Last weekend, as many of you know, it was absolutely freezing here in the Northeast. I wanted to cook something that would have me over the stove for a good stretch of time. A fish stew sounded good, but I wanted to come up with something that used only the more environmentally responsible seafood choices. I also wanted a dish with some heat and depth, without being too thick and heavy.

This Cure-taker in Jersey City says she works on the pantry monthly but it gets disorganized again right away. The first thing I suggested was separate the cleaning supplies from the food.

Part of this week's Kitchen Cure assignment is to do a deep cleaning of the kitchen. This got me thinking about the kinds of cleansers people use and where they keep them. As I read through the hundreds of submissions from Cure-takers, I saw a range of solutions, and lack thereof.

We often get questions about cooking in small spaces. While recommending another appliance might not seem like the logical answer, a counter-top oven is actually a great solution for energy-conscious, small-space cooking...

I don't dare do the math on my garden: divide the total amount of money put into the garden each year by the number of tomatoes, melons, peppers, bunches of sage, etc. we ended up eating. Given all the mistakes I make, seedlings I buy too early only to perish in the spring rains, and cute straw hats that end up in my shopping cart, I'm probably growing $20 tomatoes. But when done wisely, planting a garden can actually save you money on an otherwise steep organic produce bill. Or so the folks at Peaceful Valley Farm, where I buy my garden seeds, would have us think...

We have this pretty great arrangement whereby I keep a canister for kitchen scraps on my counter, and our neighbor, who has a small garden and compost bin behind her apartment, takes the scraps down each week. I use an old flour canister, which works but can be a little stinky and doesn't quite hold enough to get me through the week. Our neighbor is using this beauty from Williams-Sonoma, which holds a gallon of food scraps and has a filter neatly fitted into the lid. It's the Cadillac of composters.

posted originally from: TheKitchn

Last week I visited Tara Kolla at her home, also known as Silver Lake Farms in Los Angeles. Her backyard is a half acre or so of paradise where she grows flowers, citrus and herbs for herself, for market and for a wonderful artisanal ice cream company called Carmela. More on Silver Lake Farms and Carmela in a future post.

Today I want to tell you about one of Tara's crops and what she suggests we do with it: loofah.

It's easy to talk about eating foods grown and raised locally, yadda yadda yadda, but sometimes sourcing fresh, local produce is not so easy to actually do, especially in the dead of winter. Air-freighted asparagus and blackberries are pretty appealing to most palates year 'round. But how far your food travels has a direct impact, or so most believe, on the state of the planet, so it's a question worth giving some thought to.

posted originally from: TheKitchn

This is our Christmas dinner table at Maxwell's mother's house. Maxwell's job was the table, as usual, and he did a gorgeous job with things he found in the yard. I thought this was a nice reminder, as we head into a new — and perhaps more humble — year of entertaining to use what you have.

posted originally from: TheKitchn

I've avoided reviewing products with non-stick cooking surfaces for a while because of the suspected health hazards of cooking on surfaces treated with non-stick coatings like Teflon (PTFE) and its associated PFOA, but I think lots of people are still using non-stick, so I thought I'd do a survey.

I stopped using non-stick a few years ago when I noticed my expensive non-stick All-Clad skillet flaking into my food. At home we now use cast iron for our non-stick needs. We have a 10" Griswold skillet inherited from Maxwell's mother, and a really useful 6" mini-skillet from Lodge I bought and seasoned myself a few years ago. Tell us in the comments below how you deal with the non-stick dilemma.

posted originally from: TheKitchn

Having a sushi-making party? Blue Ocean Institute, the folks who bring you one of the most useful and frequently updated wallet seafood guides, now has a pocket guide to ocean-friendly sushi that you can carry in your wallet and peek at while you decide on your sushi order or stand confused in front of your fish monger.

posted originally from: TheKitchn