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recipes

Should You Try Hello Fresh?

  Hello Fresh is one of many meal box kits you can subscribe to. But is it worth it? My roommate and I decided to try it out the other day and here are my thoughts.    The pros of using Hello Fresh    They have different plans so you should be able to find something to suit your family's needs. In my case, I just wanted a few meals to share with my roommate so we went with their 2 meals for 2 people a week plan. We both have really different tastes when it comes to food and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find any meals that we would both like, but that wasn't the case. Choosing your meals is really easy too. And there isn't a meal you like that week, or if you just don't want a meal to be delivered (for instance, if you're not going to be home) you can just log into the website and tell them to skip that week.    They also do a great job at keeping your food ingredients cold so if you aren't home when the box comes, you don't have to worry about the food going bad. The box is insulated and has…
Score: 1.02

Understanding the Basic Kitchen Knife Cuts

by ChefPerry

    If you’re going to spend any time in the kitchen, you’re going to have to learn how to chop vegetables. Proper chopping, slicing, and dicing techniques help us reduce waste, stay safe, and improve the taste and texture of our dishes.  Those of us who grew up under tyrannical chef-fathers, toiling away in the Dickens-esque sweat-shops of their prep kitchens (sorry Dad, just trying to make a point…), may have spent months or years doing little else than chopping veggies, and take the techniques required in stride. For those who grew up playing outdoors, with other children, in the sunlight…the following steps will walk you through how to prepare almost any fresh vegetable for cooking, in your own kitchen.  First things first, make sure you are holding your knife properly.        Getting Ready  Next, we need to prepare our veggies for chopping, as necessary, by rinsing, peeling, trimming, discarding roots etc.  It doesn’t matter how pretty, clean, or pristine they looked at the grocery store, there’s…
Score: 1.1

The Problem with Farm to Table - health, finances, and education

by ChefPerry

  I know that this title is going to bring some folks here lookin’ for a fight, so before you start sharpening your pitchforks and hurling your organic, fair-trade rotten tomatoes, let’s be clear…  I love the farm-to-table concept.  I love my local farmer’s markets, and I take every opportunity to support my local artisan food purveyors; in part, because I believe it’s the healthy and more socially responsible choice, but also because the food just tastes better!  However, my love and support for the idea of farm-to-table do not negate that, in practice, the system is flawed.  Maybe a more fitting title would be "Farm to Table…the missing ingredient" because the farm-to-table model leaves out a critical step…creating a gap that is not just important, but imperative to fill, for the system to work.  Functionally, the equation is actually “farm-to-KITCHEN-to-table” The kitchen is the bridge (or, unfortunately, more often the gap) between the farm and the table.  What good is fresh, organic…
Score: 1.0

Cambodian Grilled Chicken (Mann Oeng K’tem Sor) Recipe

by ChefPerry

     This ancient Cambodian grilled chicken recipe, called Mann Oeng K’tem Sor, may look complicated, but it’s really just a series of simple steps.       The stone walls of the Bayon temple in Cambodia, built at the end of the 12th A.D, includes an amazing series of bas-relief pictures of the army supply trains, encampments, field kitchens, and some of the earliest depictions of Asian barbecue.   Specifically, you'll see chicken skewered on split sticks and grilled over pyramid-shaped fires. Nine hundred years later, you'll find the same chicken grilled exactly as it was done during the height of the Khmer empire.         This recipe may look complicated, but it's really just a series of simple steps.  Like most S.E. Asian recipes, the end result is a succulent, savory, melt-in-your-mouth delight. (Feet are optional... ;) )     For the Chicken and Marinade: 1 whole chicken (3 1/2 to 4 pounds) 5 cloves garlic, peeled and cut in half 2 tablespoons sugar 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt 1 tablespoon soy sauce 1…
Score: 1.26

Classic BBQ Sauces, Rubs, & Mops by Region

by ChefPerry

In BBQ, sauces are used to flavor, marinade, glaze, and as a condiment or topping for grilled and smoked meats, especially ribs and chicken.  History places the origin of BBQ sauce to the first American colonies of the 17th century and can be found in recipes and cookbooks (both English and French) over the following two centuries.  Much like chili in Texas, these sauces were less about gourmet ambitions and more about masking the often off-putting odors and flavors of “aged” meat in a pre-refrigeration society.  The origins of these sauces isn’t particularly complicated, take the traditional tastes and flavors of the predominant immigrant population, add in the most similar ingredients that could be found locally, and mix with some good old American ingenuity, and you have the roots of a tradition that has only grown stronger and more popular over the last two centuries.  South Carolina mustard sauce, for example, can be traced to that region’s German settlers of the early 18th century.  …
Score: 1.0