Sometimes you just don’t have the time or budget to get fancy with your food, but that doesn’t mean you can’t eat well (and have some fun, too!). We took several popular snacks and other foods — from corn dogs to broccoli to frozen waffles — and found 10 ways to upgrade them with simple additions and garnishes.
Sorry, I blinked and missed 2016 in that way that happens when you’re so deeply in it, you forget to look up. I went from having one kid and a tiny bundle wrapped in a blanket to have two real-live mobile children and they are impossibly cute and exhausting and I wouldn’t want it any other way except for maybe once a week if we can find a babysitter. Like all parents ever, I think my seven year-old says amazing things, such as when he told us this weekend we needed to get our New Year’s Revolutions ready. My 17-month old is a tempest of curls and a blur of frenetic energy and whenever she exhibits, ahem, “low frustration tolerance” people decide this is the perfect time to tell me how much we are alike, not sure what that’s about… Both kids got serious birthday cakes and for once, my husband did alright too. I got to go on a surprise birthday trip to Mexico City without kids (!) and then we went to Portugal with two children, had a great time, and even remembered to bring the same two children home with us. If we can do that, we can do anything, right?
More relevant to this space, Smitten Kitchen turned 10 years old and I wrote some completely earnest stuff about 10 years of food blogging. I also gave a completely terrifying keynote address at a conference. This site was at last redesigned, the culmination of a multi-year and multi-design team effort to release this site from my circa 2006 attempts at CSS. This was a challenge and a life lesson in accepting that sometimes 95% done, at least for websites is good enough. (That said, we tweak things every week. I expect it to be perfect by 5 years from now, precisely in time for the next redesign.) I finished (well 95% again, but not the kind I’m at peace with because I’m the kind of author that gives publishers ulcers) a cookbook and then I let 13 people with cameras and mics and lights wreck havoc on my apartment one day (more soon on both of these). I hosted my first Thanksgiving and also we started having people over almost every other week because have you ever been at a restaurant with a toddler? Suddenly the idea of cooking even for 11 people on the regular is wildly more appealing. I enjoy the results this has had on my cooking, too, figuring out which meals scale easily, can be prepped in advance and accommodate various diets.
Sometimes the difference between getting a hot meal on the table and not getting a hot meal on the table is a clever shortcut. Rotisserie chicken picked up at the supermarket is classic, making it possible to have white rotisserie chicken chili ready in no time. Other shortcuts can be as simple as opening a can of beans for our 10-minute black bean tacos.
Here, a collection of recipes that stand as homage to all the good ways the grocery store helps us put dinner on the table.
Ring in the new year with a sip of something sparkling that will tickle your nose and refresh your palate. Champagne, prosecco, and even non-alcoholic mocktails are a fantastic way to celebrate — and our pitcher versions will make it easy to keep it flowing into 2017!
Shortcuts are great, but only if they produce equally great, if not better, results. From using your microwave to making smart grocery store purchases, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite ways to save time while not sacrificing deliciousness.
From Apartment Therapy → How Much Did Your Marble Countertops Really Cost, and Was it Worth It?
Knowing how to cut your food, and how to eyeball the size and weights of things at the grocery — these little instincts are best taught by looking at examples over and over. This year we helped you educate your eye in the kitchen and at the grocery store.
This collection of visual guides to the five basic cuts (chopped, diced, fine diced, minced, and julienne) and what a pound of 19 different fruits and vegetables looks like will help you to train in a more intuitive and less recipe-dependant style of cooking.
Wine cocktails are a perfect way to add a sophisticated note to your holiday party while also making it easy to create a special themed cocktail for the evening. Many can be made in pitchers, such as our sparkling apple cider sangria, or served up with pretty seasonal garnishes, like our clementine and vanilla cocktail made with a box of white wine.
Cooks, for the most part, are kind and generous people. They tend to want to share the fruits of their kitchen labors with others and express their love and appreciation through feeding people. We support and encourage this at Kitchn, and hope you find inspiration here to practice and express your own version of kitchen kindness.
(Image credit: Lydia Brotherton)
From Apartment Therapy → Make a Fresh Start in 2017: Join the January Cure for Your Best Year Yet