Ideas & Tips — Kitchen

Food industry experts agree: the days when ketchup, mustard and mayo were the only sauces you were expected to provide are long gone. According to Food Product Design magazine, incorporating more complex "gourmet" sauces into home cooking is becoming more popular, and therefore, "chefs and product developers are showing [condiments] as much respect as they do anything else they put on the plate." For a more compelling condiment experience this holiday season, consider serving up some of these less-common sauces: Chimichurri: A tangy, zesty, sweet-and-sour sauce from Argentina made with chopped parsley, vinegar and red pepper flakes, this sauce is...

If there was to be only one rule for appropriate utensil placement it is that everything has to be neat or, more specifically, geometrically spaced with the centerpiece consummately controlling the center and the placements sitting at equal distances from each other. So long as this rule is recognized, it is difficult to create an unsightly dinner presentation.  There are several other general decrees. The knives are always situated with the cutting edge pointing toward the plate. Dessert spoons and forks are catered in with the dessert. Also, never place more than three of any utensil. If there are more than...

Tired of all your old standby dinner recipes? Why not mix things up and try serving your family breakfast for dinner? Also known as "brinner," your kids are sure to love having foods normally reserved for the morning hours during the last meal of the day. You may even want to make it a fun weekly tradition! Here are some ideas to get you started: Breakfast burritos: Incorporate a Mexican food twist to your brinner when you set up a breakfast burrito bar. Wrap some warm tortillas loosely in a cotton dish towel and arrange in an attractive fruite bowl...

There is nothing wrong with enjoying ice cream in the winter. As a food, ice cream comes with numerous health benefits. It is both a source of vitamins A, B-6, B-12, C, D and E and it increases the amount of thrombotonin in the human brain, a hormone attached to our happiness and the reduction of stress. But there are several other reasons for eating ice cream, even in the winter, with perhaps most of all being that it tastes good. Still, if detractors attempt to rain on your pistachio parade, here are other ice cream perks that make eating it at...

For more than 100 years, butter and margarine have railed against each other for the position of America's most preferred spread. The shifting opinions of medical experts, the faithful adherence to traditional cooking habits and the millions of dollars poured into marketing campaigns have all kept the discussion about the two substances alive and heated. While butter has a history that goes as far back as the middle ages where cow's milk was first stirred into a soft solid, margarine is rather young by comparison. First manufactured in 19th century France, margarine's initial rise came largely on account of the...