13 Essential Cooking Tips We Learned From Our Moms

Being an only child, my mom has always been much more than just a mom to me. She’s also my best friend. Sure, there were plenty of times when—as a parent—she dropped the iron hammer, but we’ve always had a closeness that was more like friendship.

Grow…

Being an only child, my mom has always been much more than just a mom to me. She's also my best friend. Sure, there were plenty of times when—as a parent—she dropped the iron hammer, but we've always had a closeness that was more like friendship.

Growing up she obviously taught me a lot of very important things: work hard, make good choices, and don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. But when it comes to cooking, the most important thing she instilled in me was small: Keep an organized work station, and clean up as you go.

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5 Smarter Ways to Clean Your Kitchen, According to Pro Chefs

As much as I love to cook, cleaning my kitchen is one of my most dreaded—even feared—household tasks. It doesn’t take long for dishes to pile up, my limited pantry space is a jumble of spices and jars, and my dirty pans sit on the stove longer than I’d…

As much as I love to cook, cleaning my kitchen is one of my most dreaded—even feared—household tasks. It doesn’t take long for dishes to pile up, my limited pantry space is a jumble of spices and jars, and my dirty pans sit on the stove longer than I’d like to admit. I’d pretty much given up on remedying the situation—that is, until I spoke to three cooking pros about their smartest, cleverest, and most-trusted techniques for kitchen cleaning. From general words of wisdom to specific, practical tips, the advice from these chefs has reminded me that keeping my kitchen clean doesn’t have to be (such) a chore.


1. Stay Organized

You may think this goes without saying, but it’s so important that I’m saying it anyway: Staying organized is the first step to improving your kitchen clean-up process. “The biggest mistake I see home cooks make is not staying organized from the get go,” says Caroline Schiff, acclaimed pastry chef at Brooklyn’s Gage & Tollner. “The process of mise en place, which is a restaurant standard practice, keeps you neat and organized as you work,” she explains. “Starting off this way means the whole process will be more streamlined—even clean-up.”

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Everything You Need to Know About Dutch Oven Cooking

The Dutch oven—or as I like to call it, the analog crock pot—is a favorite among those who love cooking. The hype around Dutch ovens exists for good reason: They are highly effective, beautiful, dynamic, and durable pieces of cookware. Many of the dish…

The Dutch oven—or as I like to call it, the analog crock pot—is a favorite among those who love cooking. The hype around Dutch ovens exists for good reason: They are highly effective, beautiful, dynamic, and durable pieces of cookware. Many of the dishes central to your core cold-weather food memories likely came from a Dutch oven, as it is the ideal vessel for braised short ribs, seafood stew, sourdough bread, and countless other cozy classics.

As someone who also loves to cook, allow me to stay true to form—here is everything you need to know about Dutch oven cooking.

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An Underrated (& Simple!) Technique for Fancy-Feeling Eggs

I’ve been trying to spread the gospel of coddled eggs to friends, coworkers, acquaintances—really, anyone who will listen. But I keep getting a similar response along the lines of, “What on earth is that?”

I’ll give you the short answer first: A coddl…

I’ve been trying to spread the gospel of coddled eggs to friends, coworkers, acquaintances—really, anyone who will listen. But I keep getting a similar response along the lines of, “What on earth is that?”

I’ll give you the short answer first: A coddled egg is simply an egg gently cooked in a ramekin-like container (outfitted with a screw-on lid) in a pot of simmering water. Safely nestled in their individual vessels, the egg gets cooked by what is essentially a warm bath.

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Don’t Forget to Sterilize Your Canning Jars—Here’s How

We’ve officially reached the point in summer when my garden is producing way more vegetables than we could possibly eat. I’m talking 3 or 4 pounds of cucumbers per day! Because I hate to see anything go to waste, I started learning how to preserve prod…

We’ve officially reached the point in summer when my garden is producing way more vegetables than we could possibly eat. I’m talking 3 or 4 pounds of cucumbers per day! Because I hate to see anything go to waste, I started learning how to preserve produce a few years ago, and now, canning is one of my favorite summertime activities. On any given weekend, you can find me pickling cucumbers, zucchini, and beets or making jam from homegrown rhubarb and peaches.

I’ll be the first to admit that canning can be a bit intimidating, as you have to follow recipes precisely and properly sterilize your equipment to ensure the food is safe to eat down the road. There’s a lot of different information online about how to sterilize canning jars, so we turned to the experts at Ball for definitive answers on how it should be done and when it’s necessary. Here’s what they told us.

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How to Prevent Freezer Burn Once and For All

Freezers are magical appliances: They allow us to save homemade soups and sauces for months on end, keep ice cream frozen for our daily after-dinner sundaes, and store ice for cocktail parties (a must). As essential as it is to freeze leftovers and fro…

Freezers are magical appliances: They allow us to save homemade soups and sauces for months on end, keep ice cream frozen for our daily after-dinner sundaes, and store ice for cocktail parties (a must). As essential as it is to freeze leftovers and frozen pizzas for zippy suppers, freezers aren’t always our friends. In fact, they can sometimes be the foe—namely, when so-called “freezer burn” infiltrates our supply of frozen foods.

Let’s get one thing clear: Freezer-burned food is completely safe to eat. According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), “freezer burn is a food-quality issue, not a food safety issue.” The FDA notes that freezer burn often presents itself as “as grayish-brown leathery spots” on the food in question. So even though freezer burn doesn’t always look or taste quite right, it doesn’t mean your food is spoiled or otherwise harmful if consumed.

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The Absolute Best Way to Make Cheeseburgers

In Absolute Best Tests, Ella Quittner destroys the sanctity of her home kitchen in the name of the truth. She’s boiled dozens of eggs, mashed a concerning number of potatoes, and seared more Porterhouse steaks than she cares to recall. Today, she tackl…

In Absolute Best Tests, Ella Quittner destroys the sanctity of her home kitchen in the name of the truth. She's boiled dozens of eggs, mashed a concerning number of potatoes, and seared more Porterhouse steaks than she cares to recall. Today, she tackles cheeseburgers.


At 1500 West Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California—an otherwise unassuming corner—if you look down at your feet, you might be surprised to find a plaque that reads as follows:

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How to Steam Carrots Without Cooking Them to Death

One of the easiest side dishes to make is steamed vegetables—like carrots—but they’re also one of the easiest to screw up. One second the vegetables are practically raw and the next they’re an overcooked mess that may as well turn into a mash. So what’…

One of the easiest side dishes to make is steamed vegetables—like carrots—but they’re also one of the easiest to screw up. One second the vegetables are practically raw and the next they’re an overcooked mess that may as well turn into a mash. So what’s the best way to steam carrots so that they’re actually appealing?

How to Steam Carrots (No Steamer Basket Necessary)

First, are you steaming baby carrots or large carrots? Will they be cooked whole, halved, or in smaller rounds? All of this will impact exactly how long to cook carrots for.

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3 Best Honing Steels for Your Sharpest Knives Ever

For a long time, I thought the best way to care for kitchen knives was with those pull-through handheld knife sharpeners that look more like a clunky office accessory than a kitchen tool. That is, until I worked as a line cook in a restaurant, and the …

For a long time, I thought the best way to care for kitchen knives was with those pull-through handheld knife sharpeners that look more like a clunky office accessory than a kitchen tool. That is, until I worked as a line cook in a restaurant, and the executive chef used a honing steel on his kitchen knives. He used it with lightning speed, swiping his German and Japanese knives up the steel at a 45-degree angle, finessing the blades to laser precision.

What’s the point of honing and sharpening your knives anyway? Over time, knives get duller. We know this. But how does honing your knives help? Do an experiment with me: place your palms together, with your fingers pointing upwards. Now, interlock your fingers and separate your palms, creating a triangle formation. See how your fingertips extend outwards? Think of that like dull metal. When knives show wear and tear, the blade becomes uneven, with microscopic changes to its shape that you can’t really see to the naked eye. When you run the blade against a honing steel, it’s essentially straightening those jagged edges (yes, in this case, your fingertips) to create a clean, straight line on both sides of the blade.

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The Best Vegetables to Grow in Raised Garden Beds

You can Grow Your Own Way. All spring and summer, we’re playing in the vegetable garden; join us for step-by-step guides, highly recommended tools, backyard tours, juicy-ripe recipes, and then some. Let’s get our hands dirty.

Every year during the s…

You can Grow Your Own Way. All spring and summer, we’re playing in the vegetable garden; join us for step-by-step guides, highly recommended tools, backyard tours, juicy-ripe recipes, and then some. Let’s get our hands dirty.


Every year during the strawberry harvest, I daydream of growing strawberries in a long, narrow raised bed (tabletop height, so I don’t have to crouch, crawl, and squat to pick the berries, which is quite tedious). But a raised bed for my sizable strawberry patch would be a considerable undertaking and expense. Plus, I would need not just one but two beds to ensure a seamless harvest.

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