Fresh herbs can be delicate, and it's not always easy to figure out how to cut, crush, or muddle them to make the most of their flavors. Get too rough, and you have a bunch of bruised and muddy-tasting herbs, which is due to too much chlorophyll being released. Don't do enough prep, and the herbs don't release the essential oils and volatile molecules that are the foundation of their flavor.
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.
There are a lot of techniques out there for how to cook the perfect steak, from flipping it multiple times to applying a spice rub or dry brine to aging the beef. But it turns out that there's a super-easy way to make a great steak at home, and all you need is a good cast-iron skillet and some salt.
A dead British science nerd figured out the best way to cut a cake to preserve maximum freshness, and it's pure genius (well, sorta). His name? Sir Francis Galton, a polymath infamously known as the founder of eugenics, and apparently owner of a very big sweet tooth.
While living alone, I grew to enjoy cooking. Not only was it necessary to my existence, but it was cheaper than eating out. One thing I really came to love was garlic, especially its smell. If a recipe didn't ask for it, I added it anyways.
A good cutting board is almost as important as the utensils you use on it. The wrong type can cause your blades to dull faster, and certain materials hold onto juices (and therefore bacteria) from food. You can wash a plastic board with just about anything, but what about wood?
Despite being disgusting, houseflies are actually beneficial to humans in a few ways. As scavengers, they help the environment by eating rotting organic matter, and make great food for pet tarantulas. Regardless of the advantages to their existence, having them in your home can be infuriating. There are countless sprays, traps and devices made to kill or deter the little pests, one of the most common being flypaper that hangs from the ceiling. These sticky strips are incredibly easy to make a...
I'll be honest—I've never been a huge fan of camping. It's not that I have anything against nature, I'm just partial to showering and sleeping in my own bed. In fact, the only part of camping I've ever really enjoyed is sitting around a campfire. Outdoor fires are perfect for socializing and cooking hot dogs, but they're also great at helping remove one of camping's biggest annoyances.
Do you guys remember those things you hold with your fingers to write stuff down? I think they're called pens, or something like that...
Sometimes I forget that I'm also a fiction writer, so I thought it might be a nice change of pace to share one of my stories with you. I wrote this piece awhile ago for an anthology that never came together and I'm tired of just sitting on it.
Open windows movie maker and take any video which has the background of same color. Drag and drop the video on to the time line. Then go to tools > video transitions and take the chroma key and drop it between the two videos. The chroma color should correspond to the background color of the video. After this, save the movie file. To pick the right color for the background, download Debug mode wax. This will help in creating some home videos with special effects.
Arts and Crafts at Camp Watonka demonstrates how to make an easy dream catcher. Tools for the dream catcher include a ring, wax string, leather strips, pony beads, feathers, scissors and craft glue. First, cut a medium-sized piece of string. Tie a knot on the ring. Wrap the string around the ring two or three times and pinch it. Then, move to a different part of the ring and repeat the technique a few times. Add pony beads and feathers to the project. Glue the leather strips all the way aroun...
The better the meat you use, the better your homemade beef jerky will turn out. You will want to go to your butcher and get as good a quality meat as you can afford and have the meat sliced really thin. Beef jerky is a great way to preserve your protein for a snack. This video will show you how to make better beef jerky.
Movember is here, and if you haven't already started growing your moustache, then you still have time. Movember takes place during the entire month of November, and if you haven't figured it out quite yet, it is a portmanteau of the words moustache and November.
Need some help figuring out how to pick the perfect avocado? Learn how with this green grocer's guide. As you might expect, once you know what to look, feel and smell for, the process of selecting ripe avocados is a simple one. So simple, in fact, that this clip clocks in at just 26 seconds. For more information on how to tell when an avocado is ready to be eaten on the day of purchase, take a look.
We've all had to waste what could have been perfectly good cheese when we cut away the outside edges and corners that have dried out. This is caused by moisture being lost when exposed to air so can get the most out of your cheese by wrapping it well when storing.
Kids will get a kick out of this fun and sweet treat. Make these candy sushi ahead of time as a surprise or better yet get the kids to help to create their own colorful snacks. These bite size treats will add a twist to any afternoon snack.
Watch to learn how to replace the filter and lightbulb in a Neff cooker hood. You'll remove and replace a Neff cooker hood filter and a blown cooker hood bulb. Replacement bulbs and replacement filters are common cooker hood spares that need replacing. Banish cooking smells and give your hob light with this cooker hood maintenance video clip.
In the perpetual search for a renewable and convenient energy source, our bacterial friends have once again stolen the limelight.
Home chemistry is great, but what happens when you forget to label your chemicals? How do you know if you turned a clear glass of ammonia into a clear glass of unobtainium? Chemists have a tool for just that.
While augmented reality made more of a cameo appearance during Samsung's official grand unveiling of the Galaxy S10 line-up on Wednesday, it's the company's move into 5G connectivity that has huge implications for AR.
Among consumer brands, cosmetics companies rival furniture retailers as the quickest to adopt augmented reality as a means to help customers visualize how products will look before they buy them.
Being a city dweller does not mean you cannot save the planet — or your food scraps. Climate change and resource management are big issues. Composting in any size space is not only possible, but it gives you a chance to reduce greenhouse gasses and reuse food scraps. Right now, about 40% of all food in the US goes to the landfill. In addition to planning meals and using your food in creative ways to reduce the amount that goes to waste, you can compost.
Are you looking for a little microbe magic? Think composting. Composting is a great way to reuse food and plant waste that you would otherwise throw into the trash, which would just end up in a landfill somewhere. During the composting cycle, microbes reduce this organic waste until it can be fed back into the soil as rich, crumbly compost. When returned to the soil, compost feeds plants and improves the nature of life underground. Sound like a great idea? It is — and it's easy.
There may be no other crustacean with as many names as the crawfish: crayfish, crawdad, crawdaddy, mudbug, Florida lobster, spiny lobster, rock lobster, and freshwater lobster (to name a few). But no matter what you call it, there's no denying that it's a popular delicacy in the South and beyond.
Sometimes the idea of cooking fish, especially for a group of guests, can be intimidating. There's the fear of the fish not cooking right, or sticking to the pan or grill. And even if you cook it right and the fish doesn't stick, you're left with the inevitable fishy-smelling cleanup. Not fun!
As a child, you probably spent some time trailing an adult at the grocery store. You lovingly eyed the aisle with brightly colored fruit snacks, reaching for the tempting boxes, placing them discreetly in the cart only to be told, "No! That's JUNK FOOD. You can't have it."
Peanut butter cookies may not have as big a fan base as their chocolate-chip counterparts, but their distinct flavor is loved by many a cookie enthusiast.
Mashed potatoes are a reliably tasty side dish, but they can definitely get a little boring sometimes. So if you're looking for that extra 'oomph' that goes beyond the classic butter and salt seasoning, try infusing your next batch with the flavor of baked potato skins.
We've both had a fondness for pancakes since we were kids; The way the smells of syrup and warm batter permeated the kitchen and lingered for hours drove us crazy—and still does.
Chicken and waffles are so yesterday. Well... it's not that we won't always love them, but it's time to move on to bigger and better things, such as the pizza waffle.
There are myriad wrong ways to cut an onion, a few right ways to cut an onion (including this one)... but only one ultimate way to dice onions, and that's what I'll be sharing with you today.
I was fortunate enough to be visiting one of my college classmates in Columbus, GA last spring and saw two large bags of onions in his kitchen... but not like the ones you get at the grocery store. Two standing 50 lb. bags!
I love making everything from scratch, but some things are just easier to buy. So there are times when you have to find a creative way to split the difference. For me, the easiest dish to buy without compromising on flavor is cornbread mix.
Garlic is magical. It fends off vampires (or so I hear), helps lower blood pressure, reduces the production of cholesterol in the body... oh, and it's also freaking delicious, of course. Garlic is a culinary staple in countries all over the world. That lovable stink and sharp bite of flavor are essential to many dishes we know and love today, from spaghetti to sesame chicken.
Any other person can make plain pancakes... but only the most awesome of cooks can make stuffed pancakes. Luckily, this isn't a tough technique—in fact, it's so easy that you'll find yourself getting bored of the run-of-the-mill pancakes and dreaming of all the things you can stuff pancakes with, instead.
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.
Sadness won over the worried world with her downtrodden, mopey attitude in Inside Out, the widely popular animated film from Pixar and Disney. She's relatable, helping us to connect with all of our bouts of tears, sour attitudes, and blue feelings—and this Halloween, you can embody Sadness with this easy DIY makeup tutorial via Rotoscopers.
When summer rolls around, I think of two things: grilling and ice-cold beverages. To me, nothing beats loading up the grill with charcoal, letting the smell of smoke get stuck to your clothing, and imbibing the most refreshing drink you can find.
Aren't the weekends extra special when they include a bacon, egg, and pancake breakfast? We call it "Lazy Sunday" for a reason. Actually, who needs it to be a weekend? Monday it is!