obtained at local butcher shop or online at Sausage Maker. Curing salt helps preserve the color of the bacon and ensures no spoilage. Mix ingredients un...
