The 7 Best Meals to Learn to Cook Yourself

Cooking is hard for some people. I don't really understand why, as there are a lot of really easy recipes out there and following a recipe is in itself very easy (even easier if there is a video to go along with it), but nonetheless many people still struggle with cooking. And there are others…

Knowing When to Give Up: My Gumbo Adventure

There are all too many motivational anecdotes about never giving up, and that's good and all, but I think there need to be more motivational anecdotes about knowing when to give up. This is one of them. On Saturday I made a goal: that I was going to attempt to cook shrimp gumbo. If you've never had…

[Recipe] Chicken Tikka Masala

Disclaimer: this recipe is based on one from thekitchn.com, but with a few slight modifications made that dramatically improve the quality of the dish, in the author's opinion.  I had never had Indian food until a few years ago, but I became pretty quickly hooked on it, thanks to this dish. Chicken Tikka Masala is perhaps the…

How to Cook Chicken Breast that Isn't Awful

Chicken breast is the workhorse of the American kitchen. It's the classic "jack of all trades, master of none" meat. It doesn't get the glamour of steak or the mystic of pork, but it is affordable and goes with many different sides. It is a blank canvas. The only downside with boneless, skinless, chicken breast…

Recipe: "American" Paella

Paella is a traditional Spanish dish that has a rich history and many different methods of implementation. The only thing I really know about it is that the term "paella" refers not to the dish but to the large pan in which it is cooked. And that's probably all most non-Spanish people know about it.…

Stop Wasting Money on Cooking Gadgets

One of my small passions is watching infomercials on Saturdays. There is something simply mesmerizing about the sheer enthusiasm of the salespeople that are promoting various gadgets. I never even buy anything that is pitched on an infomercial, I just enjoy learning how awful my life is without [insert product] and how much better it could…