How-To
Dyeing Easter Eggs Naturally
If you're decorating eggs in celebration this Easter, engage nature in the process this year and avoid synthetic dyes. Ingredients like herbs and spices offer an endless variety of hues for dyeing eggs -- from the soft purple shades of hibiscus to the rich gold tones of turmeric.
Warm Spices
You know a warm spice when you meet one, whether you smell it wafting through the kitchen or taste it in a stew. That deep aroma and strong taste makes any dish richer.
Practical Peppermint
A hardy perennial—watch out or it’ll take over the garden! — peppermint is a cross between spearmint and watermint. Its botanical name is Mentha x piperita, after a Greek nymph who was transformed into a plant, but you’ve most likely heard it called simply “mint.
Baking Flavors & Extracts 101
In some recipes, using a flavor extract or flavor is easier and yields a tastier, more uniform result than adding the actual ingredient itself. For example, almond flavor might be preferable to using chopped almonds in some breads, cakes or cookies.
Introduction to Fermentation
Fermentation transforms and preserves food through the action of microbes. People started fermenting food thousands of years ago, motivated by a need to have food to eat beyond the growing season.
Cooking with Ginger
Talk about personality! Not a spice to slip in unobtrusively, ginger always makes a grand appearance in dishes. Warm yet refreshing, versatile yet distinctive, ginger’s enigmatic character often enlivens the mix — in a gamut of sweet and savory recipes and in ethnic cuisines the world over.
Dandy Dandelion
A hardy, cheery perennial, the dandelion arrives in early spring, thriving in wet or dry, shady or sunny locations (though it basks in the sun). You’ll find it gracing pastures, wastelands, and, of course, lawns.
Customize Your Skin Care
Homemade Skin Care Made Easy The path to wellness includes mindful decisions about your skin care routines. Creating your own skin care products can be a fun and effective way to ensure you know what you are putting on your body.
Your Guide to Homemade Pickles
Without herbs and spices, a pickle would be a bland shadow of the fresh cucumber it started out to be. The myriad nuances and complexities provided by the herbs and spices used in the pickling process are what give pickles their signature flavors.
