Everybody knows that Brooklyn has made a huge comeback in real estate, restaurants and the cocktail scene. It’s only fitting this old school sip, named after the popular New York borough, is also showing face again.
When you think about making your meals taste better, or becoming a better cook, what presents itself to your mind? Do you wish you had the money to splurge on luxurious ingredients like really high-end olive oil and aged cheese? (Personally, I wish I had a white truffle perched on my windowsill all the time.) Or do you wish you could go to culinary school and learn the fine arts of French cooking?
All of these things are well and good, but there are so many ways you can improve your cooking right now, without spending a dime. Here are 14 absolutely free ways to take your cooking up to the next level.
The subject of this post might seem a bit strange to you: Aren’t the best apples to eat out of hand just the ones you like the taste of? While that’s true, if you’re looking to branch out of your regular rotation of apples, here’s a list of other delicious varieties you can try!
I always gravitate toward the cheese platter at buffets or cocktail parties. Who doesn’t like cheese, sweet grapes, and maybe a few slices of prosciutto or salami? While there’s zero cooking involved in a putting together a cheese platter, here’s one tiny tip about the best way to serve that big cluster of grapes that makes a big difference.
3.93 / 5 Stars | 8 Reviews
by LaDonna
“This hearty soup recipe using a slow cooker combines mixed dried beans with tomato sauce, chopped carrots, celery and low fat smoked sausage seasoned with onion powder and minced garlic.”
This is the soup my one-fourth Mexican mother used to make all the time and for that reason alone, it is authentic to me. Yes, go to Mexico and you will have a pretty different soup, but this is the way she fed me as a child, and so it is how I make it today. It has a lot to do with using up leftovers.
Last week was my final week of culinary school. For the past 12 weeks I’ve learned so many things, from basic vegetable prep, to stocks, fish, meats, and pastry. I learned an incredible amount in the short time period, and could not be more thankful and enthusiastic about the whole experience.
Here are the top ten things I learned in culinary school. Some of these things are easily teachable (like quartering a chicken), while other things like reading recipe simply require a good teacher or time in the kitchen.
I have spent most of my egg-eating life doing everything in my culinary power to avoid getting texture of any kind on my eggs. Even the smallest amount of a wire-like edge to a firm-cooked white made me want to run, so when I’d cook eggs, I’d opt for any method that didn’t involve a frying pan. Hard-boiled? Good. Scrambled? Better. Soft-boiled, peeled and smashed? Oh yes. Poached? Yeah we can.
And then a month or so ago I started following Frank Prisinzano, a restauranteur in my neighborhood on Instagram, a man that is unwaveringly obsessed with both eating and writing about crispy eggs. “The eggs should almost explode in the hot oil, the white should soufflé around the yolk” he writes, “the bottom should form a crispy crust hard enough that you can remove the egg from a normal pan with just a little scraping and shimmying.” You should eat it immediately, “like a steak,” showered with sea salt, pepper flakes, herbs or spices of your choosing.
… Read the rest of the crispy egg on smittenkitchen.com
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We love our iced coffee in the summer, but fall and winter belong to the latte. We love to sit inside on a chilly day with a hot, frothy latte or cappuccino. But a latte shouldn’t just be a coffee shop treat. Even without an espresso machine, a milk frother, or other toys of the trade, you can make a pretty decent latte at home — and yes, it will have a beautiful cap of foam.
Here’s how we do it when we want a latte at home, to sip in the morning, or with a visiting friend.
