Guide to Cooking Whole Grains with Printable Chart

My Complete Guide to Cooking Dry Beans from Scratch remains one of the most popular posts, so  I wrote up this companion piece for whole grains. Since most of use use white rice from time to time, I included it. Guide to Cooking Whole Grains Note: Cooking times are approximate and depend on the age […]

Should You Boil Water Before Adding Vegetables?

Reader Rita writes: “Do you know of old or ancient ways of cooking? Someone told me or I read (?) that when you cook above ground food to put in boiling water! And if cooking below-ground food put in cold water and bring up the heat to boiling!! They said that this is the old […]

Ten Tips for Cooking with a Disability or Injury

This post was featured in an article in The Kitchn with experts on cooking, kitchen design, and disability. You can read my complete interview here. When I was 12 years old, my mother was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Painful, stiff and swollen joints forced her to limit her movements and rest frequently.  My mother depended on me, as […]

Tips on Baking with Whole Wheat Flour

Welcome to new readers who arrived from Grist.org’s excellent post by Jane Mountain on 5 Foods You’ll Never Have to Buy Again.  Have you ever tried cooking with whole-wheat flour, only to find the results didn’t turn out as well as you hoped? Cooking with whole wheat requires some adjustments in planning and expectations. The […]

Peeling, Nothing More than Peeling

There’s nothing I love more, dear readers, than finding out a kitchen task can be skipped.

And my favorite chore to skip is peeling vegetables. At least for now.

The only vegetables my peeler has seen in recent months are carrots and the odd potato.

(I know I could skip peeling carrots, but I don’t like the taste of carrot peels. Fortunately, my kids do the peeling. )

Peeling raw vegetables means throwing out a large percentage of your food, since the vegetable comes off with the peel. Try weighing a pound of potatoes before and after peeling. Un-peeling saves time and money. What could be wrong with that?

Is It Better to Cook Whole Chickens or Parts?

With apologies to my vegetarian readers. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow with a recipe for winter squash quiche. Recently I compared the advantages of cooking fresh over bulk cooking and freezing. Today I consider cooking whole chickens versus chicken parts. Advantages of Cooking Whole Chickens Usually costs more, if bought in parts Cutting […]

Cook Fresh or Freeze in Bulk?

Which is better—cooking each meal fresh, or cooking in bulk and freezing for future meals? Cooking in bulk is generally viewed as more efficient. However, there are important advantages to cooking fresh. Keep in mind that the options are not mutually exclusive. You can prepares some things in bulk, like rice, sauce or chicken stock, […]

Video: Rolling and Filling Hamantashen

This Sunday or Monday, Jews around the world celebrate the holiday of Purim. The traditional food is a filled, triangle-shaped cookie know n as hamantashen. You can use any cookie dough that is easy to roll and cut. I’d never made yeast hamantashen before, and I decided to experiment with sourdough. They came out okay, […]

Baking Cleanup Tips: The Bowl (with Video)

Over at Orthonomics, Sephardi Lady gave her recipe for 15-minute challah. Readers were appreciative, but complained that they dreaded making challah because cleaning out the bowl was her least favorite job. One reader mentioned not  having room for a bowl of soapy water on her counter. I was mystified. Cleaning the bread dough bowl takes […]

To Tofu or Not to Tofu: Tasty Substitutes for Dairy or Meat

Please welcome Leah Gabrielle Goodman for today’s guest post. When you talk about vegetarianism to many people, they imagine eating salad and tofu. Perhaps they’ve seen a tofurkey or two in their day, but they don’t realize how many non-meat options can can be substituted in recipes. Meat Substitutes Zucchini as Liver? Much of the […]