Tweet Oh no! You bought a head of lettuce last week, but forgot about it. Now you want to make a salad, but it’s all wilty and you’re thinking of throwing it out. But wait! You can “freshen it up” by immersing in cold water (at least 30 minutes). This time lapse video shows how [...]

Tweet Now, I have experimented a few times with my rice cooker, especially one night when the gas (propane) ran out in the middle of cooking, and I had to finish in the rice cooker.  But this is a great little video that shows how many choices there are.  They are really one of the [...]

Tweet 5th of February 2008 is pancake day – make sure to celebrate it by cooking up a batch of pancakes, and trying some new toppings. Visit http://www.welovepancakes.com for recipe ideas and a brief history on how pancakes came to be so popular These ARE pancakes – pancakes are different things in different countries. These [...]

Tweet http://www.ManjulasKitchen.com Learn how to make Pani Puri, an Indian treat. Makes about 60 puris. Ingredients Pani (Spicy Water): 1 cup mint leaves (Pudina) 2 to 4 green chilies (adjust to taste) 3 tablespoons tamarind paste (Imli) 3 tablespoons lemon juice 1 teaspoon black salt 1 teaspoon salt (adjust to taste) 1/4 teaspoon ginger powder [...]

Food is, of course, the most basic of our needs beyond water and air (and toilet paper!). Isn’t it funny how we take these simple things for granted? You breathe in and out, you pull on the roll, you turn on the tap, you pop a Lean Cuisine into the microwave, or answer, “Yes”, to “Fries with that?” Easy, automatic, instant. But of course, it’s not. All of these things, with the exception of air, require a complicated combination of infrastructure and workforce to get to us. We only think about it when the system breaks down (imagine a toilet paper factory worker’s strike!), or when we pay our bills.

TweetTo make onions easy to deal with (and take advantage of sales, especially on specialty onions like vidalias), chop several onions at once, then freeze for later use. Do the same with carrots, broccoli, and other like veggies. Thanks to xandert and Morguefile for the photo.

TweetIf you stretch your meat with pasta, potatoes, veggies, etc. you can buy even expensive cuts of meat and fish with relatively little cost. Most Americans (and people in other developed countries) eat too much meat anyway, and need more fruits and vegetables in their diet to stay healthy. Thanks to kakisky and morguefile for [...]

TweetThis is one of those 1970’s style photo books. The kind with interesting photographs along with text (in this case handwritten). It’s very 70’s in that it explores what it is to be a woman, if a woman should live her life in the kitchen, etc. I feel that the feminist movement has done what [...]

TweetWhen you think of kitchen gadgets, you probably don’t think about scissors. But they are a helpful tool! Most of us probably use scissors to open packaged foods, onion bags, mixes, etc. But you can also use scissors to easily snip herbs, chives, and green onions into small pieces. You can quickly trim greens, grapes, [...]

TweetI’ve seen that there is a “The New Laurel’s Kitchen” now, but I’m not familiar with it. This is for the original. Having spent time with a vegetarian family (we were provided food, but no meat, and I had to cook), I got a lot of recipes, ideas, and advice from this book. It’s more [...]