Tips and How To

Nothing beats the crispy crunch and the delicate flavor of batter-fried fish and seafood. While the simplest coating for fried fish is simple seasoned flour, batters form a protective coating that seals in flavor and has a pleasing texture. Read more »

Today I planted one of my easiest/hardest gardens, the Heirloom Dry Bean Garden. It's one of the easiest because once you get them planted and — with a little weed cultivation later on — you don't have to do a darn thing to them until you harvest them. Which is the hardest. Read more »

Ever wonder how a tandoor oven works, and just how they bake naan bread and tandoori chicken in it? These videos show you how it's done.

Tandoor ovens have been around for a long time. Seven thousand-year-old remains of these cylindrical clay or brick cooking powerhouses have been found in the ruins of the Indus Valley civilization located in modern-day Pakistan. Read more »

April 27, 2009...just 8 months until Xmas.

Yesterday I planted cabbage plants in my garden. Usually I grow all my plants from seed, because I'm cheap. But this year I purchased my eight plants from a local garden center for a total of $3.50. According to my personal garden ledgers they should have been planted last week, but I was busy planting all of the other vegetables that can handle a late frost. Read more »

A Chef Robert from Tularosa, NM, recently posted a comment on the naan bread recipe with a question that can raise hackles among bakers: "Why add sugar to the yeast proofing liquid in bread recipes?"

The answer? Well, let's take a look... Read more »

These days we all want to help improve the environment, minimize global warming and leave behind a better world for following generations. But the enormity of the environmental issues we face can be overwhelming and intimidating. What can li'l ol' you do to make a difference in such a big, big world? Read more »

Many of us are pinching pennies these days, trying to squeeze as much out of each dollar as we can. One easy way to do that — especially heading into the holiday baking season — is to make your own brown sugar at home. It's about half the cost of store-bought, you get to make only as much as you need and it couldn't be fresher. Read more »

Ever run across a recipe that calls for chickpea flour? No? Well, I have. Indians, Turks, Italians, Spaniards the French — they all use it. But finding a store that stocks chickpea flour can be a pain. Here's how you can make your own in a snap. Read more »

My favorite week of the year is the week between Christmas and New Year's. No, it's not because of all the post-Christmas shopping specials. We don't do that out here on the prairie. It's because it's the week that my rural mailbox becomes inundated with bunches of garden and seed catalogs for the spring planting season. Read more »

Beans! Beans! They're good for your heart! A great source of protein and chock full of fiber. You can buy them canned — very convenient. But canned beans are often overcooked and oversalted. Cooking dried beans yourself is much cheaper and you control the seasoning. Here's a checklist of how to cook dried beans to get the best results. Read more »

East Asian cooking, especially the cuisine of southeast Asia, uses a lot of rice noodles. They are served hot, cold, in soups, in salads and rolled up into spring rolls. Their lightness and chewy texture make rice noodles a pleasant change from heavier wheat noodles. Only thing is, many of us don't have a clue how to soak them properly. Perhaps I can help. Read more »

Originally posted January 30, 2008.

Simmering foods need to be stirred. Otherwise what’s on the bottom will burn before what’s on the top is cooked. What’s more, anything added to the pot after it is put on the fire needs to be stirred in to get evenly distributed.

But proper stirring is not a simple matter of clockwise versus counterclockwise. Circular stirring just makes the food go ’round and ’round with nothing mixing together. So what’s the magic secret? Read more »

Originally posted December 14, 2007.

Well it’s been a little too long since my last post. Sorry ’bout that! Life intervenes at times. Now it’s the Holiday season and I’m madly scrambling to collect recipes for Xmas. Read more »

It's been one wet day after another here in Northern California. On one hand I'm thankful my lawn looks all lush and green (albeit very weedy) but on the other hand, boo hoo-we've been homeward bound for way too long. Read more »

Out on the prairie, in the southeasternmost corner of Iowa's Pottawattamie County, on the eastern slope of the Nishnabotna River Valley, located on the third terrace at the south end of my upper garden is my perennial vegetable garden. Read more »

I love mole poblano. The subtle heat of the ancho, pasilla and mulato peppers. The sauce, its flavor deepened with chocolate and thickened just enough to coat slices of turkey or chicken with a cocoa-velvet sheen. But all that wonderfulness can take a long, long time to make. I came up with this speedy version that—while not quite as ethereal as the hours-long stuff—can still make your heart sing and your tummy beg for más! Read more »

With all of the recent food contamination scares, most of us are understandably worried about the safety of what we put in our mouths or those of our children. While salmonella in a peanut factory is a matter for government regulators, there are some basic steps you can take in your own home to make sure your family's meals are safe to eat. To get started, let's break down food sanitation into three numbers and one letter: 40, 140, 2, and X. Read more »

Cheap cuts of meat are usually tough because they come from parts of the animal that get the most exercise — shoulders, chuck and shanks and round. But these cuts are also the most flavorful. The key to cooking them correctly is long, slow braising in liquid. But have you ever found that no matter how long you leave that stew on the stovetop, it just never gets to that falling-apart, melt-in-your-mouth stage? What's the secret to fork-tender braising? It's actually easier than you would think. Read more »

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I caught a glimpse of red and noticed that the homeless gentleman had his right hand held at ear's level, holding a large ripe red tomato. The tomato had a big bite out of it, and juices ran down and off the man's elbow. Read more »