If you are like me, you are always looking for thoughtful gifts - whether or not they are home made. I like to make home made gifts, but only if I think they will be used and appreciated by the receiver. Here is my first batch for this year! They are quick and easy, and can be dressed up or down. Now is a great time to start them, since they have to sit for at least 2-3 weeks before they can be used. So you could make them now, and they will be perfectly ready by the time they are ready to pretty up and gift!


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For more extract ideas, please visit my blog

I love eating homemade fries but they're so much effort to go to. So now I've started freezing them after the first fry so I can just grab a handful and heat them up whenever I want.

Double-frying the fries gives you a chance to get them soft and crispy at the same time, I highly recommend the extra step. I'm sure they'd be even more delicious with the skin left on. I can also verify that this works amazingly well with sweet potatoes too.

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Hey, I am looking for some help. It is jamming season and I got gooseberries, currents, raspberry and a friend is offering me mulberries.
I was wondering a few things:
1. does anyone have tried and true recipe for any of these berries?
2. has anyone ever used liquid pectin?
3. pectin or not to pectin?
4. does anyone know if I can use a raspberry recipe of jam and just use the mulberries instead?
5. how do you pick your jam recipe?
6. any tips on making jam?

I know it is lots of questions but this my first full season jamming on my own. Last year I did raspberry and turned out the jars never sealed, which means I need as much help as someone is willing to offer me.

thanks alot, this is always my go to place when I want to try something new or need help.

I'm planning to make guacamole as soon as I season and prepare the mortar and pestle I just got. It's the lava rock kind.

Does anyone have one? What do you you it for? I'm so excited to start using it! 

Because I am expecting my first child and pregnancy makes you sentimental, I'm thinking about putting together a "Mom's Cookbook" that I can add to and refine over the years. I've got lots of ideas for recipes, which is important, but I'd also like to include general guidelines for cooking and working in the kitchen. Right now, I'm considering some "laws of the kitchen." These would be general maxims to keep in mind when working in the kitchen.

So, cooking throw in your favorite cooking maxims! Be immortalized in a very small way! Here's a few (not an exhaustive list) that I know I'll be including.

1. Always start with a clean kitchen and (if you have one) an empty dishwasher.
2. Keep your knives sharp! Sharp knives are safer, more efficient, and easier to work with.
3. Work with the freshest, highest quality ingredients available.
4. Buy fewer, higher quality tools. Skip the unitaskers. Splurge on good cookware and good knives first.
5. You can never own too many pairs of tongs.
6. Cook dishes that intimidate you.
7. Budget half an hour longer than you think you'll actually need.
8. Test any recipe before you cook it for guests.

Okay, that's a start. Hit me with your best shot.

I learned a nifty trick today. I was stuck in line in the grocery store today, and was passing time talking about baking with the elderly lady in front of me. She saw I had brown sugar, scoffed and said, "I don't hold with store-bought brown sugar, never have. I make my own!"

Deleting the long, rambling (but really kinda interesting!) life story, what it boils down to is this.

1 c white sugar
2 Tbsp molasses
a whisk

That's it. Just dump the molasses into the sugar, whisk it until the color is mostly even and ta da! Brown sugar.

She went on to say that you don't even need to make it to bake with it; you can just use that ratio in whatever (her example was chocolate chip cookies) and it mixes up just fine. Also, if you want the flavor of other sugary liquids (like sorghum and golden syrup) but not the liquid, you can make that flavor of sugar the same way and then just use it like sugar. You may have to compensate with a bit more flour if you use it like white sugar, but it works.

So now, of course, I'm wondering what other kinds of old-time tips and tricks I'm missing. If you've got one, feel free to share!

I'm new to the world of lentils and the extent of my experience is a simple lentil soup.

But I have a bunch of green lentils (3 or 4 bags) leftover from when I had WIC and when I looked up some of the recipes that use lentils on the community I found that they usually call for red black or yellow lentils.

If I substitute the green for the other varieties of lentils in the recipes will it have a major effect on the outcome? In other words do other lentils have a different consistency I should be aware of and take into consideration?

The two recipes in particular I am considering are lentil burgers and daal. Thanks in advance for this (and past) help!

In the recent months I have taken an interest in making bread. Initially I found it quite hard and rather daunting, despite all the experts proclaiming how very easy it was. Certainly, it's only easy when you already know how.

I wasn't put off and eventually I found success. That was what prompted me to write a set of noobie instructions about making bread, in hopes that it might also help those who would want to start out on this adventure.

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Important thing is practice and don't be afraid to experimenting ^_^

This is a more specific question than just "does anyone have a good recipe for orange chicken in a crock pot?" (Although if you do, please share!)

Mostly, I'm wondering if you have any particular tips on getting a (semi-acidic, non tomato-based) sauce to thicken in a crock pot, without having to take the solid parts of the dinner out and boil the sauce with cornstarch on the stove? The timing involved is usually 6 hours on low, or 2 on high.

Thanks so much!

I came across this post and had to share. I adore my cast iron, but I know a lot of people are leery about it.

Nonstick Cast Iron

February 24th, 2008 Posted in Cooking Accessories

I used to loathe cast iron pans. The only ones I had experience with were neglected, sad ones with rust patches and untold grime. Ugh. And then there was the need to season them first, to not use dish soap on them, to oil them after use, etc. Way too many downsides! Besides, what was wrong with Teflon-coated cheapo pans?

I went through years and years of cheap Teflon in Japan, which is what everyone uses. They’re good for about a year of heavy use, but then just get too scruffy, with the Teflon coming off in flakes (and into the food — yuck).

But replacing pans so often felt so wrong; has anyone ever had that sick feeling of chucking what used to be a perfectly good pan into the garbage?
I gradually began to experiment with all kinds of pans — woks, copper, aluminum, stainless, enameled cast iron, and good old-fashioned cast iron.

* Woks, though incredibly useful and versatile, were difficult to store and took up too much space on my tiny stove.
* Copper is absurdly difficult to care for, as I found out after spending some $300 on a pan and never using it because I couldn’t deal with it.
* Aluminum doesn’t work for me — it feels too flimsy and gets hot spots.
* Stainless is a good choice for many types of cooking; I don’t know how I’d survive without my mighty All-Clad Dutch oven, despite my dig at AllClad in the previous post. But for everyday pans, not for me.
* Enameled cast iron is pretty great; it is essentially just cast iron (and thus very heavy) with a coating applied to it that makes it stick-resistant, and the enameling process makes the pan nonreactive to acids, which is a huge plus. I’m slowly growing more and more impressed with the enameled cast irons pans I’m seeing.

It took me a while to warm up to regular cast iron; After cooking in the kitchen of my friend Lucelle, who only uses cast iron, I was hooked; her pans were truly nonstick — I’ve never seen such nonstick pans! Yes, you can’t use soap on them, she said. Big deal. Just rinse them under very hot water and wipe with a scrubby. And after it’s washed, cast iron needs a few drops of vegetable (or other) oil and a quick wipe with a small corner of paper towel.

What about “seasoning”? Most cast iron pans sold today come preseasoned, but it’s really not a big deal. If you do need to season one, simply pour about a quarter-inch of vegetable oil into the pan and bake it at 375 degrees for about an hour. That’s it! But if you care for it as I described above, this shouldn’t even be necessary. I now cook almost exclusively with cast iron. It’s ideal for cooking meats (the heat is very even, and it retains heat incredibly efficiently), vegetables, eggs, pasta sauces . . . just about everything, really. It also goes from stovetop to oven or broiler beautifully.

For such performance one would expect a pricetag to go with it, but these iron workhorses–which can last for generations–are among the cheapest cookware items you can buy. A ten-inch beauty retails for about $15. I’ve since purchased all the ones photographed above, from the manhole-cover-like 15-incher to the little ramekin-like pots (ideal for baked eggs).

Any other cast iron fans out there? What’s your favorite dish to cook in it?

From The Breakaway Cook

I make roast chicken all the time, but I've never been sure how to break down a raw chicken. So here's a video!



From Gluten-Free Girl

I HAVE A KITCHENAID.

He is orange and beautiful and his name is Clarence.

However, besides the standard bread dough (done several times, all amazing) and stirring batters (spaetzle and cupcakes alrady done) and maybe whipping up meringue or whipped cream (on the agenda), I can't think of how else to use him.

What do you do with your stand mixer, cooking? Is there some complicated thing you would make without it? Is there some recipe that you adore which can come together under the loving mixer paddle? Will he make my pie crusts awesome and flaky, or break down the butter too much and destroy all flakiness?

I've looked at the cookbook he came with, but I'm curious what you all have to say.

Hey folks! My boyfriend's parents got us a 5.3 cu. ft. chest freezer for our (Brooklyn) apartment and we're busy filling it up with good stuff. Later in February, we're going to split half a cow with them and my bf's cousin & his wife. That will roughly be 120lbs of beef for each of the three households. Before that, I would like to start organizing it so we can know what to rotate and not lose stuff in there. Plus, over the course of the next week, I'm planning to do a bunch of batch cooking such as stocks, soups, etc to stick in there for easy meals.

So, I ask, does anybody have a template for freezer list? I know it should be simple enough to make & print it once or 2x/month, but I would like to have a rather efficient way of organizing it. Also, how do folks do a fridge/cupboard or pantry list for themselves? Do you simply list everything, make blank lines to add "We need more of this...", print and tape it to the fridge & cupboards? Or do you make handwritten lists and tape them up? If you have an Excel or Word file, would you mind sharing? I've Googled and am probably not using the right words for this search, "freezer list". Whenever I do find something (a while ago), it seems overly complicated like an entire food matrix or something.

I would like to have these for the new year because it would help immensely to know what's available in our kitchen so we could throw dinners together rather quickly or just meal plan for the week. My boyfriend can be bad about not cooking dinner if I don't initiate at times. He's completely content to eat a bowl of cereal. Since I'm restarting classes in January and running my design business, it would be great to have a bit more control or just plain organization in this area. Any help is much appreciated and thanks so much!

Cross-posted to poor_skills, hip_domestics, cooking


ETA: Also, what kinds of containers do other folks use to organize their chest freezers? I was thinking some deep rectangular containers but how do I easily see what's in each container? Or do we just lift them to get what we want? We have friends visiting us with a car next week, so we're planning to make a run to Brooklyn Ikea. Any suggestions for this are welcome too!

So I may or may not have a hugeeee folder of baking recipes on my computer and a small obsession with baking around the holidays. :) While searching for some new recipes to try, I stumbled across this video on how to best package baked goods if you are mailing them to someone. Most of the advice is common sense, but I still found it helpful, and if anything, validating that I am doing the right things when sending cookies and other yummy items.

Here is the link if anyone is interested:
http://www.bhg.com/videos/m/21907587/pack-ship-cookies.htm

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Hopefully that will answer someone's future questions. :)

Hello everyone! 

First off, I want to thank all of the people in the community for their awesome tips on what to do with my soy project that I posted a few days ago. Also, yesterday I saw a post that someone did about culinary school, and I figured that I would post my questions as well.

I applied for four culinary schools, and I just wanted to know your opinion on each of them, if you have any experience with them and what you think would be the best choice for someone looking to get the best education out of their culinary school choice.

I applied for:

Johnson & Wales University.
Pennsylvania Culinary Institute.
The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College.
The Art Institute of Philadelphia.

I am going for culinary arts, but I'm not sure if I want to do the A.A. or the B.A. in Culinary Management. I also live in northeastern Pennsylvania, and no one at collegehelp could give me any tips because they're primarily a "college/university" type of community rather than trade school. 

Any opinions, advice or tips would be greatly appreciated, and if this isn't allowed, feel free to delete it!

Thank you!

Hi all,
Recently I put in an order through Penzey's spices (amazing place) and decided to buy some cascabel chiles because I vaguely remembered eating "Cascabel Chicken" years and years ago.   I didn't remember to look for recipes before buying (as I rarely use recipes, unless I'm very unfamiliar with an ingredient, and only then I'll just use one or two until I get a feel for how said ingredient can be prepared etc) figuring I could find something later.

For some reason I am having a very tough time finding recipes for this chile!  I've checked google, allrecipes, vegweb and vegetariantimes.com without success.

So now I turn to you, what are your favorite recipes with cascabel chiles? Or any recipe those particular chiles could be subbed into? Or heck, any information about how these little suckers can be prepared (ie if they need to be rehydrated before use etc)

While I am lacto-ovo vegetarian, I have no problem at all (and am quite adept at) changing recipes to fit my dietary habits through modification or substitutions so please don't hesitate to throw any recipe or ideas at me!  (ie, no restrictions)

Thank you so much for any ideas!

En Papillote is a style of cooking that involves wrapping up your food in parchment paper and baking it in the oven. The moisture released from the food as it cooks effectively steams whatever it is you're cooking, keeping the dish moist and tender. Fish does really well en papillote because it cooks fast, and moist fish is delicious.


I did two versions of this dish - one in a Mediterranean style with olives and cherry tomatoes, and another just with lemon and garlic. They were both great! I think this would be a fun thing to serve as a "top your own fish" kind of thing - lots of various ingredients, and everyone chooses what to add to their little personal meal.

To see the recipe and step-by-step photos, check out The Cast-Iron Darling or
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I've run into a problem lots of people are having this time of year: I live in a small apartment, and thus, turning on my oven for long periods of time heats up the entire living space.

I've been trying to think of things to make for dinner that don't require oven time at all, and as little stove-top time as I can get away with. I've made brats with potato salad, au jus sandwiches with salad, and pan bagnat so far. I'm very swiftly running low on ideas, though.

Naturally, the first place I turn is to my fellow cuisine enthusiasts here at cooking. Any suggestions are highly, highly appreciated.

So I think we need to have a discussion post!!

What is your favorite tip, trick, or shortcut that you use in the kitchen? And did you learn it from someone or come up with it?

My favorite is breadcrumbs in the microwave. Take one or 2 slices of bread (more if you need more breadcrumbs) and tear them into quarters. Microwave on a PAPER plate on high for at least 2 minutes. If it's moist, keep microwaving them until they are hard/crunchy but before they start to burn. Then you can crush them with a rolling pin. And now you have breadcrumbs for you recipe without having to run to the store.

After an exciting shopping trip to the West Side Market here in Cleveland and the discovery of this marinara sauce recipe from Giada De Laurentiis, I decide to get out my mandolin slicer to make quick work of the veggie cutting:



Long story short and one emergency room later, my middle finger is now wrapped in medical gauze and my pride is severely damaged. I'm an idiot and sliced off my finger tip, my friends.

So I post to beg and plead to you all: do not use this kitchen utensil of doom without using the safety piece. Please promise me - all of you - because typing is near impossible right now!!! Save your fingers!!!

And dinner you might ask: my husband managed to prepare the AWESOME Ohio City Pasta (spinach flavored and red pepper flavored) with the mild italian sausage we purchased at the Market... with a jar of store bought marinara sauce :)

With apologies to those outside the US NOT celebrating Thanksgiving today, I offer up this website...

From Yahoo! Food... Tips on how to fix gravy.

I hope everyone has a splendid day!