Elaboration on steps in a procedure & ideas to make set up, prep, or clean up easier.
Alliums! Who needs ’em?
Well, just about anyone interested in cooking, that’s who. Across cultures and cuisines, most diets will include some type of edible allium. Pierogi? Stuffed with em. Puttanesca? Better have some on hand. Doro wat night at home? Not if you don’t have alliums. Continue reading “Know Your Alliums!”
If you’ve never had it, I like to describe risotto as similar to macaroni and cheese, but with rice. And fancy add-ins. And less cheese. And a more complicated cooking procedure. So nothing like macaroni and cheese, but an equally satisfying comfort food, and an impressive dish to prepare for company. Today let’s talk about how to make risotto, and discuss some variations that will help you make some leftover magic with this dish.
Rutabaga is not the sexiest of vegetables. It hasn’t experienced a renaissance during these farm-to-table years, as kale, or yams, or spaghetti squash have. But because it was an effective source of dense, caloric starch in northern European diets for centuries before potatoes made their debut, I think it deserves a little love. So today, let’s learn about rutabaga.
There are lots of things you can learn from big, popular food blogs, especially when you’re first learning how to cook. However, there are a few basic lessons conspicuously absent from their indices. You can find a trick for just about every cooking method on the planet, but tell me: do you know how to properly read and execute a recipe?
Continue reading “How to Execute a Recipe”
The best thing about avocados is their versatility. It’s an excellent topping on burgers, tacos, eggs, and grain bowls; you can chop it up in a salad; use it in a vegan dessert; or deep fry it for some crazy game-day appetizers. Whatever you do with avocados, you’re going to have to peel that alligator skin off first. Today I’m going to tell you how to do that, with the fewest messy dishes and bloody kitchen towels possible.
Continue reading “How to Cut an Avocado”
Today, let’s talk about a foundational ingredient in cooking. It just so happens to moonlight as a treatment for numerous ailments, from the common cold to high cholesterol: garlic. You know what garlic is thanks to my post all about alliums. But do you know how to prepare it for use in your kitchen?
Popcorn is the best snack food around, hands down. There are endless combinations of toppings you can add to keep it interesting, and depending on how you cook it, it’s can be rather nutritious! Today, I’m going to share with you the MAGIC, the MYSTERY, and MASTERY of cooking popcorn on the stovetop. Never again will you sit in front of the TV with those microwavable bags, oozing things like “transfats”, “carcinogens”, and probably “gluten”*. Nope, it’s time to learn to do it the old-fashioned way: make stovetop popcorn in your own kitchen.