Many of us get our first cooking lessons at home. People who grow up to work in restaurants or attend culinary school or become world-famous chefs usually pick up a few tricks at home before they go (even if it’s just the proper way to cut a peanut butter sandwich).
Even celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis learned some tricks she still uses from her mother, actress and writer Veronica De Laurentiis. And she says her mother’s best cooking lesson was to always be resourceful with leftovers.
By my best estimation, I’ve made about 1,273 batches of hummus since my hummus-loving kiddo was old enough for solids. Having tried every method (dried beans, canned beans, tahini, peanut butter instead of tahini, and the like), I can reliably say that making hummus with canned chickpeas gives me the easiest everyday hummus I can make week after week.
The most surprising finding after all of these hummus batches isn’t the method, but the right ingredient for the job — which is why I grab only one brand of canned chickpeas for making hummus.
For as long as I’ve cooked pasta, I’ve cooked it just like everyone else — bring a pot of water to a boil, dump in noodles, cook until al dente, drain, and toss in the sauce of choosing. Things were going along swimmingly (I was eating great pasta at home) until I learned I could be eating even better pasta.
You see, you may have noticed that your favorite Italian restaurant always seems to make their pasta taste just a tiny bit better than yours — the pasta seems to be cooked more perfectly and it’s more well-coated in the sauce. Turns out there’s one thing they do differently that matters a whole lot: They undercook it.
You’ll almost never find our kitchens without a can or two of black beans stocked in the pantry. This versatile ingredient can be used in so many different ways. From soups and chilis to enchiladas and salads, the possibilities are seemingly endless. We chose our 17 favorite black bean recipes to get you started with something new.
You guys! We are so close to finally getting back into grilling season! Before you can fire things up, though, it’s a good idea to give your gas grill a good cleaning. (Maybe you didn’t clean it super well before you packed it away for winter or maybe it just got a little gross while it waited for you.)
Here’s how to do it.
Oh, and one quick note: While you generally don’t have to scrub down your gas grill to shiny perfection after each use, you should give it a deep clean once in a while to make sure it runs safely and efficiently. So keep this page bookmarked in case you need to refer back to it throughout the summer.
There are those who will tell you that putting milk and a sweetener in good coffee is practically sacrilegious. I agree. That being said, I do have one exception: fancy café drinks. Because come on, they’re tasty things, especially when they’re iced and you’re sipping one on warm spring or summer days. It’s sort of like if you’re a wine-lover: Inevitably when it’s hot out and you need a refreshing late-afternoon drink, you’ll take the sangria, right?
So, how to make the best café-inspired iced drink? The standard milk and sugar route is boring and expected — you need something different. Here are five things to try to make that homemade iced latte worthy of a warm afternoon.
Joanna Gaines released her cookbook, Magnolia Table, two weeks ago now and it’s already a hit. In fact, it outsold both Ina Garten and Ree Drummond in sales for its first week with 169,000 copies sold.
While you most likely associate Gaines with Fixer Upper and design, her cookbook is surprisingly great in its practicality. The former HGTV star has a bunch of recipes that are perfect for busy families, including one beef tip recipe that Gaines says is her favorite thing to make in the slow cooker.
I first learned about ruffled milk pie from Vefa’s Kictchen, a substantial Greek cooking volume that first came out in 2009. A type of galatopita (“pie made with milk,” aka a baked custard pie), this is more striking in appearance than most due to wound and rumbled sheets of pastry, which also providing texture and crunch. It’s so pretty and it sounded so simple — there are 7 ingredients and I bet we keep 6 of them around — it was absolutely, unequivocally something I could get into and want to tell you about immediately save one thing: it uses filo. And would rather do almost anything than work with filo. And I have! I’ve had two kids. I’ve written two cookbooks. I’ve moved apartments. I have planted gardens and taken up running and gone on vacations and okay, maybe I didn’t do all of these things just to avoid using filo in one single recipe, but I can tell you that when the top two items on my to-do list sifted out last week as 1. Purge too-small clothes from kids’ overstuffed dressers, and 2. Make ruffled milk pie, I at last found something I hated more than more than I dreaded working with filo. I am pleased to tell you that my kids clothes are still an unmitigated disaster but this pie is fantastic.
“Geez, Deb, what did filo ever do to you?” Fair question and, in short, it stresses me out. It tears and cracks. It likes to dry out before you can blink and it’s unforgiving once this happens. You’re supposed to keep a piece of plastic on the open package of sheets followed by damp towel on it but when I run a towel under faucet and wring it out, it’s always too heavy and wet and manages to glue all of the sheets together at the edges. I’ve opened up boxes that were nothing but shards. I know, I know, way to sell a recipe, Deb. [Don’t worry, I’ll share some tips for the filo-averse below.]
I am pretty late to discover the glory that is spaghetti squash. I watched years ago as my friends and family used it as an alternative to pasta and turned it into a side dish for whatever protein they were serving. To be honest, it looked like a lot of extra work, and when I did finally try it the added labor just didn’t seem worth the effort. I’ll stick to real spaghetti, I thought naively.
And then Ina Garten came into my life, like Ina tends to do. I was flipping through her most recent cookbook, Cooking for Jeffrey, looking for a vegetable-heavy side dish, when I discovered her dead-simple recipe for spaghetti squash. It completely changed my mind about the trendy gourd.
It’s only Wednesday and I already know I’m going to spend at least $25 at Target on Sunday. (Let’s be honest — it’ll probably be a lot more than that.) That’s because Chip and Joanna Gaines’ spring collection for Hearth & Hand with Magnolia hits stores on Sunday.
We got a sneak peek and there’s one thing I know I’m going to be buying for sure — and I’m thinking a lot of you will want it too.