Blog Posts from May 2009
Here's an archive of our blog posts from May 2009. Click on the title to see the full post.
Kids in the kitchen make happy memories!
Ever since the kids were small, they have helped me cook. When Hannah was 4, I taught her how to make coffee. Tell us about your kids and what they help you do in the kitchen.
Make Greek Potato Salad and meet the neighbors!
Guest Blogger Debbie Moose is an expert: You can’t make just one serving of potato salad. If you love potato salad and have a small family, better get to know your neighbors.
Can Potato Salad Be Very Variable?
Potato salad isn’t necessarily the first thing you might think of as being all that versatile. There’s your Mom’s amazing recipe or the stuff in the supermarket deli case, right?
The Center System Organizes the Kitchen
Everything I ever needed to know about organizing my kitchen I learned from kindergarten.
As a teen, Jason needed cooking advice. Now he's the one giving it!
We first heard from Jason Gerling of New Hartford, N.Y., when he was 14 years old and needed some recipe advice. Now, a decade later, he's the one offering the advice. Online coupons anyone?
Teenage cook is now adult crackerjack coupon clipper!
At age 14, Jason Gerling started cooking for his family. Now he's 24, a geriatric social worker, and still cooking for his family on a pretty tight budget. When a 20-something wants to save money on groceries, he heads for the computer. Here's how it works.
Chocolate “Fondue” with Strawberries is sinfully good
If it’s strawberry season we look for every excuse to eat them. This recipe is sort of feels like cheating – (cheating on what exactly we’re not sure) -- but it’s sinfully good.
Coupon clipping is easier when it's a game
When I have trouble getting excited about coupons, which is often, I turn it into a game. Especially when it's a savings so small you'll need a magnifying glass, such as a 20-cents-off coupon, I play the “percentage game.”
No Dinner Plan? No Worries.
When I’m tempted to call out for food I’ll regret, I ask myself: Is it possible to whip up something that will be faster, cheaper, contain less calories and taste as good (or better) without losing my temper?
Be Brave in the Kitchen
Cooking at home is still the most economical way to feed your family. We know this, we wrote a whole book on it. But the fact remains that if you are not willing to be brave in the kitchen, you’re going to go nowhere and do nothing. But you still have to feed your family.
Has anybody seen this Caramel Cake?
If you know where I might find a recipe for authentic Southern Caramel Cake, please let me know. If you’re able to offer technical consultation, that’d be great too!
Teenage Spaghetti Madness: Verdict is in!
The verdict for my grand Spaghetti Madness experiment: A huge success! Daughter Grey and her friend Jessica Austin made four batches of My Best-Ever Salvation Spaghetti yesterday.
My never-fail, constantly-craved, salvation spaghetti
For a long time the idea that there could be anything at all special about my spaghetti sauce made no sense to me. It was just too easy. Too fast. Too un-Italian and very, very un-gourmet.
Immersion blender is Alicia's new favorite tool
I’ve got a new favorite kitchen tool. It’s an immersion blender, also known as a stick blender or hand blender. Basically it’s a blender you put into the food instead of the food into the blender. And it’s perfect for pureeing soups as well as mixing drinks, blending individual milk shakes and more.
Old-Fashioned Chicken Salad? Grandma would approve
Chicken salad shows up at the table with all manner of fancy ingredients these days – from fruit to nuts to sour cream to who-knows-what. But back in the day, as our grandmothers might have said, things were a bit simpler.
Refrigerator Tweets A Sad Commentary?
My son will be home from college in just a few hours and I fear I’m out of practice cooking for four. After spotting my Tweets on the sad state of my refrigerator capacity, several friends on Facebook offered comments.
Let's get those leftovers cookin'!
Leftovers are a desperate cooks’ best friend. We sometimes cook extras intentionally for a jump start on dinner down the road.I Still Cook Large
When the kids leave home the old recipes just make too much. We're looking for solutions to "cooking large"...
Meet Guest Blogger Debbie Moose
Cookbook author Debbie Moose believes you should try a bite of everything in life. And Debbie has been making us laugh about that – and lots of other stuff – for more than a decade. So naturally we were thrilled when Debbie agreed to share her thoughts, rants and raves as a Guest Blogger here on Kitchen Scoop from time to time.
Debbie Does The Food Network (Not!)
Why doesn't Debbie Moose have a show on The Food Network?
Microwave Risotto Method Is Extraordinary
We first heard about making risotto in the microwave 22 years ago, and people are still talking about it. Few recipes excite experienced food lovers to this degree, and in her 1987 cookbook Microwave Gourmet, Barbara Kafka indeed hit on something extraordinary.
Tips on Buying Shrimp
Supermarket seafood sections have exploded with shrimp. Truth be told, these days price is often our biggest consideration in deciding what to buy. But it’s not like we didn’t do the homework. Here are some tips.
Immortalize Yourself with Baked Beans
Want to go down in history? Share your favorite recipes. Even baked beans may be enough to keep your memory alive for generations.
Share the art of homemade banana bread
We’ve frankly never met a banana bread we didn’t like. It’s called bread, but isn’t it really just cake in disguise?
Chipotle restaurant's chicken is easy to grill at home
When my son Sam was eating way too much fast food from Chipotle, I set out to “help” him curb the habit. The result was a terrific Copycat Chipotle Chicken that you can grill at home.
Is Banana Bread Worth the Calories?
At a certain age, you have to ponder whether eating the Chocolate Chip Banana Bread is worth the calories.
Freeze leftover sauces in ice cube trays
If it’s liquid, expensive and likely to spoil before we can eat it all, it goes into an ice cube tray. Take pesto, a typical tablespoon-or-two-at-time sort of sauce. Here’s how to make it last forever.
Does a supermarket dinner do it for Date Night?
Instead of going out to a seafood restaurant and spending roughly $62 (plus tip) on a dinner for two, Publix suggests we eat at home and save $40. But on a Saturday night is it really worth it?
