BGE Offers Holiday Cooking Safety Tips

Keep the focus on safety during Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving should be a happy time, so BGE offers tips to make it safe. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), cooking fires rank first as main cause of fires in a home and related injuries, and many people cook for this holiday.  Keep cooking safe by: If something does catch fire, call 911 or the local emergency number from outside the home and make sure you and your family and guests get out.

•  3 Comments
• Photos (2)

Six Easy Slow Cooker Recipes for Fall

Make these tasty slow cooker recipes using your favorite fall fruits and vegetables.

Fall is the time for warm, hearty meals—and what better way to prepare them than by using your slow cooker or Crock Pot? Simmer these fall-ingredient (think pumpkins, apples and squash) slow cooker recipes in your pot, and you’ll stay warm into the winter. Apple Crumble Crock-Pot Recipe Ingredients: Lightly butter the Crock-Pot and lay the apple slices at the bottom of the pot. Combine the sugar, flour, rolled oats, nutmeg and cinnamon, and cut in the butter. Sprinkle the topping over the base of apples. Cook on low or auto for 3-5 hours. Slow Cooker Squash Stew: Ingredients: Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until soft and golden brown, 4 to 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste …

• Photos (1)

Neighborhood Nourishment

Five Kitchen Must-Haves: Knives

Knife shopping made simple: five tools that will round out your arsenal.

My friend Rod, blogger extraordinaire, remembers opening a gift from his wife a few Christmases ago and "tearing up at the thoughtfulness of that present." Was it an engraved pocketwatch?  A book of poetry?  A family heirloom? Nope.  It was kitchen knives.  And to tell the truth, I was a bit misty myself as I read his wish that "she could take these knives back and give them to me all over again." There is no tool more delightful and useful to wield than a high-quality knife.  On the other hand, there is no experience more frustrating than, say, trying to mince an onion on a glass chopping board with a dull piecea junk. Sales abound now, post-holiday, and in the links below you'll find excellent deals with which to stock up for this year's…

•  2 Comments
• Photos (1)

Emily Lowe

8:44 pm on Tuesday, January 17, 2012

What a great question to which I don't have an answer! My instinct is no, but I suppose it's possible at a tag sale or used goods shop. Wouldn't it be great to have a local kitchen-gadget store here?   more ›

Behind the Cape

What Happens When Mom Camps Out in Ickyville?

Yep, we're still battling the ickies. Only this time it's mommy who's sick. Now what?

Seventy two hours of being snotted and coughed on has finally caught up to me.  The worst thing that could possibly happen to a mom, aside from true disasters of course, has happened.  I’m sick, done in, beat down and laid up.  I’m achy and feverish.  Even my hair follicles hurt.  Oh and let’s not forget hacking up a lung every so often.  There is no escape.  It’s not like moms get sick days. Life must go on whether I feel good or not.  The kids are still going to get up at the crack of dawn in need of a mommy to get them dressed, fed and off to wherever the schedule dictates.   Of course kids don’t understand the meaning of the word “sick” when it’s paired with “mommy.”  It’s as if the word doesn’t even exist in their vocabulary.  When …

•  5 Comments
• Photos (4)

Neighborhood Nourishment

Stocking Up

Stock is the basis for many recipes, so making your own, you can save money and add nutrition to your meals.

My husband knows the way to my heart, and so on Christmas morning he presented me with a brand new Dutch oven from Le Creuset.  Bright, cherry red on the outside, lined with creamy enamel on the inside, it felt pleasantly heavy in my hands and conjured up images of chicken cacciatore, daube de boeuf, and chili con carne, bubbling merrily on the stove as I watched with reverence. It may seem anticlimactic, then, that my culinary vessel’s maiden voyage turned out to be a simple pot of stock.  After the holidays, I lacked the ingredients and motivation for the aforementioned showstoppers, but I did have a fridge full of odds and ends, and the basis for a simple, healthy soup seemed a fitting way to christen a tool that I hoped would serve me …

•  1 Comment
• Photos (1)

Meg Tipper

11:50 am on Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Thank you, Emily, for reminding me how easy and important home-made stock is. And what better food for one with a cold than a hearty soup?!   more ›