It has just been brought to my attention that Pyrex cookware has been receiving some attention from Consumer Reports via the Consumerist. I love glass cookware and I will continue to use my glassware for baking; however, there are a few precautions one should always use. Glass, even tempered glass, is fairly rigid and doesn’t conduct heat …
Dear Home Ec 101, Do you have any tips for cleaning poop off of the cover of a cloth bean bag chair? The tag reads “Do not open under any circumstance.” It’s a $20 bean bag chair from Target and I don’t just want to “get anodder one” as my toddler suggests. As you may have guessed, the toddler was …
Heather says: For a long time, I’ve wanted to help readers with the creation of weekly menus and shopping lists. Up until this point it meant creating the menu, listing all of the ingredients and manually creating a pdf from this list. I’ve been working with Brian Hutchins of SayMmm.com to create an easy way for …
Dear Home Ec 101, I just got back from the grocery and I’m despairing. I’m trying to be frugal these days, but still I don’t want to intake HFCS and I like to choose organic eggs and milk when I can. And I feel like it’s a balancing game to keep my family healthy but …
Heather says: What’s your favorite cookie? Mine is the very simple chocolate biscotti. I prefer this recipe without the chocolate chips and with the walnuts, but since I was making it for the family, they got it their way. Biscotti is actually an ancient technique for making food fit for travel. Consequently biscotti is suitable …
Dear Home Ec 101: I was somehow elected to carry the 25 pound turkey from the kitchen to the dining room on Thanksgiving. I didn’t drop it, but I did tip the cutting board it was resting on enough so that the turkey drippings flowed down my leg onto the kitchen floor – making the …
This is my family’s version of the spicy Mexican meatball soup, often called Albondigas. The recipe came from my mother, who grew up in Tucson, Arizona.
Heather says: Despite what the media wants to say, I know many families are in practical gift mode, either by choice or circumstances. If you have a new or aspiring cook on your list, some of these kitchen items may be a hit. With the exception of the knife block, I’ve tried to keep the …
Dear Home Ec 101, I sat on gum in my favorite pants! Or more like, one of the few pairs of pants I own. I went to see the after midnight showing of the first day Harry Potter came out, and halfway through the movie I went to snuggle on my boyfriend and found my …
Heather says: After big events or projects, a lot of companies like to get together and do what they call the postmortem. It’s a way to figure out what went well, what didn’t, and what you should do differently next time. You could do this privately and save it for yourself, but what’s the fun …