Last year when I took my daughter and her friend trick-or-treating, they approached a brightly lit house alive with energy. The two girls knocked on the door, but no one came. Instead a woman leaned out of the window of a small kitchen crowded with people preparing a dinner party. "I'm sorry, we don't have any candy," she apologized as the guests behind...

Continue Reading

We're all familiar with this scenario: You bought the cheapest ticket at the very last minute and when you go to choose your seat, there aren't any left. It will be assigned at the gate, they say. This is code for: You're sitting in the last row in the middle seat. I'm pretty sure there is no one who would actually choose this...

Continue Reading

Eggs have always been a relatively inexpensive source of protein, perfect for the home cook trying to feed a crowd without spending a fortune. They're an obvious choice for breakfast (scrambled, fried, made into a frittata), but eggs can also serve admirably as lunch and dinner: Egg salad for lunch and spinach quiche for dinner are easy and filling options (even if you're...

Continue Reading

It's a common misconception that eating healthfully has to be expensive, so I love sharing how I do it on a budget without much time or hassle involved. One of my favorite places to shop for good, not-too-pricey food? Target! In addition to all those trendy home items, Target's grocery department is also full of frugal food finds. It's one of my favorite...

Continue Reading

Young trick-or-treaters tend to have all the fun during Halloween, but it turns out there are plenty of free treats for adults, too. There are many restaurants and chains — including Chipotle, Krispy Kreme, and IHOP — that are getting into the holiday sprit by giving away free (or very discounted) food right now. A couple of the freebies require you to dress...

Continue Reading

[Photographs: Emily Dryden] Whenever my husband meets someone remarkably unremarkable, he nicknames them "celery." I'm sure there's a "celery" in everyone's life—that friend who wears only monotone sweater vests and is an expert at fading into the background—but I think he's being too hard on the vegetable. Every good comedy ensemble needs a straight man, and celery is the overlooked stock character in...

Continue Reading

Long before cauliflower pizza crusts, cauliflower cakes, and cauliflower couscous, there were just a few folks looking for a lighter dish to enjoy in lieu of mashed potatoes. The popularity of all these cauliflower dishes is evident in the availability of pre-riced cauliflower widely available at most grocery stores. Lucky for us, that means all the knife work of making mashed cauliflower is...

Continue Reading

When you move out of your old apartment or home, it's always a curious thing to see the changes the new owner or tenant made once you left. That said, if you were lucky enough to move into a property that was previously owned by Martha Stewart, would you have the courage to change things up? This guy did, and when Martha went...

Continue Reading

Welcome to Kitchn's Food Budget Diaries series, where we show you how people around the country spend money on what they eat and drink. Each post will follow one person for one week and will chronicle everything that person consumed and how much it costs them. Name: Carla Location: New Orleans, Louisiana Age: 37 Number of people in family: 2 (me and my...

Continue Reading

Perhaps you've seen escolar at your local fishmonger or on the menu at restaurants. With some varieties of fish in danger of being overfished and other species becoming undesirable due to their high mercury content, seafood purveyors need a fish that's delicious, cheap, sustainable, and low in mercury. And escolar fits the bill. It's economical and politically correct; it's also extremely tasty. But...

Continue Reading

Mistakes happen to everyone, right? At least that's what you're supposed to say when someone really messes up and there's nothing else that can be done except to crawl into a hole and die. In what is likely the most embarrassing news this morning, Great British Bake Off host Prue Leith accidentally Tweeted out the winner for this season's show a whole 12...

Continue Reading

I've spent the last few years culling down my cleaning supplies to just the essentials and switching over to natural cleaners where I could. Despite a brief stint making our own laundry detergent (this was before we had two small children), I never had enough time or motivation to make my own cleaners. I enviously pined away at beautiful glass bottles of homemade...

Continue Reading

Membership warehouse stores can bring you big savings if you buy in bulk — but often those large quantities just don't make sense for single people living alone. As tempted as you are by the deal on that 12-pack of chicken thighs or 24-pack of paper towel rolls, it just isn't practical to store these things until you'll use them all. The apocalypse...

Continue Reading

If the advertising of the very early '90s taught us anything, it can be summed up in the following slogan: "Milk: It does a body good." But does it really? Here, we weigh the nutritional pros and cons of milk. Cow's Milk: The Nutritional Basics From a nutritional standpoint alone, cow's milk has quite a lot going for it, the New York Times...

Continue Reading

You know this carrot ginger dressing from the sushi, teriyaki, and hibachi restaurants who serve it over crisp iceberg lettuce at the start of many meals. The orange hue boasts a zippy sweetness, thanks to the carrots, sweet onions, and fresh ginger. Think this dressing is a one-trick pony? Try it as a marinade for grilled chicken or serve it on cold noodles...

Continue Reading

During my college years, my routine breakfast was to run through the dining hall and pick up a stack of pancakes, plop them in a napkin, and grab a small container of ranch dressing. I would then dip and eat on the go as I raced to class. So please, let the record state that I eat and enjoy weird pancake combinations and...

Continue Reading

Listen… I LOOOOOVE a baking project.  Catch me on a Saturday morning at 10am and it’s dang possible that I’ll have at least a dozen bagels coming out of the oven  as a result of a wild hair / intense craving that woke me up before the sun.   The warmer and breadier the project, the better. If there’s butter involved… I’m in.   While...

Continue Reading

Kicking off your morning with a dose of vegetables is an easy way to automatically feel like you're on the right track to eating well that day. Spinach and tomatoes and peppers aren't going to fill you up on their own, however. They need to join forces with protein, whole grains, or both in order to fill you up and send you out...

Continue Reading

The only green thing that Boris Karloff is known for is the green tufts of fur on The Grinch, or the ghoulish putre that was Frankenstein's skin. But guacamole? That certainly doesn't come to mind. But the king of horror loved Mexican food. (Karloff frequently worked with Mexican directors.) In an undated newspaper article, the writer extolls the professional brute as a kind,...

Continue Reading