15 Pickles You Can Make When Canning Isn’t Your Thing

(Image credit: Jeff Roffman)

I come from a long line of Missouri farmers. Our roots were literally in the soil for generations. That is, until my Grandma Dot got fed up with wearing feed sack dresses and growing her own food, getting by on what you could and being reluctantly grateful for the Ball jars still left in the root cellar come February. In the mid-century promise of modernity just after WWII, she packed her bag and took a train to St. Louis to become a telephone operator who wore a store-bought suit and ate vegetables from a factory-filled can.

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From Apartment Therapy → Work It: Classic Black & White Checkered Kitchen Floors Looking Fantastic

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(Image credit: Maria Midoes)

Part muffin, part frittata, these savory breakfast muffins boast a texture that’s soft, airy, and rich. Plus, there’s a secret ingredient that gives these muffins an added protein boost. If savory foods dominate your morning cravings, these tomato-basil muffins are for you!

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(Image credit: Jacqueline Marque)

Virginia summers are sticky, filled with lightening bugs and cicadas humming in the background. When it gets deep into the season (which is basically the entirety of the season), starting in early July and running all the way through September, everyone retreats. From the middle of the day until about 6 p.m., we Southerners know to avoid the scorching overhead sun.

Growing up, we did so on my grandmother’s porch.

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For years I resisted buying a mortar and pestle — how could it really be all that useful in the kitchen, anyway? I feel that way about most non-essentials since I live in a minuscule apartment. Then, finally, after years of grinding my cumin seeds with the bottom of an old saucepan, I gave in and bought a lovely one from a favorite kitchen store. Almost instantly, I was converted. That’s because a mortar and pestle can prepare a whole lot more than I originally thought. Here are 10 things to start.

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Do you have a jar of turmeric languishing in your spice cupboard? Or perhaps you’re looking for ways to add it to your diet in response to all the recent studies indicating its health-promoting and disease-preventing properties. Turmeric has long been a staple in Indian curries as well as in foods like mustard (it provides that golden yellow color!), but there are lots of other ways to eat and drink this spice. Here are seven easy ideas.

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These days, drinking outside the wine bottle doesn’t have to mean a massive headache the next day. Good things come in boxes — promise! And while we fully support pulling out the box o’ wine when friends stop by this holiday weekend, we also get that you may want to dress things up a bit.

Enter: Beso del Sol sangria. Pour it in a pitcher with some ice and sliced fruit and you have yourself a festive holiday weekend sipper. The fact that it’s low in alcohol — 8.5% ABV — is the cherry (or orange wedge) on top.

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(Image credit: Maria Midoes)

If you love the way ripe summer tomatoes and peaches play together, you will simply love this blend of tomato and mango. When combined with serrano chiles, fresh cilantro, and lime juice, you’ll be reaching for the chips and spooning the mild mixture over grilled fish and chicken.

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(Image credit: Casey Barber)

College might feel like a free-for-all some days (okay, some nights and weekends, too), but it comes with a whole set of rules of its own — especially if you’re a budding cook who wants to escape the tyranny of cafeteria salad bars and dorm rules that forbid anything fun like a Hot Pot or toaster oven. (Although, as someone who regularly did the 2 a.m. fire alarm shuffle down four flights of stairs, I understand why that restriction is in place.)

And if you don’t have a car, going off-campus to a real grocery store can be tougher than throwing together a final senior thesis on James Joyce’s Ulysses in relation to Italian Futurism — or maybe that’s just me.

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Perhaps it’s all the time I’ve been spending at the beach, or that I’ve been reading a wonderful new book on sea vegetables, or the fact that seaweed seems so cooling on a hot day, but I’ve been craving seaweed salad in a major way this summer. Recently at a Japanese restaurant I had a seaweed, or kaiso, salad garnished with deep-fried rice crackers, which offered a nice, crispy counterpoint to the tender seaweed. Making my own salad back at home, I came up with a simpler, and healthier, alternative: popped amaranth.

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