As summer kicks into high gear, roadside stands and greenmarkets are bustling with fresh produce.
Fresh herbs, cut just that morning, perfume the air: sultry thyme, sprightly parsley and rosemary for remembrance. Sweet onions tumble out of bushel baskets and into burlap bags. Piles of peppers fight for your attention in red, green, orange, yellow and even black. And who can resist fresh ears of satiny corn?
As you lug all of your fresh produce home, don't worry -- as always, we've got your back. Beyond the jump is an original recipe to use that corn, those peppers and those onions to make a quick, fresh corn relish.
This relish has a Southwestern twang, but it can accompany virtually anything coming off of your grill for Fourth of July barbecues, from juicy burgers and seared steaks to perfectly smoked chicken. And if the summer corn is too irresistible to resist buying a bushel, you can double the recipe and send some home with your guests.
First storage, now cleanliness? I guess I'm getting a little domestic on y'all.
Coffee machine cleanliness is super important and, sadly, all too easily overlooked in both the café and the kitchen. The coffee oils that become your French press' ring around the collar are incredibly tenacious little suckers -- think of them as the caffeinated cousins to the crust in a skillet after cooking with oil. If left there, they can turn rancid (yuck!) and infiltrate every cup you make.
But don't pop open that vinegar bottle yet, friends: Vinegar's strong flavor and scent can overpower coffee by lingering if you don't rinse and rinse (and rinse and rinse). Not only that, but it probably won't banish all that stubborn residue on its own.
Turkey burgers on the grill. Photo: The Skinny Chef
Turkey burgers can be a great option for a high-protein, low-fat cookout. But what about their flavor, which often gets a bad rap for being overly dry and bland? My turkey burgers 101 guide will make your next barbecue both healthier and more delicious.
Dark or Light?
Not all ground turkey is created equal. Regular ground turkey -- labeled 93 percent lean -- is a combination of white and dark meat and sometimes contains other parts of the turkey, including skin and organ meat. Look for statements like "98 to 99 percent fat free" or check the label for calorie and fat content to make sure you're getting the lean stuff.
Get Jennifer's no-fail turkey burger tips after the jump.
Let's face it: The world ain't ideal, and situations get hairy sometimes. I've been reduced to substituting paper towels for coffee filters before, so maybe you've had to keep your coffee beans in the freezer because your kitchen's the size of a walnut shell. You'll get no judgments from me, but I am here to help, and part of that means breaking (or reiterating) the news that coffee is best stored away from your icy asparagus tips.
Most high-quality retail coffee -- like the bag in the picture above, though it's living in the wrong place -- is packaged specifically to keep beans fresh, with the addition of a one-way valve that lets the coffee release necessary gases after being roasted but does not let air in to stale the java. Because it's bagged fresh and can be resealed properly, you should be able to simply keep whole-bean coffee in its bag or an air-tight container in a cool, dry place -- but definitely, definitely not the refrigerator.
The Skinny Chef's Spicy Tuna Cups. Photo: Jennifer Iserloh
Making proper sushi rice and learning to roll your own takes a lot of practice. But even if you feel overwhelmed wrapping sushi, these little pickled cucumber cups are just the easiest thing to make and you can fill them with all sorts of tasty bites.
These nibbles are made from sushi grade tuna that I buy at The Lobster Place in the Chelsea Market in New York City. But if you don't have a great purveyor locally and aren't a fan of raw fish, you can always use the same amount of baked salmon. It works just as well in my recipe, although the texture will be firmer
So what's the deal with mercury? Learn more about tuna and mercury and get Jennifer's Spicy Tuna recipe after the jump.
Early in our relationship, whenever I told my husband I was headed to a cupping, he (a coffee lover but not a fanatic like me) would imagine something, er, otherwise-related. Now that he knows cupping as a coffee-tasting ritual he might be disappointed -- or relieved -- but at least he understands why I'm a bit jittery when I come home from one.
The cupping process traces back to the 19th century, when beans were graded basically on a "yes" or "no" scale: Too many defects (like disease or mold) earned an ix-nay, while just about everything else was considered acceptable.
Today, cupping serves several different purposes: At the coffee's point of origin it allows farmers, importers, brokers and roasters to test the quality of a crop; after roasting, the roasters themselves will cup coffees for consistency, flavor profile and to detect the effects of aging; and at the consumer level, coffee cuppings are the rough (and fun!) equivalent of wine tastings, and are becoming widelyavailabletothepublic.
Baristas are getting increasingly used to people describing their morning fix as "too pretty to drink," and not only because it's their first caffeine of the day. Latte art, a particular way a barista will "fold" steamed milk into espresso to create a heart or a leaf-like design called a rosetta on a drink, has been mesmerizing café goers (and even the baristas themselves) for years, but it's still seemingly a work of magic to most.
Well, I don't want to burst any (milk) bubbles, but latte art isn't magic,it's skill -- well, skill and a little abracadabra. The former because it can take months or even years to master the intuitive art of marrying two liquids, and the latter because a great latte artist can disguise not-great coffee under a stylish surface.
You've seen that sliced-up green apple sitting up top aside the Slashfood logo. Perhaps you've pondered its culinary potential -- the crisp snap of that bright green skin, the half-sweet/half-tart flavor that is the special domain of the Granny Smith apple.
Voila. Slashfood sorbet!
In sorbet, a single element is distilled into an intense burst of flavor. It should be so vivid that only a bite is necessary. Perhaps you're most familiar with it as an intermezzo to cleanse the palate, in a fluted paper cone to hold while walking alongside your companion and his gelato or in scoops piled high in a frosty parfait glass almost too cold to touch.
After the jump, an original recipe for a gorgeous green apple Slashfood Sorbet. We challenge you to only eat one bite.
Not in a "don't bogart that can, man" way. Just that if I'm going to go to all the trouble of stoking a hardwood lump charcoal fire, obsessively monitoring its low-'n-slow-ness for a goodly chunk of the day, feeding its greedy gut with beer-soaked mesquite and hickory chunks at half-hour intervals all for the sake of an albeit fabulous brisket or pork shoulder, I'm gonna want a bit more return on the investment.
Here's where foil pans of salt, cherries and lemons come in.
Part of a continuing summer series by grilling expert Gena Knox.
Turkey burgers can be a healthy alternative to hamburgers, but they can easily lack flavor. I have enjoyed creating recipes to make what is traditionally a dry, flavorless burger into a delicious meal you will want to serve again and again.
There are usually two options when buying ground turkey. Turkey breast is 99 percent fat free, but has little flavor. Then there is ground turkey that includes some dark meat and skin, but can easily contain just as much fat as ground beef. Most of the time I purchase both and create a mixture of 75 percent breast meat and 25 percent dark meat. This gives the burger nice balance and moisture. Short on time, I use the breast meat, but add a few extra ingredients for flavor and moisture.
My favorite creation just may be my most recent: Italian Turkey Burgers.
Now that cookout season has kicked off, my healthy makeovers of traditional summer classics -- like creamy guacamole dip -- are in high demand.
It's true that avocados are high in fat, prompting people to call it the "butter pear." While a medium-sized avocado contains about 30 grams of fat, most of it is mono-unsaturated fat that actually helps to lower cholesterol levels. Diet experts have long steered consumers away from avocados, though the U.S. government revised its official nutrition guidelines a few years ago to encourage Americans to eat more of them.
Some people say it's impossible to mess up a guacamole recipe, but I beg to differ. In my book, there's no place for garlic. Yes, you heard right. Plum tomatoes are a must, with the seeds removed to keep from watering down the dip's velvety texture. I also think lime juice and cilantro are central to kicking up the flavor a notch, adding a nice contrast to the creamy texture of the avocados. I top the whole thing off with a pinch of heat from cayenne or other hot, ground dried chilies.
Get Jennifer's guacamole tips and Creamy Guacamole Dip recipe after the jump.
Even Gummi bears need exploratory surgery sometimes.
At least that's what the wickedly funny folks at Instructables would have us believe. They've created this hilarious and slightly unsettling series of photos showing the iconic bears going under the knife for such, er, unorthodox procedures as a head transplant, limb transplant and split personality transplant (you'll just have to see that one for yourself). The photos of the procedures are accompanied by helpful hints: When preparing for surgery, remember that "dried Gummi gore can be wiped off with a paper towel or you can replace the whole blade."
If surgery whets your appetite for more Gummi fun, there's a related gallery on the site that teaches readers how to make a Gummi bear fruit smoothie. And the bears themselves might be relieved to see instructions for vodka-infused Gummis -- after all they've been through, they could probably use a drink.
An unmistakable perfume is in the air: the intoxicating vapors of resiny cedar, sweet applewood, sexy mesquite and reliable ol' hick'ry, arising from grills and escaping from smokers on every block and in every park. Brats are sizzling, hot dogs plumping, chicken breasts marinating, hamburgers being seasoned. And he-men and she-women can barely wait to tuck into perfectly seared T-bones, dry-aged Porterhouses, smoky brisket, even refined filets mignons.
In steakhouses, spinach, typically creamed, is a traditional accompaniment for steak. This is because steak demands to be in the company of strong flavors, and spinach -- among the most assertive of greens in both texture and taste -- delivers. So, as grilling season commences, Slashfood reminds you to eat your spinach. Beyond the jump is an original recipe for a spinach salad that's nothing like the oily, eggy cafeteria staple; gilded with lemon and oregano and with a smoky bacon crunch that resonates with food from the grill. C'mon, give it a try -- it'll please both your mother and Popeye!
Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is the second in a series of tips for the caffeine-addicted.
Maybe things got rolling a little fast with my last post about making the perfect cup of French press coffee. So let's back up a sec.
Some readers had pretty visceral reactions to my suggestion that they ditch the ol' whirly grinder in order to make a tastier mug of French press joe, and I understand: Blade grinders are cheap, burr grinders can be expensive! But not alldecentburrgrinders will chop your wallet as well as they chop your beans, and your cup quality should skyrocket as a result. Learn why and see a ridiculous video of me after the jump.
Not Martha set the foodie world on fire -- uh, 378 commenters and a bunch of blogs, at least -- with her BLT-themed, freestanding bacon cups. But they required three hours of effort and resulted in a house full of smoke.
Then Merriment Design came along and introduced a microwave to the process. Voila! Cups large and small whipped up in as little as five fire-free minutes. All they required were a few pieces of kitchen paraphernalia, some paper towels and a whole lot of bacon. Click through for the particulars of how it's done, and be in bacon cups all summer long.
Now that cookout season has kicked off, my healthy makeovers of traditional summer classics -- like creamy guacamole dip -- are in high demand. 
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