The Cook’s Kitchen

When I saw cute kitchen products in an issue of O at Home magazine, I was on it like white on rice.  I mean, really, why not make cooking and your kitchen just a little more fun, right?
These little fellas are ergonomically designed, and a breeze to clean.  From Boston Warehouse, the Animalhouse kitchen products […]

Washing fruits and vegetables when you get home from the market is definitely a good idea, as it helps get rid of pesticide residue that may linger.  But there’s no need to spend your money on those fruit and veggie washes that are peppering the market these days.
Consumer Reports suggests using your own homemade version instead.  “Mix […]

Mark Bittman is perhaps best known for his very popular How to Cook Everything book and his column in the New York Times.  In a recent piece in Woman’s Day magazine, he shared what he felt every cook should know:
- If you can control heat, you can cook.  It doesn’t matter if a stove’s electric […]

No worries.  From Real Simple magazine, this very excellent tip …
If you have leftover lemons and limes from a cocktail party, squeeze them and freeze the juice in an ice-cube tray. Once they’re frozen, store the cubes in zippered plastic bags and use them for recipes that call for fresh lemon or lime juice. (One […]

I gotta confess.  I don’t use an apron.  Never have, and most likely never will.  Full disclosure aside, I am sorely tempted by the ones sold by Jessie Steele.  Bringing vintage back, they are fun, colorful and dare I say, flirty. 
The company is run by a mother-daughter team, and the collection includes vibrant colors, trendy […]

When shopping for bell peppers, you have a variety of colors to choose from … red, green, yellow, orange … does one color really make a difference over another?  In a word, yes. 
The red peppers have the most amount of antioxidants, with yellow and orange following closely behind, so say the research team at Louisiana […]

Alton Brown, host of the popular FoodTV Network show, Good Eats, unveiled his list of 5 Essential Kitchen Gadgets in a recent issue of Oprah’s O magazine. As he said, “I have a small kitchen, so every piece has to audition constantly.”
Chef’s Choice Electric Kettle: “This hot pot takes any liquid to a boil and […]

I rarely have buttermilk on hand, and a bigger problem is that usually when a recipe calls for it, it only needs a small amount, and I’m left with tons leftover. What to do?
If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, try this substitute from Woman’s Day magazine … use a tablespoon lemon juice or […]

Every time you go to the grocery store, you’re probably good for five or six plastic shopping bags.  And going from store to store on a Saturday morning filled with a list of errands, the mountain of plastic bags can really add up.  So besides the fact that plastic shopping bags are not environmentally friendly, […]

Do you know how to tell if a pineapple is ripe? I learned this little tip from Rachael Ray’s talk show last week. If the “eyes” (the name given to those circles covering the outside of the pineapple) are the same size from the top of the pineapple to the bottom, it’s a […]