Advertising a beer as “bottle-conditioned” might sound like a clever marketing ploy – after all, couldn’t every beer sold in a bottle technically be thought of as bottle-conditioned? Well, it turns out that this particular feature is more than just fancy words!
Now that we’ve learned the secret to easy weeknight polenta, we’ve been making it a lot more often. One pot is really more than enough for dinner, so we usually stretch it into two meals. Besides, something really special has happened to the leftover polenta by the next evening!
We still had dishwashers on the brain when we spotted an article in the New York Times over the weekend giving some stern advice for using our dishwashers more efficiently. Think you know how to wash your dishes? The article’s author makes a strong argument that we’re probably all doing it wrong!
A handful of lentils is perfect for rounding out a soup or making a salad just a little more filling. They come in brown, green, red, and all shades in between, and we love trying a new kind whenever we come across one! Ever wonder if the color or specific variety really makes a difference?
We can’t count the number of times we’ve merrily left the house only to be struck an hour or two later with the sudden thought, “Did the oven get turned off?” The worry that we left it on plagues us until we finally get home and dash to the kitchen to find…yup. We did! Here are a few tricks to help us all stop fretting!
Whether or not you agree that doughnuts might be the new cupcake, you have to admit that these delicious doughnut recipes cropping up all over the place are mighty tempting! So tempting, in fact, that this might be what finally gets us to try deep frying at home. Just take a look at these recipes!
Q: I love to bake fresh bread and aspire to the tall, fluffy loaves in bakery windows. However, whenever I cover the rising dough with a towel, after it’s risen it will inevitably stick to the towel and deflate immediately. I’ve tried sprinkling the dough with flour but it seems to soak right into the dough.
Any tips for bakery-window-worthy bread loaves?
Sent by Lauren
To anyone who has ever endeavored to shed a few pounds following the Weight Watchers regime, this one is for you. These cards are a peek at what your program would have looked like a few decades ago – complete with witty and irreverent commentary from the woman who found the cards in her mom’s basement.
Or as we like to call them: flatulas (giggle). We picked up one of these super useful spatulas at Williams-Sonoma a few months ago and it has become so widely used in the kitchen that we’re thinking of heading back to buy a second one. This is a case of utensil-love, pure and simple.
Cupcakes may never truly fade from popularity, but lately they seem to have gotten some competition for most-loved snack food. Doughnuts are on the scene! Reviews of crazy new doughnut flavors and tutorials for making them at home have been sprouting up all over the place. Have you noticed?
Now mint is a truly interesting herb, but it’s so common that you might not think so! Just think about what a strong distinct flavor it has, and then think about all the dozens and dozens of dishes in which mint is perfectly at home. How is it that mint has become so universal?!
We’ve been playing around with risotto recipes lately, and we think we’ve hit a winner. This dish is rich with smoky-sweet flavors, and we love the chewy bits of sausage and soft red pepper in each bite of creamy rice. We can’t wait to curl up with a bowl of this and a good book when we get home tonight!
We have to be very careful not to have leftovers whenever we make a batch of crème anglaise, otherwise we find ourselves sneaking spoonfuls whenever we pass the fridge. Also called English or stirred custard, this is a rich sweet sauce perfect for drizzling over fruit, a slice of warm cake, or heck, even pancakes!
We just caught these two beers on the tail end of their seasonal availability, but they were so very good that we couldn’t not tell you about them! If you see either one in stores, pick up a pack or three. You can thank us later!
The thing about the junk drawer is that…well, it’s the junk drawer. Things find their way in there because they don’t really have anywhere else in the kitchen to be. And frankly? We think that’s ok! But just because it’s the designated junk drawer doesn’t mean it can’t be an organized junk drawer! Here are a few ideas to help.
What do you do when you have a large group of people coming over for dinner and everyone wants something a little different? (Big family gatherings, we’re talking to you!) Well, there is a way to make everyone happy without going insane yourself. We call it the dinner buffet bar!
Crusty on the outside, chewy and soft in the middle – what’s not to love about baguettes?! It’s hard to get a truly authentic French baguette in our home ovens, but we can get mighty close. Try this method for shaping baguette loaves with any favorite bread dough recipe – even the no-knead bread dough works quite well!
Are biscotti a dessert…or an afternoon snack? We’ve never been able to decide, so we just have them for both! Biscotti can be anything you want them to be – healthy with dried fruit, sweet with a chocolate chunks, or even caffeinated with a little espresso powder. Here are a few recipes that have tempted us recently!
We’ll give you a few hints: flour and water were the primary ingredients, we employed this technique while making them, and they eat a lot of these in Paris. Oops, did we give too much away?
Say hello to our favorite new kitchen tool! Seriously! We were skeptical when a friend first gave us a set of these microwave cooking covers, but they have quickly gone into daily use in our kitchen. Ironically, the place we most use them is not in the microwave.