91±¬ÁÏ

March 20, 2018

Top 10 kitchen tricks from expert cooks

Simplifying strategies, tips, and techniques—from the Real Simple test kitchen to yours.

March 20, 2018

Best back-of-the-box recipes

Here at The Daily Meal we value preparing a homemade meal every night, but that’s not often the case for everyone. For some people, the thought of standing over the stove exhausts them, and peeking into the takeout menu drawer seems like a much simpler alternative. Whether it’s a busy lifestyle or the concept of making something "from scratch" is intimidating, there are things that hold some of us back from getting into the kitchen. But a home-cooked meal doesn’t have to be intimidating, and thankfully for us, some of our favorite store-bought food products feature easy, delicious recipes on their packaging that make use of the products we've already purchased. Did you know that you can get homemade gumbo from a Campbell’s Soup can or that you can serve a prize-winning meatloaf with help from Quaker Oats? All of these recipes take minimal time and average skill to execute, and they highlight some of our favorite brand-name foods in ways we never thought of before. Best of all, they’re homemade. From appetizers and main dishes to dessert, these are some of our favorite back-of-the-box recipes that are sitting in your grocery store’s aisles waiting to be put to use. To make these recipes even more unique, we’ve added our own twist to each one so that you can make these recipes your own. So stop letting the kitchen intimidate you and take some help the best back-of-the-box recipes. Before you know it, takeout menus will be a thing of the past.

March 20, 2018

Jim Beam's great grandson's guide to tasting bourbon

We met with Fred Noe, Seventh Generation Master Distiller and great grandson of Jim Beam, in Chicago recently, as he shopped his Signature Craft 12-Year at Chicago’s WhiskyFest. Between lunches and general hobnobbing with other whiskey big wigs like Wild Turkey Master Distiller Jimmy Russell, we asked him three things we should be looking for when trying whiskey.

March 20, 2018

10 best kitchen supplies

Real Simple tested the top gadgets on the market and came up with these kitchen-worthy winners.

March 20, 2018

15 cakes you would never know were cakes

Sometimes looks can be deceiving. We'd all love our asparagus to taste like chocolate cake, right?  Well, now you can have your veggies and cake, too. Here is a list of 15 fabulous cakes that look just like other, healthier meals. (Take a closer look. You won't believe these are really cakes.)  So if you're going to cheat yourself and binge on cake, try these. Those around you will have no idea your calorie intake has skyrocketed. Happy snacking. 

March 20, 2018

Find and cook the best bacon

Real Simple staffers pigged out on 58 versions of the best food on earth, bacon. These winning strips truly sizzled.

March 20, 2018

Top 10 Mother's Day gifts

Not all moms were created equal. While some just want to sleep in and be off diaper-duty for a day, others long for an indulgent brunch or a decadent day at the spa. Some mamas are content with chocolate, flowers and handcrafted gifts, while others appreciate more luxurious presents. Check our guide for gifts in all categories, from just pretty to pretty pricey.

March 20, 2018

9 creative uses for jelly beans

We’ve been busying ourselves with Easter prep these past few weeks, from searching for the prettiest decorated eggs, the best egg cups, and the perfect deviled egg recipe to hunting for the best basket treats around.Amid the talk of eggs and chocolate bunnies, we’ve neglected a huge Easter icon — the jelly bean. Ah, yes, the sweet, sour, and sometimes insanely sugary bite-sized candies that fill your dessert bars and party favor bags and are often the "treasure" in your plastic Easter eggs. With flavors like buttered popcorn, piña colada, toasted marshmallow, tutti-frutti, and others, you can imagine how bright a scene just one bowl of jelly beans creates. However, some flavors aren’t so stellar — who can forget Harry Potter’s famous Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, a brand that’s now owned by Jelly Belly and whose flavors consist of vomit, booger, earwax, sausage, and rotten egg as well as a few other delectable options. Technically a dragée — a sweet that has a hard outer shell — a jelly bean, though delicious, can be used for just more than satisfying your sweet tooth fix. They can sit atop cakes, decorate tables, and sometimes, just sometimes, pose as jewelry. While we can’t force you to actually eat them, we can urge you to step into spring with us and use the colorful confections to create a fun and inviting atmosphere. Take a nod from some of these creative and original ways to use jelly beans in your Easter and spring party planning.

March 20, 2018

Busting the most common kitchen myths

Do you do something religiously in the kitchen just because your mother told you to? Salting the pasta water to make it boil faster, storing coffee in the freezer to extend its life span, or searing a steak for juicier meat are all tips we’ve picked up over the years for how to be a better cook, but the truth is that some of these tips are actually just myths. Enter Angela McKeller, award-winning recipe writer and author of Gluten-Free Made Easy as 1, 2, 3: Essentials for Living a Gluten-Free Life, whose years of experience in the kitchen have taught her what to believe and what not to believe. McKeller has some surprising facts about certain rules that we’ve been living by in the kitchen, and she walks us through the most common ones and spells out the truth behind them. Think you’re destroying your mushrooms when you give them a quick rinse under the faucet? Think again. Want to know the truth behind adding marbles to milk or heavy cream? We’ll tell you. Some of the most well-known kitchen myths may not be as truthful as you’ve been led to believe, and McKeller puts all of your doubts to rest. We hope you join us in our myth-busting brigade.

March 20, 2018

How to make a better meatball

Some things just never get old, especially when it comes to food. Traditional dishes — ones like dips and apple pies — hold a special place in many people’s hearts because of their consistently satisfying flavors and the memories they conjure. Whether it’s a recipe that we learned from our grandmother or a dish that represents a significant event in our lives, food has a way of crawling up inside our hearts and staying there forever. For many, this sentiment can be applied to a hot, heaping plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Does anyone remember when Lady and the Tramp locked lips over it during a romantic, back-alleyway dinner? Or could you imagine an elegant meal at a red-and-white-checkered-table Italian restaurant without seeing it on the menu? Whether because of family, childhood movies, or just simply America’s overwhelming love for it, spaghetti and meatballs is a dish that will just never get old and never go away. Ask any Italian about the rustic, home-style dish, though, and they’d tell you that it all starts with the meatballs, and the spaghetti is just an afterthought. Traditionally, the two were never supposed to be served together, but over time, and especially in America, they joined hands and are rarely seen without each other (at least in the respect that we discuss them here). Because anyone could boil water for pasta, we chose to zone in on this timeless dish by determining how to make a better meatball. For help, we turned to Italian chef Michael Lomonaco to give us some pointers. While he doesn't serve Italian food at his New York City restaurants Porter House New York and Center Bar, he knows a thing or two about the region’s cooking. Lomonaco grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., with two Sicilian-immigrant parents, and he spent most of his life making and eating authentic Italian food. And along with Lomonaco’s key words of wisdom, some other friends in the industry, like Michael Psilakis and Marc Vetri, impart their meatball knowledge and share their recipes with us as well. Recipes for a classic meatball will inevitably change over time; but the idea of one will never die in our hearts as food lovers. Live by these meatball-making rules given to us from the experts and you’ll make a better meatball, no matter what kind, every time.