4.76 / 5 Stars | 74 Reviews
by JTRAMMELL
“This is a great cocktail sauce recipe straight from the heart of the Rockies (Aspen, Colorado), via Cape Cod. The tequila gives it a good kick! This recipe yields a large amount, you may want to half or quarter it.”
Fermented foods like kimchi, kefir, and kombucha are zooming up the popularity charts — why? Health and taste. Many eat fermented foods for the probiotic benefits, but beyond those, these foods are powerhouses of flavor — spicy, sour, tangy, bright and energizing.
Today we have five recipes that take fermented foods beyond the condiment bottle and that show you how to cook with them in ways that sing with flavor.
4.3 / 5 Stars | 10 Reviews
by Denise
“This is a great syrup for pouring over gingerbread, but it is wonderful on almost anything. For best flavor, poke holes in the cake with a fork before pouring syrup.”
I’ve spent the past couple weeks doing a fair amount of research on making kombucha. It’s a drink that I have very little experience with, and yet, I feel totally excited about the prospect of making my own. Arming myself with these helpful tips made this once-intimidating process feel totally doable.
4.58 / 5 Stars | 10 Reviews
by mom2dylan&morgan
“Brown rice simmers with salsa, tomatoes, and garlic for a flavorful and wholesome spin on Spanish rice.”
As a kid, pancakes weren’t pancakes without the good stuff. And by the good stuff, I mean real maple syrup — not that artificially flavored, corn syrup-laden imposter. We’d pick up a big jug in the spring and it would last us through the year, for special weekend breakfasts and early morning oatmeal.
Now, as an adult, my pantry isn’t fully stocked unless there’s a bottle of maple syrup in it. But lately I’ve discovered that just one bottle won’t cut it. That’s because maple syrup is not just maple syrup — there’s a whole rainbow to discover.
Does anybody else remember when Fig Newtons were considered a healthy snack, probably because they contained dried fruit? I remember not liking that my mom bought them instead of Oreo cookies, at least until I tasted them — and then I was converted. Here’s my homemade version with a sunny apricot-and-orange filling, all enveloped in a soft cookie dough.
Germany has sauerkraut, Thailand has naem (fermented pork sausage), Sweden has surströmming (fermented herring) — it seems every culture has its own traditional fermented food. And with good reason: Research suggests these foods are nutritional powerhouses, and fermentation has also been found to break down poison in foods, like cyanide in cassava.
Beyond their alleged health benefits, though, fermented foods are also delicious and useful in building tasty meals. We all know this — but have you committed yet? Here are five classic yet freshly popular fermented foods to add to your ingredient repertoire, if you haven’t already. They’re all mostly a little more accessible than, say, Iceland’s hákarl (rotten shark).
There’s the age-old argument about the best option for cleaning dishes: dish cloths, sponges, or dish brushes. My friend still defends her grandma’s crocheted cloths — you know the ones I’m talking about? — but dish brushes, hands down, are the most hygienic option. Unlike dish cloths (basically petri dishes for bacteria) or even sponges, which have pockets where bacteria can grow, the synthetic bristles of dish brushes shed moisture so they don’t harbor bacteria or develop any offensive odors. Plus, they’re easy to clean — here’s how.
Meal kits are certainly convenient, and they’re also not as wasteful as you might think, but are they ever a good deal? To find out how meal-kit costs compare to traditional groceries, I ordered kits from Green Chef, Purple Carrot, and Hello Fresh, and then I went shopping for the same ingredients at the supermarket.
Here’s what I discovered about the differences in cost between meal kits and the groceries it would take to replace them — it surprised me, and may surprise you too.
