Water Bath Home Canning Supplies Basic home canning supplies are cheap. You do not need to spend a lot of money on equipment to get started on home canning right away. In fact, for around $95 or less you can buy all the supplies you need, including the jars and a recipe/instruction book, to do […]
Tools
Should You Get Your Knives Professionally Sharpened?
This is a sticky-wicket. I myself struggle with this advice. I have a whetstone and I use it. My results? I have sharp knives. Are the edges all that perfect? No. I have some dings in the blade of my heavy chef knife and I have not yet purchased a whetstone with a coarse enough […]
Benefits of a Salad Spinner
There is nothing worse than a wet salad. I don’t need to tell you. You prefer your lettuce and other salad greens to be as dry as possible so that the dressing will stick and you won’t have a soggy runny mess with no flavor. As well, wet greens will not keep as long. But, […]
Do You Need Professional-Grade Kitchen Towels?
This is a favorite with the “I’m a fancy cook” crowd. The problem is they never explain what the intended use is. Why do you need a professional chef towel for a kitchen towel? If your goal is to wipe down counters and such, I’d recommend a microfiber towel. They are highly absorbent just like […]
Should You Buy an Instant-Read Digital Meat Thermometer?
I was prompted to write this post because I found about ten too many articles that were positively precious about instant-read cooking thermometers. One of those articles said it was worth it to pay almost a hundred bucks for a Thermapen (ThermoWorks Super-Fast Thermapen Professional Thermocouple Cooking Thermometer) because otherwise, you might overcook a $25 […]
What’s the Purpose of a Tube Pan? Will a Bundt Pan Do?
If you have a cake recipe that calls specifically for a tube pan, do you have to use one? Can you substitute a similar pan, like a Bundt cake pan? Generally, speaking, if your recipe explicitly names a tube pan, you probably should use one. Although a tube pan may look superficially similar to bundt […]