Cheesecloth annoys me. I never seem to have quite enough of it for whatever I’m doing. It always comes apart, and doubling or tripling it feels fussy. Plus, it irks me that you can’t easily wash and reuse it.
I recently decided to get rid of cheesecloth in my kitchen for good and have found these three substitutes to take its place.
“Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” It’s hard to imagine the prevailing ideas of what healthy eating means without this famous pronouncement from Michael Pollan, which in its reductive simplicity carries a kind of relief from the fluctuations of modern nutritional science. So simple, so memorable — nothing to avoid, but everything to gain from a renewed focus on plants. It could even be seen as the unspoken mantra of plant-based eating.
What is plant-based eating? Just vegetarianism, no? Veganism? No. While many practitioners do avoid meat, plant-based eating is a diverse and fascinating approach to food, nutrition, and feeding oneself well that comes in many inspiring different forms.
There are few things more satisfying than an absolutely jaw-dropping kitchen makeover. While you may think that you need a big, beefy budget to elicit those “OMG” gasps, you’d actually be wrong. Sometimes, amazing makeovers are much more about what you do and how you do it than how much money you spend on making over your space.
Case in point? This incredibly fun, playful kitchen makeover from Heather Douglas of Mysa Home Styling.
You know the old saying: the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Especially not if you name your kid after an apple. With over 2,500 varieties of apples grown in the United States annually and 7,000 worldwide, we’ll be darned if there aren’t some choice baby names among them. Aside from conjuring happy memories of orchard hopping, an apple-inspired baby name is sure to be a hit with teachers and pediatricians alike. What’s not to love?
Here are 15 baby names inspired by your favorite fall fruit.
When one has fresh tomato sauce, homemade ricotta, and a huge haul of vegetables in one’s fridge, a hearty lasagna is really the only possible course of action. If it doesn’t yet feel quite autumnal enough to justify a plate of cheesy lasagna, that’s fine — sneak a slice now and freeze the rest for meals to come.
October is hands-down my favorite month of the year and it has almost nothing to do with it being my birthday month. Nope, I love October for its gorgeous, cool weather, apple picking, and pumpkin carving. But I also underestimate how busy October can be.
We happen to be moving from our apartment to our new house this week, which means our fall-inspired dinners need to be fast and easy. Here’s what I’m cooking this week to quickly feed my family and also celebrate the season.
Walk into any grocery store and you’ll witness the stunning proliferation of new snack products — from Beanitos and Lentil Chips to Halfpops and Coco-Roons. It’s a stunning transformation of the grocery landscape, as Americans are now spending more on snacks than on regular grocery foods. Sales of nuts, nutritional bars, and meat snacks like jerky are growing at 2.5, 4.3, and 6.2 times the rate of overall grocery spending respectively, according to data from Nielsen.
Is the ever-widening snack landscape, and our reliance on it, a good thing — or problematic? Our packaged snack options are often healthier than the snacks of yore, which is great, but the language we have around when we snack and what constitutes a snack raises some questions about how and why we snack so much more, and how it affects our waistlines and our wallets.
So let me let you in on the little secret of snacking in America today: We have our work ethic to blame.
Have you noticed a proliferation of teal-hued pumpkins adorning the steps and porches in your neighborhood? No, you haven’t stumbled into a particularly ardent enclave of Martha Stewart acolytes. These bright turquoise jack-o’-lanterns, whether a simple paper cutout or an actual pumpkin that’s been given a fresh coat of paint, indicate a home that is participating in the Teal Pumpkin Project.
I love having friends over, but with three kids; big writing dreams; and the never-ending onslaught of preparing and cleaning up breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack, snack, and snack, having a friend over for a meal started to feel too much like work and less like the break I craved.
I am not a neat freak or perfectionist by any stretch, but having company came to mean clearing a path in the explosion of crafts and creations on our floor, folding the mountain of laundry on the couch, and finding the source of that questionable smell. I started to feel grumpy when preparing for visitors, snapping at my kids to pick up their underwear and wipe the toilet seat, for crying out loud.
In one part of my brain, I knew that this reaction was ridiculous — my friends were coming to see me, not my home; they would understand the scribble marks on my hardwood and my 9-year-old’s unmade bed — but the other part of my brain said that pride in ownership is a healthy thing and germs are not.
Then I discovered the “Crappy Dinner Party.”
The one thing I love about fall, even more than pulling out my stash of cozy sweaters, is baking. While I am always ready to fire up my oven for a batch of cookies or muffins all year long, there is no better time for baking than right now. From apple pie and oatmeal cookies, to pumpkin muffins and a rustic pear galette, these are the 15 can’t-miss recipes to add to your baking roster this year.