"how-to" news and stories

Come on, you just knew that this was going to happen sooner or later: Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has reached a deal with Costco to offer frozen and fresh refrigerated foods for customers. The items will start showing up in Costco locations in 2008.

This article makes a good point about how this will affect Martha Stewart's image. It's one thing for Martha to tell us how to make neat crafts and how to clean our homes and where to vacation and how to decorate, and give us recipes and kitchen tips, but what if we try these foods -- foods that the company has made, supposedly -- and we don't like them, or they're just "typical grocery food?" As the piece says, drapes and paints cannot spoil in the refrigerator."

But they'll probably be fine. But I wonder what foods she'll offer? Probably something a little fancier than corn dogs and Salisbury steak.

Angel food cake is a dessert that has relatively few ingredients, but takes a fair amount of planning. The light, downy-soft texture of the cake and fantastic flavor make it worth it, though, because you will never buy an angel food cake that tastes this good at the supermarket. This cake is sweet, moist and nearly melts into your mouth. Eat it straight out of hand or top it with strawberries, whipped cream or lemon curd.

To make the cake, your eggs whites will have to be separated and brought to room temperature. It is easier to separate eggs when they are cold because the yolk is much less likely to break and contaminate the whites. The best way to separate eggs is to use multiple bowls, breaking and separating the eggs before transferring the white to the rest of the whites. This way, a broken yolk will not ruin a dozen egg whites. When the egg whites are at room temperature before you begin to beat them, they will achieve a much greater volume, giving you a higher, lighter cake.

Congratulations! You have successfully made delicious, homemade dinner rolls. After gathering all your ingredients, you proofed the yeast, kneaded the dough, shaped the rolls, baked the rolls and now that the rolls have had sufficient time to cool you get to taste the rolls. They have a hint of crispness to the crust and a soft interior. You can see the color difference in the rolls that are brushed with egg (top left, in the photo) and those that were not (all the others). The rolls brushed with egg bake up darker in color, though the egg does not add anything to the flavor of the roll.

Eat these with butter and jam, or use them to mop up gravy. Enjoy!

[Photo by Nicole Weston]

Lightly beat an egg with 2 tablespoons of water and brush onto your risen dinner rolls. This will give them a lovely brown sheen as they bake. You could brush them with butter instead, for a deeper color, but an egg will always give them the best shine. If you like, you may also sprinkle sesame or poppy seeds on top of the rolls at this point.

Bake the rolls at 400F for about 20 minutes. They will be golden when they are done. Slide them off the baking sheet and onto a wire rack to cool. Yeasted breads can turn a bit gummy inside if they are cut when they are hot, so it is best to let them cool to room temperature before eating them.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]

Take your risen dough and turn it out onto your lightly floured surface. Use a knife or a bench scraper to divide the dough in half, then divide each half into six even pieces, for a total of 12. You can shape these pieces into any shape you like. Rounded balls are probably the simplest, but it is even easier to drop them into lightly greased muffin tins. To make knots, roll each piece of dough into a rope and tie it. (Yes, that is my hand. No, it is not easy to shape a dinner roll and take a photo at the same time. ) Shaping the dinner rolls is a great time to get your kids involved in baking, even if they can only manage snake-like breadsticks or less-than-circular rolls.

Place all your formed rolls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or one that has been lightly greased. Cover the baking sheet with a large, clean dish towel and let the rolls rise for about 20 minutes.

Now is a good time to preheat the oven to 400F, then you can finish preparing the rolls.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]