My folks were visiting a few weeks ago, and gave me the chance to escape the house child-free one afternoon. I went down to a local bookstore (a major chain, which shall remain nameless), selected a title of interest, and sat down at their café for a drink. Normally, I tend to order coffee drinks, […]
Cooking is my one claim to domesticity. Ever since I began staying home with my son, I’ve been a fan of baking bread while he naps. It’s a few minutes of effort with a big payoff—fresh, warm bread for dinner. Here’s one of my recent favorites, which mixes entirely in one bowl and produces moist,
Want to try something different than the usual cartoon character on your child’s next birthday cake? Looking for a way to surprise your sweetie on your anniversary? Like the taste of a homemade cake but can’t decorate worth a darn? Icing Images will take a digital photo that you upload and send you a sheet
The LA Times had a nice story about Oxo tools a couple of weeks ago. (Thanks to FOOD Blog for the sighting.) I’ve been a big Oxo fan for years, and was glad to see the coverage. (I’d own all of their products if we weren’t a lesbian family with one stay-at-home-mom, paying federal taxes
Tired of all the recipes in your old cookbooks? Here are a few tips to broaden your options: Go to Google and enter “recipe:” (without the quotes) followed by a space-separated list of the ingredients for which you want to find a recipe. Browse the cookbooks at Amazon.com, and find one with the “Search Inside
I don’t eat a lot of meat. I’d probably be vegetarian if I didn’t live with a carnivore. She’s willing to eat some vegetarian meals, though, and I’ll have fish and chicken once in a while, so we make it work. (Relationships are all about compromise, right?) Very rarely, however (often around the holidays when
If your kids love grilled cheese as much as mine does, you may be interested in the Toastabags from CHEF’s Catalog. Pop a cold cheese sandwich into these woven fiberglass bags, and slip the whole thing into a wide-slot toaster. Voilà! Melted cheese in minutes, and a clean toaster. At least that’s the claim–haven’t tried
Those of you cooking turkeys this holiday season may want to read these tips from Catherine Cutter of Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, on how to avoid Salmonella, Campylobacter, and other bacteria-borne illnesses while preparing and serving the big bird and associated trimmings. If you’re of the vegetarian persuasion, or are hosting vegetarians or
Thanksgiving is almost upon us, so I thought I’d offer a recipe idea: Cranbanero Sauce, a fiery version of the classic condiment. If you like spicy food, and grandma’s lumpy gravy just isn’t doing it for you, try this. Buy a standard 16-ounce bag of cranberries at your local supermarket. Put cranberries, sugar, and water
Eartheasy has some great ideas for one-pot cooking, including “templates” for three different types of dishes: rice, potato, and pasta based. You can adapt them to suit your tastes and leftovers. These are useful for those of us with young kids who need to cook quickly, or those who want to limit the mess when
