Episodes

Top 10 Kitchen Tools – Part 1 Refresh Your Tools To Put Dinner On The Table In A Flash Top 10 Kitchen Tools for Weeknight Cooking | Part 1 Several years ago, my upstairs washing machine leaked through the ceiling to the first floor. In what now seems like a stone age experience, I used the yellow pages and my landline to locate a plumber in the middle of the night. He surveyed the rogue washer, pulled out a wrench, and tightened a loose fitting. If only I’d had the right tool, I’d be $120 ri...

Fried Chickpeas with Turmeric Be a super hero with a super food! Fried chickpeas with turmeric. In the spirit of International Women’s Month, I’m going to talk about a super chick – a chickpea that is! It’s not just any pea, and not the kind our parents forced us to eat. It’s a “super” food, packed with protein and fiber, and made for versatility. From soups and salads to delicious hummus, you can prepare this lovely legume in ways that will delight any palate. History of the Chickpea The...

Don’t Diet! Make a Lifestyle Change Instead Do you think of the word diet as a noun or a verb? Is your diet a way of life or is it deprivation? Each year, 45 million people go on a diet to lose weight: this is the verb form of the word. But the struggles are apparent. Sixty-five percent of Americans are overweight and more than 36% are obese. Most diets fail because deprivation is never a long-term winning strategy. If you’re looking to change your eating habits, lose weight, and feel bette...

Romanian White Bean Dip A Tasty Way To Explore Romanian Cuisine Romanian white bean dip. Besides feeding yourself well and spending less money than going out, here’s what’s fun about cooking: It is a cheap and tasty way to explore the cuisine of another culture or a nation, without ever leaving home! No cramped airplane rides or potetially dicey hotel rooms. Just you, your kitchen, your chef knife, and a trusty skillet or two. One thing that you’ll learn is that cuisines from across the glo...

If You’re In Need of a Broccoli Makeover, This Recipe Is For You! Next to brussell sprouts, broccoli may be the next most hated vegetable in all of veggie land. When an advertising firm in Colorado was challenged by New York Times writer, Michael Moss, to create a campaign to market broccoli they uncovered the not-so surprising bad attitudes towards this cruciferous vegetable that looks like tiny trees. According to the article that Moss wrote about the project, first impressions of broccoli i...

Marinated Flank Steak with Ginger, Garlic, Orange, and Rosemary Flavorful, Fast, Easy, and Delicious! Marinated flank steak with ginger, garlic, orange, and rosemary. Have you ever thought about marinating a piece of steak, chicken, or pork? Then you walk to fridge or the pantry and say, “Darn, I’m all out of marinade!”. Never again! Create your own marinade from the ingredients you have in YOUR pantry. Making a Marinade is Easy There are four primary ingredients: Salt. Helps along the pr...

Pound Cake: A Cake Built for Slicing, Sharing, and Gathering Pound cake. I never had a sweet tooth as a kid. This was much to my mother’s chagrin, I’m sure. She would pour forth as much effort on her desserts as the main dish. Sometimes I would indulge in a forkful or two of the ooegy gooey sweet ending, but more often than not I would instead take an extra helping of vegetables or a piece of bread. She was never at a loss for takers though. My older brother loves sweet things and began ever...

Two Tips For Making The Perfect Bowl of Rice How to make rice. Let’s talk rice. While we think of rice as a simple side dish at dinner, in many cultures rice is consumed at every meal of the day. In some rural areas in Asia, rice is used to pay debts, wages, and rent. We don’t pay homage like that to rice, but every now and then, it does make a showing at dinner. Perhaps you don’t cook it often because it is a bit of a mystery. Maybe it comes out clumpy, overcooked, undercooked, or just pla...

Soul-Satisfying Shrimp Creole Shrimp creole. Growing up in Texas the cuisine of my neighboring state, Louisiana, was a mystery to me. Aw heck, the entire state perplexed me. The Cajun accent sounded like a foreign language, and what was a Cajun anyways? Or a Creole? From crawfish boils to boudain, this very unique state offers an amazingly flavorful mixture of dishes using centuries-old cooking techniques conferred by those who settled there from France, Portugal, Spain, Africa, and others....

Apple Quesadilla Jump Into Saute with Apples! Apple quesadilla. Writer Harriet Van Horne once said, “Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon, or not all.” In other words, you’ve got to give it your all in the kitchen. Creativity Is A Means To Creating Positivity In Your Life A study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology has suggested that engaging in creativity is a means to cultivating positivity in your life. Why? Because cooking and other creative activi...

Shredded Carrot Salad What To Do With Fresh Carrots! Shredded carrot salad. At the end of the day, the last thing you want to do is spend oodles of time in the kitchen creating a culinary masterpiece. You want food that is easy to prepare, good for you, and tastes so good that it calls your name for a second helping. Yes, leave the masterpiece cooking for the weekend. So what’s one thing you can do to make short order work of your kitchen experience on the weeknight? Always keep a stock of...

Pork Chops Worthy of a Conversation At Home! Chili and cumin rubbed pork chops. The Most Important Question You Answer Every Day: What’s For Dinner! What is the one question you answer every day that has a profound impact on your life, health and well-being, at home and at work? “What’s for dinner?”! Are you surprised? Think about it. The choices you make about the evening meal, what to eat, where to eat, who to eat with, all impact your health, how happy you are and how good you feel abo...

Win The Pear Lottery! Pan-roasted pears with honey caramel sauce. Have you ever taken a bite out of a perfectly beautiful pear, only to discover that it was not quite ripe? What a shock! It’s grainy and dry, devoid of that luscious pear juice your tastebuds were longing for. One researcher in the Northwest who has dedicated his career to moving the pear out of the shadow of the apple says, “Getting a nicely ripened pear is harder than winning the lottery.” Pears Don’t Ripen On The Tree Tha...

From Humble Spud to Star Side Dish: Smashed Garlic Potatoes Few foods hold a place in our hearts and kitchens quite like the potato. Humble, hearty, and endlessly adaptable, this simple tuber has traveled from hog feed in the 1850s to a modern-day staple beloved around the world. Whether mashed smooth, roasted crisp, or fried golden, potatoes have the power to turn an ordinary meal into something deeply comforting. And when you smash them with garlic, butter, and a splash of lemon? Well, that...

Cabernet and Jalapeño Braised Short Ribs With Cilantro Gemolata Braising: A Recipe for Keeping Your Brains from Going into Your Feet Cabernet and jalapeño braised short ribs with cilantro lime gremolata. In the movie “Spaceballs” the fleet commander, Dark Helmet, played by Rick Moranis, is in hot pursuit of Princess Vespa. Astounded that the Princess and her rescuer, Lonestar, are making a get away, Dark Helmet commands his ship to go straight to Ludicrous Speed to catch them. As the ship ac...

Oranges With Spiced Raisin Sauce “Orange” You Glad You Like Oranges? Oranges with spiced raisin sauce. When my girls were elementary-school age, they shared a knock-knock joke with me that still takes up space in my brain. I’ll spare you the details, but the phrase “banana” is repeated in an annoyingly number of times, followed by the word “orange”. The punch line is, “orange” you glad I didn’t say banana. Do you like oranges? Oranges Are The Third Most Favored Fruit Oranges are the 3rd m...

Sautéed Spinach Be Strong To The Finish With Fresh Spinach Like Popeye Sautéed spinach. Popeye the Sailor Man was a cartoon character who loved spinach. Created in 1937, Popeye sang “I’m strong to the finish, ‘cause I eats me Spinach!”. Popeye consumed spinach whenever he needed extra strength, sometimes including the can! While you might have a bone to pick with Popeye regarding his grammar, he is spot on when it comes to the nutritional value of spinach. The nutritional facts about the i...

The First Restaurant Sold “Restoratives”, aka Soup In 1765 a man by the name of Boulanger opened a shop in Paris just down the street from the Louvre. In this shop he sold soup which he called “restaurants” or “restoratives”. His first dish was sheep’s feet in a cream sauce. According to Larousse’s “Gastronomique”, a culinary encyclopedia, Boulanger stenciled these words in the window of his shop, “Come to me all ye whose stomachs are aching, and I will restore you.” It was the first restaura...

Grits Breakfast Bowl Don’t Pull A Bill Murray At Breakfast Grits breakfast bowl. In the classic movie, Groundhog Day, actor Bill Murray stuffs an entire, large piece of cake into his mouth – at breakfast. It’s an iconic scene in a movie where the arrogant weatherman Phil Conors, played by Murray, gives nary a thought to tomorrow’s consequences for today’s actions. Because he relives the same day, Groundhog Day, over and over and over. Only in the movies, right? Because in real life our act...

Grapefruit and Avocado Salad: A Burst of Sunshine! Long past the time when the garden has yielded its last tomato, and the glory of warm fall colors dissolve into the grayness of winter, there is a ray of sunshine that bursts onto our grocery shelves. Winter’s Gift Grapefruit. It’s winter’s gift. The best grapefruit come from Texas. Specifically, from the Rio Grande Valley where the semi-tropical climate and rich soil produces a thin-skinned fruit with an abundance of sweet juice. It wasn’t...

Have Courage In The Kitchen One of America’s most beloved cooks, Julia Child, was also one of the early pioneers of TV cooking. Her show, “The French Chef”, premiered in 1963. The show was recorded live from start to finish. Once, as Julia prepared to flip a potato pancake, she looked at the camera and advised that courage was the key to the successful flip. Julia Child Failed But Remained Unflustered Julia missed the flip and it was spectacular. Part of the potato pancake landed on the sto...

It’s Time For A (Salad Dressing) Revolution! Classic red wine vinaigrette. It’s a new year and a new you. You want to eat healthy and so you choose to eat a salad. Fantastic! Reasons To Think Twice About Using Bottled Dressings But here’s a truth you need to know. That bottled salad dressing that you use to either drizzle or drench your greens may be the unhealthiest part of your meal. Most processed salad dressings contain very little of the simple flavor pizzazz you’re looking for, and...

Hitting a Home Run in the Kitchen with a Knife You can’t hit a home run swinging a golf club or knit a sock using a twig. In the kitchen you can’t properly chop an onion or anything else with a small, skinny steak knife. A Chef’s Knife Is THE Most Important Tool In The Kitchen A proper chef’s knife is a cook’s single most important tool. Yet it’s the knife home cooks rarely pull from the wooden block because they are intimidated by the size of the blade, 8”-10” long and a1 1/2” in width. Bu...

Slow Cooker Pizza The Lifetime Gift Slow Cooker Pizza. When I was a kid my mother collected S&H Green Stamps. The stamps were given out at the grocery store, based on the amount of her purchase. When she collected several books of stamps my mom made a trip to the S&H Redemption Store. This is where she exchanged her stamps for a treasured household item, like a toaster or blender. Think of your life like an S&H green stamp book. Everyday you collect experiences like stamps that stick to you. ...