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Real Brain Food: What Geniuses Actually Eat, Part 1
It's common knowledge that certain foods foster brain development, health, and memory. Fish almost always makes the list, as do any foods that are loaded with antioxidants like blueberries, nuts, whole grains, green tea, and dark chocolate. Spices like turmeric are being studied for their ability to prevent Alzheimer's, among other things.
How To: Make Salad Greens Last Longer… Using Your Breath or Homemade CO2
Salad greens are a staple in my house and for good reason: they're cheap, nutritious, and work as a base or an accompaniment for almost all meals. However, it's all too easy to forget about them and then pull out a bag filled with sludgy dark goo or yellow, inedible leaves.
How To: The Trick to Peeling & Grating Stubborn Ginger More Easily
Ginger root is one of the most underappreciated and versatile spices around. It's simultaneously hot, sweet, and piquant. It's also a pain in the tush to peel, thanks to its thin, fragile skin and the thick, knotty rhizome that contains all the flavor.
How To: Cook Frozen Steak & Fish Without Defrosting Them First
Can you cook a steak or salmon filet that's straight out of the freezer and get good results? Ordinarily, I would say no. Usually your steak ends up a sad grey mass fit only for the family dog and the fish is burned on the outside with an icy, undercooked center.
How To: 8 Mouthwatering S'Mores Food Hacks for Summer
One of the best things about summertime is that there's lots of outdoor cooking, whether you're on a camping trip or grilling. And what better way to end your meal than with the classic dessert, s'mores?
Summertime Cooking Hacks: How to Make Meals Without Sweating Over Them
"The best season for food is the worst season for cooking." These words, spoken by food blogger Dave Klopfenstein of Dave's Kitchen, couldn't be more true.
How To: The Secret Trick to Peeling Shallots More Easily
Certain foods like garlic, onions, and shallots are food staples for a reason—they're unbelievably flavorful and cost very little. However, with their papery thin skins, they're also a pain to peel.
How To: Temper Chocolate & Why You Should Never Skip This Step at Home
"Tempering chocolate" is one of those intimidating-sounding kitchen tasks that keeps novice cooks away from some really fun stuff like making candy, chocolate-dipped biscotti, and fruit.
How To: Prepare & Serve Watermelon for Parties
Impress your friends with this simple yet great way to serve a watermelon. Perfect for parties. You'll never create triangle-shaped slices of watermelon ever again with this hack. You only need a watermelon (could also work with other melons), a sharp knife, a cutting board, and some friends!
How To: Avoid Caffeine Crashes, No Matter What Kind of Coffee Drinker You Are
Fifty-four percent of Americans 18 and older drink coffee every day, and why not? With 100 milligrams of caffeine per six ounces of drip coffee, it's just the morning beverage to wake you up and kickstart your day. You can feel the caffeine surge through your body like the Holy Ghost, making you aware, focused, and ready for action.
How To: 10 Paper Towel Hacks for Your Kitchen & Beyond
The paper towel is a wondrous invention. It allows cooks to wipe up really gross stuff without having to constantly do laundry and drain fried foods so they're crunchy and crispy instead of oily and heavy. But did you know that your humble paper towel has several other uses besides the obvious ones? Read on to find out these essential hacks.
How To: Why You Should Always Order Large—At Least When It Comes to Pizza
Check it out: you save more dough (ba dum bump) when you order a large pizza than with any other size. Why is this true? NPR reporter Quoctrung Bui's engineer friend pointed out that a medium pizza was twice as big as a small one, yet only cost slightly more.
How To: Eat Better by Making Healthy Food More Visible
We tend to assume that eating is mostly a physical act, but the mind has so much to do with the choices we make.
How To: Why You Need to "Smash" Your Burger for Maximum Flavor
Many home cooks were taught never to press down on a burger as it cooks since that would ruin your all-beef patty by getting it to release the juices it needs to stay tender and moist.
How To: Why You Don't Really Need to Season Your Cast-Iron Pan
I love my cast-iron skillet, but I never seasoned it properly. Instead, I took that sucker out of its packaging, wiped it down with a damp cloth to remove any factory dust, and started cooking with it ASAP. And you know what? It works just fine.
Slurping's Mandatory: Why Getting Messy with Ramen Makes It Taste Better
Sometimes when non-Asians go to ramen bars, they're mildly weirded out by watching the patrons eat. To the uninitiated, the eating behaviors can seem kind of extreme. Why are people hovering over their bowls like animals at a feeding trough? Why do they let endless lengths of noodles dangle from their maw as they slurp—very, very loudly—over their bowls of broth?
Cook for Garlic & Onion Haters: Alternatives & Substitutes
Hard as it is to imagine, there are people out there who loathe garlic and onions. Some might have allergies or medical conditions like IBS, or are supertasters (i.e. people who carry a certain gene that makes them extremely sensitive to how certain foods taste). Others might just be picky eaters.
How To: The Simple Trick to No-Mess Fry Dipping on the Go
You're in your car. You've got a bag of piping-hot French fries with you. You want those fries in your mouth ASAP, but you also want to dip them in ketchup. So what do you do?
How to Prep Tofu Properly: A Beginner's Guide for Tofu Haters
When you know how to cook it, tofu is a delicious dish in and of itself—truly. Too many people have been subjected to poor quality or badly cooked tofu and told to eat it because it's a "healthy alternative" to meat. Usually what they bite into is a bland, rubbery mess coated with a random array of flavors.
How To: Make Perfect Poached Eggs, Every Single Time
Two slices of whole-wheat toast with lots of butter. Two eggs, poached to a firm yet custardy texture. The yolks should absolutely not be hard-cooked and the whites should be tender, not rubbery. That's my idea of the perfect breakfast.
How To: Make Authentic-Tasting Soft Pretzels at Home Without Any Drain Cleaner
Certain ingredients that a professional chef might work with in a restaurant-style setting may seem bizarre, dangerous, and even downright scary to a home cook, and for good reason.
How To: Eat Less Using Smell & Visualization
We've already taught you how to clench your fist to make healthier food choices, and how to make sure you eat healthily at a restaurant, but it turns out there are even more mind hacks we can use in our never-ending quest to control our appetites.
How To: Prevent Kitchen Spills with This DIY Resealable Grain Dispenser
I love cheap, nutritious food: lentils, rice, toor dal, and other beans and grains. Even popcorn. The only problem is that they usually come in floppy plastic bags that make measuring ingredients more difficult. I usually open up one corner of the bag only to have everything come spilling out all at once whenever I try to pour out measured amounts.
How To: 10 Tricks You Need to Use for Better-Tasting Food from Your Microwave
The microwave oven is a monumental technological achievement that's saved college students and single people from starvation for decades. Almost 97% of all American households have one, which makes it the most-owned kitchen appliance in US homes right after the refrigerator.
Prebiotics & Probiotics: What Foods Have Them & Why You Need More in Your Diet
Just what are probiotics and why are they so good for you? Probiotics are "viable microorganisms" that can confer lots and lots of health benefits if they reach your intestine while they're alive. You may have heard them described as "friendly bacteria."
Sustainable Seafood: The Food Hacks Guide to Doing It Right
Fish is delicious, and as the Harvard School of Public Health points out, incredibly good for you. There are many studies that show regularly consuming a couple of servings of fish per week can help prevent heart disease and may well reduce your chances of stroke, depression, and getting Alzheimer's. After all, there's a reason why fish is called "brain food."
How To: Why You Should Use Boiling Hot Water for Faster Ice Cubes
It's a small but very real frustration: you want a chilled drink, but you open the freezer only to see nothing but empty ice trays. Fortunately, there's a simple way to make ice cubes quickly—use hot water. Yup, you read that correctly. Hot water freezes more rapidly than cold.
How To: How & Why Fasting Can Boost Your Immune System
Fasting—or the practice of regularly abstaining from ingesting anything except water—is a pretty drastic move. I tried to fast for two days and made it to the 12-hour mark, which is when I broke down and ate a quart of ice cream.
How To: For Great Pan-Fried Steak, Salt the Skillet First
There are a lot of techniques out there for how to cook the perfect steak, from flipping it multiple times to applying a spice rub or dry brine to aging the beef. But it turns out that there's a super-easy way to make a great steak at home, and all you need is a good cast-iron skillet and some salt.
Summer Hack: Hot Tea Can Cool You Down More Than Popsicles
Instinctively, we reach for popsicles and cold drinks when the temperatures climb, but doing something counterintuitive, like going for a hot drink or eating something spicy, is actually more effective at keeping you cool.
How To: Wait... Photographing Your Meals Actually Improves Them?
Last year, The New York Times wrote that certain restaurants in Manhattan and Brooklyn banned patrons from taking photos of their meals. That means no flash photography, no standing on chairs for a better angle, not even a quick pic for your Instagram followers before the first bite. Little do these restaurants know, this ban can actually make their customers' food taste worse, so to speak.
Cook Like a Chef: Use Ratios, Not Recipes
Recipes are invaluable to cooks who are just starting out, but what if you want to get to the next level? Then it's time you learn how to apply simple math to food. In other words, learn how to cook using ratios, not recipes.
How To: Slice a Cake for Long-Lived Freshness, According to Science
A dead British science nerd figured out the best way to cut a cake to preserve maximum freshness, and it's pure genius (well, sorta). His name? Sir Francis Galton, a polymath infamously known as the founder of eugenics, and apparently owner of a very big sweet tooth.
How To: Trick Yourself into Eating Healthy at a Restaurant
Think eating food is as easy as putting it in your mouth? It's considerably more complicated than that. Your brain plays a big role in determining what and how you eat. Understanding how your brain interprets food choices is key to managing your eating habits.
How To: Make Pizza Dough with Only Two Ingredients & Why It Works
Any pizza lover knows that a quality crust is crucial to the whole experience. Good pizza crust should be delicious on its own, for once you get to the edge, it will be without any toppings, sauce, or cheese to disguise a bad character. It should be redolent of fresh, good wheat and taste full-bodied, rather than flat, flabby, or metallic, the way so many big chain and frozen pizza crusts do. The exterior should be crisp, while the interior contains an airy crumb as well as having a tender, s...
How To: Give Your Food a Bath or a Rubdown for More Flavor
Brining is magic. All you have to do is make a mild saline solution, toss in your protein of choice, let it soak, and cook. You end up with incredibly tender, flavorful meat or tofu for very little effort. So why aren't more of us doing it?
How To: Why You Should Skip Store-Bought Stock & Just Use Water Instead
When I became serious about cooking, nearly every cookbook and guide I picked up emphasized the importance of using fresh stock, whether it was chicken, beef, or vegetable. When I didn't have time to make my own, I bought the highest quality boxed or canned stock I could find at the market.
How To: Make 'Dirt' You Can Actually Eat
Want to show all your foodie friends that you're really in the know? Then it's time to master the art of making edible dirt. Chefs out there are finding ways to take various foodstuffs and dry, char, and combine them to give the appearance of actual dirt—only with a rich, savory taste.
How To: Stop Buying Toxic Beauty Products—Make Cheaper, All-Natural Ones Right in Your Kitchen
Many of the beauty products you buy at drug and department stores are loaded with potentially toxic ingredients like parabens, while their active ingredients are made of things like glycolic, lactic, malic, and alpha hydroxy acids and retinoids, which are all derived from foods.
How To: Why Chopsticks Are the Best Cooking Tool You Aren't Using
Chances are you've got a bunch of wooden takeout chopsticks doing nothing but cluttering up your utensils drawer. That's a darned shame, considering that chopsticks aren't just for shoveling food into your mouth—they're actually the best cooking tools a cook can have (plus they come in handy when you run out of extra-long matches). Sautéing, Grilling, Deep Frying, & Stir-Frying