If you’re a coffee enthusiast, you’ve probably looked into roasting your own coffee beans at some point or the other. Well, Tim Eggers is a coffee nut and he used $10, a soup can, and a drill to jury-rig his own coffee bean roaster, now that’s cool!
• Read the full post at Unplggd
When Sybylla renovated her treasured 19th century Queen Anne Boston home, she made some bold choices. She wanted to preserve the character and beauty of her old home, but also bring in modern functionality and treat the house as a space to be lived in, not just admired. You can see this combination most clearly, perhaps, in her kitchen!
Reader Mr. P. sent along this super-easy, super-quick, no-ice-cream-maker-required frozen treat, and we love it!
He calls it “Glittering Raspberry Kulfi,” and it’s a version of Indian kulfi. Kulfi is a very easy frozen treat; it’s usually quite dense, as compared to regular ice cream, so it doesn’t require air to be whipped in by an ice cream maker.
Q: We are moving into a rental home that has no pantry and no coat closet. There is some space for a free-standing shelving unit along one wall, but I don’t really want all of our food out in plain view. I also don’t want to spend a fortune on a free-standing pantry unit since we aren’t going to live here forever.
I’ve tried to get creative with my Google searches, but finding solutions for no pantry isn’t as easy as I thought! Any suggestions?
Sent by Nikki
What is a convection oven, and what does it do? Is it really that helpful in the kitchen? It’s very simple, really: It’s all about the fan.
One of our favorite treats in early spring is new potatoes! Teeny-tiny potatoes are showing up in the markets, and we love them when they’re extra-small. They roast in a flash and have a creamy, delicate flavor.
This past weekend my kitchen got a facelift: New lighting! We removed the old, barely functional, and extremely ugly fluorescent lighting fixtures under the cabinets, and replaced them with new xenon light strips. How did it go, and how do they work? Well, there are pros and cons to the new lighting; here’s a look at both.
We’re really fascinated by this Japanese version of cheesecake — it’s a delicate cross between cheesecake and spongecake.
Q: My grandmother’s birthday is coming up and this year I know exactly what to get her. She’s been looking for a three-layered cake rack, like you use for tea. She would really like one with removable plates so that it would be easier to wash.
I’ve found some like this, but they are super modern with chrome and straight lines. My grandmother loves more traditional things. Do you have any good ideas of where I might find one? I’m dying to have a spring tea!
Sent by Emily
We are huge fans of Mollie Katzen and her Moosewood Cookbook, so we were delighted to see this quick Q&A with Mollie at Lisa Cericola’s weblog, Dinner Party. Lisa’s dinner party series asks authors and chefs what they served at their last dinner party! See Mollie’s answers, and find out who she’d invite to dinner, and what she’d serve for dessert.
Many of us are all for composting, even if we don’t have a lick of outdoor space to call our own. Some have the luxury of slightly larger kitchens or cabinet space, but others are doing good if they can open their oven and refrigerator doors at the same time. If your kitchen feels a little small, here are five places to place a compost bin!
• Read the full post at Re-Nest
A snapshot of Curees’ progress from our Kitchen Cure Flickr Pool: Kitchen Cure participant windowshoppinginpjs shows us her freshly clean tile grout. She says: “After my husband pooh pooh’d our grout cleaning efforts, I showed him the before picture and he agreed it was indeed cleaner.” Yay! We love deep cleaning week!
Corned beef, cabbage, and other Irish-American food traditions will be out in full force tomorrow — it’s St. Patrick’s Day! Are you eating Irish food tomorrow? If so, here are some great recipes from our archives — from soda bread to chocolate Guinness cake to beer floats, some traditional (and not so traditional).
We have a thing for natural-looking wood in the kitchen and on the dining table. These salt and pepper sets from Amenity Home really suit our style; they are so lovely!
St. Patrick’s Day is tomorrow, March 17! Do you have your corned beef all ready to go? How about your potatoes and cabbage, and your Guinness too? Well, just in case you want a little fresh inspiration for St. Patrick’s, today we’re tweeting some fun and more offbeat suggestions throughout the day.
So follow us as we tweet 10 good ideas for St. Patty’s Day every hour from 9 until 6. Tweet back your own favorite recipes for this excellent holiday as well!
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A snapshot of Curees’ progress from our Kitchen Cure Flickr Pool: Kitchen Cure participant meghan_e shows us her neatened-up pantry. What a great storage spot! And so neat, too. (See the BEFORE photo here.)
This time last year we had lots and lots of good recipes — we were cooking everything from spring greens pesto to brunch eggs with pork to slow-cooked shredded pork with hoisin sauce and Asian cabbage slaw. We were also cooking Cream of Wheat (with an extra couple ingredients), Nigella Lawson’s chocolate Guinness cake, DIY corned beef, vegetarian Guinness stew, and more! Read on for these recipes and more good posts from this time last year.
Q: How do you calibrate an oven? We got a new one when we moved into our apartment, and when I got an oven thermometer, it turned out it was about 50 degrees off.
Thoughts on the best way to address this? It’s TINY, but it also significantly hotter at the back than the front. I’m not sure how to deal with this either.
Sent by MaryWynn
Q: This past week I grabbed something I’d never even heard of before: A jar of adobo paste.
I looked at the ingredients, but that didn’t do much to clue me in. I gather it’s used for Southwestern and Latin American cooking, but I’m super unfamiliar with that type of cuisine. I’m always up for the challenge of learning a new family of dishes, though. Are there any simple or basic recipes to get me used to the flavor and usage?
Sent by Bailey P.
If you’re still scratching your head over what to do with anti-oxidant powerhouse Goji berries, try Social Workout’s recommendation: Steep them in water for a tangy, refreshing juice. Sounds yummy!