Calibrating your thermometer is one of the most important things you can do in preparation for cooking your Thanksgiving turkey. Why? If your thermometer isn’t calibrated you won’t get an accurate measurement of the internal temperature of the turkey as it cooks. If your thermometer is registering an inaccurately high temperature, your turkey will be undercooked,…
I enjoy growing fresh herbs. They don’t require a lot of attention and you get a lot of flavor for limited efforts. However, one thing always had me puzzled. Whenever I would plant cilantro (coriander) it would rapidly bolt, go to seed, in hot weather. So I’d remove the plant from my herb bed. I…
A basic vinaigrette is an oil and vinegar dressing for salads. Above is a photo of just some of the ingredients from my pantry and fridge that I have on hand to make vinaigrette salad dressings. The possible flavor variations are endless.
Fresh parsley is a living thing, so I store it and other fresh, leafy herbs as I do fresh flowers. It’s best to have your fresh parsley washed and thoroughly dried before chopping it.
Spring is so exciting for me. One of the first things to sprout up in my garden every year is mint: such a fresh and beautiful green and wonderfully fragrant. It’s so lovely and green I just had to make something with it. So I got out one of my favorite recipes: cilantro mint chutney….
Shrimp chips are popular throughout Southeast Asia. They have many names, such as “prawn crackers” and “krupuk” (Indonesian). Properly prepared, these chips are light, not greasy, and have a mild but clear shrimp flavor. Like potato chips, it’s hard to eat just one. I always have some on hand. For entertaining, I bring out the…
What to do with all of the apples I collected for the photo in my last post? Applesauce. Applesauce is easy to make, and your efforts will be deliciously rewarded. It’s really worth the effort, and it’s a great dish to do with young children. Kids love applesauce, and eating the applesauce that they’ve helped…
I’m not very focused on baking, so when I want to bake something with apples I find myself in a quandary, as I don’t know which are the best for baking. In my experience, some apples are reduced to mush by the baking process. Others hold up but don’t taste great. Then there are those…
It’s that time of year again, and the big question is: how does one roast a turkey? Well, I’ve tried numerous methods, and this is the one I’ve settled on. It’s from the now defunct Gourmet magazine. In the original article, I believe they said that they had tested over 25 ways to roast a turkey…
In a perfect world, I would always have freshly made stock on hand in my fridge. But in reality I sometimes run out of fresh stock, and so I keep a variety of fill-ins of commercially available products. Here are the products I use and how I use them.