I promise that this post is not just an excuse to show off the new All-Clad sauté pan my husband bought me for Christmas. It was the big gift, the one wrapped in a really large box. It was also a wisely chosen gift: he bought it through Cookware & More for much less than the usual price, and now that it's here it hasn't been put away in the cupboard once.
See, it's a big, big pan, and I've wanted one of these for a long time.
We noticed this great post from Penny Plastic over the break. She threw another under-$100 dinner party (inspired by this one), to see if she could do better. Go see how it turned out, and if she made budget! Plus some great pantry storage and recipes for light eating below.
We are on the record as loving our electric kettle. It boils water in a fraction of the time needed to heat water on the stove or in the microwave, and it's earned precious countertop space because we use it at least three times a day. We're curious about your kitchen tech setup and whether an electric kettle has earned a spot there too. More about electric kettles and our favorite model, after the jump.
New year, new week. Welcome back to The Kitchn. What are you cooking tonight, and how can we help?
Fennel is one of those vegetables that seems to always be in season. Its juicy crunch tastes like summer, and those delicate fronds look like spring. But the hardy bulb is really at its peak in the winter, from early autumn through April. Lucky us -- it's a refreshing complement to winter root vegetables and potatoes.
Here is a new (to us) recipe for fennel, a new favorite for winter. It plays up the anise taste of fennel but smooths it out into a sweeter, richer flavor that we deeply enjoyed.
One of our favorite dishes this winter has been a recipe for pumpkin casserole that we brought back from France. So this actual pumpkin casserole really caught us!
A few holiday leftovers today in our Delicious Links, including a tip for making pretty cranberries.
The excess of the holidays is past, and we're looking forward to lighter, healthier cooking this month at The Kitchn. We are going to focus (mostly!) on eating light this month. What does that mean?
We've been drinking gallons of lemon-ginger-honey tea to ward off winter colds, and so we can sympathize with reader Hildy, who is looking for a better honey dispenser.
Do you have any good ideas about how to store and dispense honey? The honey bear squeeze bottles make it easy to squeeze out a bit for tea, but I often buy honey in different or larger jars, and it's not easy to dispense into those tiny plastic bear jars. Is there a good squeeze bottle that you can recommend? Or what about honey pots? Do they work?
We're not quite done talking about 2008 yet; it's still fresh in our minds, after all. I spent some time personally thinking back over foods I developed crushes on in 2008. It was a year of pulled pork and coleslaw for me, a year of cabbage, fennel, radishes, and beets. But there are a couple foods that stood out because they were fresh (to me) and something of an obsession, by year's end.
The first one is quince, and here's why.
Hello! We've missed you all the last two weeks. There was so much cooking and baking, so many dinner parties and Christmas cookies, and we want to hear all about your triumphs. It's not too late to talk about the holidays one more time. What did you cook and bake, and what are you bookmarking? Did you discover new classics? Tell us!
What will 2009 bring to our tables? What will be the big stories, the hot new trends, the foods everyone is talking about? Well, at the risk of sounding terribly blasé, we really think that there is nothing new in the world of food; trends come and go, tastes swing to and fro on a predictable schedule, and through it all, good cooking endures.
Having said that, here are some of our thoughts on what sorts of good cooking will be most popular this year. Read through and tell us if you agree!
Even though most of us who write for The Kitchn are omnivorous, we all are trying to eat less meat and more vegetables. We enjoy vegetarian dishes quite a lot, and the vegetarians among us (Emily, Joanna) have brought new resources to our tables. We also want to be vegan-friendly, here at The Kitchn, and we've provided a list of vegan-friendly recipes in our roundup below. Some are ready to go, and others need just small tweaks (leave out the butter, the cheese) to be vegan.
Plenty more vegetarian cooking coming in January; we're very excited in particular about some bean-centric cooking we have for you. Until then, read on for a gallery of some of the best vegetarian and vegan recipes we published this past year.
1. 15 Really Useful Kitchen Items for Your Favorite Cooks
December was a big month at The Kitchn; it always is, what with all that holiday cooking and baking. Useful and inexpensive gifts for cooks, DIY peppermint patties, salt caramels, a winter party on a budget, top ten techniques every cook should know, and more: here are the top December posts that caught our readers' fancy.
This has been a busy year at The Kitchn! We've welcomed new writers, hosted several contests, and worked hard to bring you good cooking and friendly discussion on warming our homes through the kitchen. Here are a few posts that really stood out to me over the course of this past year.
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