General Cooking & Baking: Expert Guides and Resources

Building a meal bowl is as easy as layering six elements: a base of greens and grains, a protein, colorful veggies, something crunchy, a flavorful sauce, and a final pop of color. The result is a meal that's heartier than a salad and simpler than a casserole. Read on for step-by-step styling tips, crowd-pleasing party combos, the best make-ahead veggies, and handy grain cook times.

Family hungry and nothing to cook? Make sure that never happens again. If you always keep these staples in your pantry, refrigerator, and freezer, you’ll never again be stuck with no option but takeout.You can certainly add to these lists, but these essentials can always help you make a good meal. For items you use regularly (such as bread, eggs, and milk), plan to restock about once a week.

Hone your knife skills and learn how to separate a whole chicken into eight pieces so you can leave the expensive, precut chicken pieces at the grocery store. Master the simple steps needed to cut a whole chicken into thighs, drumsticks, wings, and breasts. You’ll feel like a real kitchen pro!

If you really want to go to town with this pots-and-pans thing, you could probably buy a hundred different ones, each with its own specialized function. But is your kitchen really that big? You can do just about any cooking chore with some basic pots and pans However, if you want to take it to the next level, you may consider acquiring some of these additional handy pans.

Most home cooks can get along with three versatile knives: a 10- to 12-inch chef’s knife, an 8- to 10-inch serrated (bread) knife, and a small paring knife.A chef’s knife can be used for all sorts of chopping, slicing, dicing, and mincing.This knife is really the workhorse of the kitchen, so investing in a quality chef’s knife always pays off.

Cooking for yourself is a skill anyone can do, whether you are 16 years old or 96 years old. Making your own meals from scratch can be immensely satisfying while also saving you money, allowing more control over your nutritional intake, and providing an outlet to express your creativity.Being able to shop, prep, cook, and feed yourself is the ultimate in self-sufficiency that will bring you energy and joy for the rest of your life.

Recipes are full of culinary codes like abbreviations and weird measurements (how big is a pinch?). Deciphering between the different cooking abbreviations and their proper units of measurement can help make sure your dish comes out exactly as planned. You can find common abbreviations for measurements here, as well as conversions of various ingredient measurements.

Eggs really should never be hard-boiled (in their shells), but rather hard-cooked; rigorous boiling causes eggs to jostle and crack, leaving the whites tough. The following steps show you how to prepare and peel hard-cooked eggs. Steps for preparing and peeling hard-cooked eggs Place the eggs in a saucepan and add cold water to cover them by about 1 inch.