The Best $5 You’ll Ever Spend in the Kitchen — Tool Tips from The Kitchn

Usually when we gush about our kitchen tools, it’s about something grand and powerful. We sing the praises of our Vitamix, stand mixer, and pressure cooker — the tools we probably spent more on than we really wanted to; the ones we invested in; the ones that really lived up to their price tag.

And while those are certainly great, sometimes really special tools also come with a really low price tag.

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ugly but good cookies

ugly-but-good cookies

I am, as ever, a sucker for a recipe with a great name. Bring me your grunts, your bundts, your fools, slumps and sonkers. Take me across the pond and let me feast on jammy dodgers, bubble and squeak, rarebit and rumbledethumps. I hope you know it’s only a matter of time until we take in some scrumptious nun’s farts. And so, for no reasons other than an inherent fascination with great food names plus egg whites to use up after a batch of these evil things, I turned my attention this week to the brutti ma buoni (meaning “ugly but good”), an egg white cookie the hails from Prato, Italy.

what you'll need
nooooow they're toasted enough

In this age of Pin-able envy, lifestyle aspiration, and “elevated” anything (living rooms, personal brands, and soups, apparently) I find it delightfully direct that we get to call these misshapen, homely beige blobs exactly what they are. Everyone knows the prettiest pastries — too glassine and brightly colored, not a dot of royal icing out of place — are the most suspicious, and often the least tasty. Ugly baked goods are, to me, like the one out-of-place item on a restaurant menu, irresistible because it couldn’t be there for anything but the fact it must taste really good.

a rough grind

… Read the rest of ugly but good cookies on smittenkitchen.com


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Garlic Chicken with White Wine Sauce

Garlic Chicken

Do like garlic? Do you like chicken? Then you’ll love garlic chicken, a classic recipe of chicken parts that have been browned in olive oil, then cooked with white wine and garlic. It’s also known as “40 Clove Chicken” because that’s how many garlic cloves you’ll use to make the dish.

So, crazy right?

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10 Ways to Reset Your Kitchen for the New Year — Tips from The Kitchn

Every January I clear the decks from the madness of the holiday season. All of the cookie-baking, latke-frying, and meat-roasting is work, after all, and even though I diligently clean as I go, this busy season takes a toll. For me, clearing the decks means putting away the cake stands, bundt pans, and the big roasting tray. I do the usual kitchen deep clean, but there are a few other ways I like to really start the year fresh — and they have nothing to do with the things I’m cooking or eating.

Snap on a pair of dishwashing gloves and tackle these 10 ways to show your kitchen some love to help it recover from a busy season. This is the kind of cleaning to ensure you’re ready for whatever cooking adventures the new year brings.

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10 Delightful Dumpling Recipes to Make Right Now — Recipes from The Kitchn

Stuffed, steamed, fried, or boiled — dumplings can be anything from a quick snack of stuffed wonton skins to the topping on a wintery dish of sautéed greens. And yes, we’re adding gnocchi to the mix here as well because — as far as definition goes — it fits the description of “a small ball of savory dough.”

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12 of My Favorite Whole30 Recipes — Adventures in Whole30

This week I’ve been dishing up all the things I’ve learned while doing Whole30, starting with an overview of my experience, and giving you my best shopping tips and tricks. Now that you know the basics of the plan, and have some tips on shopping smart, it’s time to focus on some recipes! Here are some of my favorite recipes that also happen to be Whole30 legal! This food is totally not boring.

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A Brief Guide to the Scariest (But Most Amazing) Tool in Your Kitchen — Tool Tips from The Kitchn

One of my favorite kitchen tools is the mandoline, a super-sharp slicer that is admittedly quite intimidating with its razor-like blades and wobbly stance. But at the same time, it is so useful that I’ve overcome my fear of potential blood loss and gone on to embrace this hardworking appliance. Yes, the mandoline is scary, but it actually doesn’t have to be if you follow a few tips.

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My Whole30 Shopping Survival Guide — Adventures in Whole30

Yesterday I shared a comprehensive peek into my Whole30 experience. We covered the basics, but now let’s talk about one of the most important parts of the experience: grocery shopping.

I put together a survival guide with some tips and tricks I’ve learned along the way. I’m going to share my shopping tips, with ways to mind your budget and cut costs, plus a few hacks to simply make life easier if you decide to follow this program. Let’s do this!

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