Next week Target will roll out their newest house brand, Smartly, featuring 70 home essentials and toiletries, most for just $1 or $2. That includes plenty of kitchen products such as paper towels, dish soap, plastic sandwich bags, napkins, and paper lunch bags.
Do you ever return home after a very long, very exhausting, very emotionally draining day and immediately trudge to the stove, boil a large pot of salted water, and make a bowl of pasta?
No, I’m the only one? Okay, you can stop reading now — goodbye!
This recipe, created with my friend — the mother of a Syrian refugee family we hosted — takes a classic Thanksgiving stuffing and adds a Syrian twist. Commonly used celery is replaced by roasted chestnuts, and golden raisins are mixed with cranberries — but the tender pillow of soft bread remains. The result is a deliciously smoky-yet-sweet stuffing any turkey would love to be next to.
September is very much a month of transitions. We swap our tank tops for sweaters, our lazy routine for a more strict one, and clear out the tomatoes and corn to make room for apples and pumpkin. Our most-saved vegetarian recipes this past month reflected this mood. Some of the recipes celebrated the last flavors of summer, while others were extra comforting in order to help make the dip in the temperature outside a little more tolerable.
I’ve never been great at the whole lunch thing. I rarely have the foresight to prep things in advance, and buying lunch every day can really add up. So more often than not, I snack. A little bit of this and little bit of that becomes my surprisingly satisfying midday meal, with bonus points that I can assemble everything quickly — with little-to-no actual cooking. Here’s how I build my snack-box lunch.
If you’re anything like me, baking and assembling a frosted cake is one of the truest tests of my patience. You see, I am not a patient person, and as soon as I take my cake layers out of the oven, I want to frost them immediately. I am overly eager to see the final results and cut myself a thick slice — and can you blame me? — but it’s important to stick those layers in the refrigerator for a bit before frosting. Here’s why.
After a busy day, it’s hard to deny just how delicious it is to settle into a bowl of mac and cheese or a few slices of pizza. Although we definitely do enjoy those comfort foods, we also like to balance them out with more wholesome meals. That’s where these comfort food recipes come into play.
These are meals we lean on when we want something super-comforting, but also want to feel a little virtuous. That means there’s usually cheese involved, yes, but also lots of veggies. Here are just a handful of our favorites.
I’m a very strong believer that there is no better way to cook Brussels sprouts than by roasting them in the oven. From the deeply browned, caramelized surface to the lacy, crisp, lightly charred leaves, it really brings out the best in these brassicas.
Think you have roasted Brussels sprouts mastered? Here are three simple steps to make the crispiest, most delicious roasted Brussels sprouts every single time.
If you’re only going to have one knife in your kitchen, it should be a chef’s knife. Of course, you’re probably going to have more than one knife — this is just the sort of thing people say in order to stress the importance of a good chef’s knife.
Why this knife? With its large wide blade, pointed tip, and heavy rear, it’s truly all-purpose. You can use it for the obvious things like slicing, chopping, and mincing. And you can use the tip for smaller jobs (like dicing a shallot) and the back of the knife like a cleaver for hacking through bones. With the wide side of the blade, you can smash garlic, scoop up diced veggies to transfer them to a pot, or whack chicken breasts to flatten them into cutlets.
You get the point, right? Whether you are a new cook or an experienced one, a smart, sharp, effective chef’s knife is an absolute must-have. Ideally, a good chef’s knife. And while you could easily spend hundreds of dollars on one, you don’t have to.
For more than 30 years, I was in charge of testing and reporting on everything from wooden spoons to connected refrigerators at the Good Housekeeping Institute. I’ve walked the floors of every trade show and new product release for longer than most digital publications have existed!
My street cred? I also worked as a chef in New York City restaurants for seven years.
I’ve tested, used, and played with nearly every piece of kitchen gear (including knives) to come on the market for years. When it comes to gear, it takes a lot to impress me, and I know what actually works.
I’ve tested what feels like every chef’s knife on the market (at all the price points, low to high!) and these are my all-time favorites. But you don’t have to take my word and my word alone, either. Kitchn editors — a unique hybrid of professionals and home cooks, who develop and test great recipes in real home kitchens — weighed in on these picks too, testing my favorites in the context of their actual home cooking.
After all, when it comes to kitchen gear, what matters is that it works for a home cook — not just that a chef endorses it, or that it passed some high-flying bar in a sterile test kitchen. You want gear that is above all, practical, long-lasting, and mindful of real cooks, real kitchens, and real budgets.
If you’re a Mickey Mouse fan, you know that his 90th birthday is coming up. (You also probably know that the exact date is November 18.) And you’ll be excited to find out that in honor of the big day Le Creuset and Disney have teamed up to add another piece to their existing collaboration.