I haven’t made muffins in a long time and I’ve been craving some sweet ones that have a crunchy, sugary topping. I found exactly what I was looking for a few days ago and I quickly put the recipe on my list of those to make. Yesterday was the day. I was in the kitchen […]
Cooking & Food Basics
The cooking basics section includes posts and articles that cover tips, tutorials and best practices for various areas of kitchen management and culinary exploration. Discussion includes how to best utilize proper knife skills, how to chop, dice and mince various vegetables, how to use kitchen appliances and equipment, how to work in a kitchen overall and more. Additional topics include personal development in the culinary arena as well as coverage of online communities that assist with the training of professional chefs and well as home cooks.
Toasted Orzo Salad with Grape Tomatoes, Kalamata Olives & Basil Recipe
Well this salad wasn’t very challenging to photograph. I mean, just look at it. All those colors show up perfectly in the photos and I’ll tell you, it’s a great salad. Super simple to make and it’s so easy to double or triple up on the ingredients for an outing or for when you have […]
How to Make Caramelized Pecans
This is one of those posts that many, many people around the world look for, but not many food bloggers take the time to write. It’s for a part of a recipe, not for a recipe in its entirety. I actually love this kind of stuff because for years, I’ve been searching for answers such […]
My Growing Collection of Incredible Cookbooks
I’m the type of person who loves tools. Sometimes, I sit and think about my future garage, full of all the finest gadgets for and solutions to all the problems I face. Well, I really don’t have too many problems, but I still love garages. Even if I didn’t ever use the tools I would […]
Trying Out Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
I think anyone who talks about “whole wheat” anything should be viewed skeptically. If they throw in words like healthy, nutritional and tasty, definitely view them skeptically. If the word easy creeps in there somewhere, they may need a talking to. From personal experience, whole wheat flour in bread, while very simple to put together, […]
How To Make Fresh Homemade Pasta from Scratch
I finally made it. For the first time in my life, I made fresh pasta. I can tell you, it wasn’t difficult at all. Actually, with my new Atlas pasta machine, it was really easy. So easy, in fact, that I made some pasta, cooked it and then ate a bowl of it. Of course, […]
How I Really Screwed Up My Hard-Boiled Eggs
Have you ever tried to peel a hard-boiled egg and ended up wanting to throw it through a closed window instead? Really? I know what you mean. There are few things in life more annoying than an egg that turns into something dreadful during the peeling stage. The good news is that I’ve figured out […]
How To Properly Make Scrambled Eggs
I’ve been making scrambled eggs since the day I was born. I’ve had pretty good luck with them too. As a matter of fact, I can’t remember a time where I really screwed them up. I guess I was considered what some would call a happy boy. The thing is, something strange happened about a […]
Why Did My Bread Come Out Flat?
I would love to run a blog where every recipe I posted was a successfully completed one. Unfortunately, that’s just not the way it’s going to be. Don’t get me wrong – I’m going to do my best to try to show you what things “should” look like. It’s just that I’m still a beginner. […]
The Rules of Sautéing
Oh boy. If I had only known of these rules years ago, when I began sauteing. Or, should I say what I thought was sauteing. I often wondered why much of what I attempted to cook looked either under or over cooked. Things just never seemed right – as hard as I would try. After […]