Chef’s Tip

The #1 Mistake Most Home Cooks Make… Every Time It’s all there in black and white – step by step instructions – yet we’ve all experienced the pain of royally messing up a recipe due to haste. The simplest and best way to avoid catastrophe? Read the recipe all the way through before you begin.

Who’s stared at a zucchini mid-recipe and asked yourself: “Wait, which way is lengthwise again?” You’re not alone, it’s a common question I hear. But if you want your veggies to cook evenly, look good on the plate, and of course to not botch the sauté, it’s time to stop guessing and start slicing with

Seems like a no-brainer, right? Open the box, dump the contents in boiling water, drain and done. Well. Not so fast. The difference between good pasta and not so good pasta comes down to a handful of “musts” and a couple of “must nots.” If you were lucky enough to grow up with an Italian

Outsource the hard work to your oven – roasted veggies are the ultimate easy to do, comfort food side. Toss your favorite vedge with a pinch of salt and a drizzle of oil, and just like that you’ve got a craveable, healthy addition to dinner. While a cinch to prep, following my tips will ensure

The volume that a measuring cup holds can vary from brand to brand. This is problematic when precise measurements are required, as in baking. Nowadays, more and more recipes are providing weight measurements, not only for baking, but also for cooking. Just last week I was following a recipe that called for three medium zucchini.

For most of my grilling life, I cut thick slices of zucchini, seasoned them with a brush of olive oil and sprinkle of salt, and popped them on a hot grill. They couldn’t be easier to prepare, and those nice, fat pieces rarely fell victim to the hollows of the grill. What I found lacking

Like most success stories that later go on to be written, plastic wrap was born out of failure – or in this case, as reported by National Geographic, a chemistry mistake from the 1930’s where it was discovered as a “residue [that clung] stubbornly to the bottom of a beaker.” Before plastic wrap became popularized

If a peach, banana or pear get picked a little too early, no biggie – they will continue to ripen as they mellow on your counter. Not the same with melons. They are non-climacteric fruits, which means that post-harvest, the sugars will no longer develop, and they will not continue to become tastier or sweeter

Baking can be nerve-wracking. I’ve been doing it a long time, and still have those moments of peering through the oven door to watch batter bubble up over the sides of the pan, or seeing a cake puff up beautifully only to fall dramatically in the last 5 minutes of cooking. When that’s happened, I