Abetrujillo

Home | TN, USA

(My five-year-old sister jams her finger.)

Sister: “I got a boo boo.”

Seven-Year-Old Brother: *huffs indignantly* “Use your big-girl language! They’re not ‘BOO BOOS,’ they’re ‘OWIES!’”

The Birds Eye frozen food company is ready to roll out a new product: potatoes cut into the shapes of hashtags, asterisks, emotions, and the @ symbol. The product will be called either Mashtags or Mas#tags, depending on what works with your search engine or spellchecker. Now telling your kids to put down their phones at the dinner table will not leave them totally without a link to their electronic lives.

"The addition of Mashtags to our food range is an exciting development for Birds Eye. Social media is all about conversation and we’re confident Mashtags will resonate across various groups of people," said Pete Johnson, senior brand manager at Birds Eye.

"We’re constantly looking for ways to innovate and inspire consumers and hope that Mashtags will get people talking around the table and help to make mealtimes more enjoyable."

Mashtags is expected to be in grocery stores next month -but only in the UK. They will taste similar to Birds Eye potato waffles. -via Laughing Squid

Editor's note: Each Saturday morning we bring you a Sunday Brunch recipe. Why on Saturday? So you have time to shop and prepare for tomorrow.

[Photograph: Sydney Oland]

Rich and creamy eggs Benedict is a brunch classic for good reason. And in my book, smoked salmon is a welcome addition to any table, brunch or not. It doesn't get much better than combining the two (especially when you throw in some mimosas and Bloody Marys).

The dill hollandaise brightens up the plate, while the fatty, smoky salmon supports the tart hollandaise. Use our foolproof methods for the hollandaise and the poached eggs, and you'll have a brunch that will wow any guest—even the in-laws.

About the author: Sydney Oland lives in Somerville, Mass. Find more information at sydneyoland.com (or read eatingnosetotail.com)

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If you had the power to do so, how would you punish your enemies in ways that would not come across as creepy and disturbing if published openly? Doghouse Diaries has some good ideas.

A predisposition to hitting "reply" instead of "reply all" could also be annoying.

But stray LEGO pieces? That's just cruel. Those things hurt!

It’s a good thing Link didn’t have to wait for a map of Hyrule to be cross stitched while on one of his epic journeys, or he would have been waiting so long he probably would have given up the whole adventuring biz!

A dedicated geek, and meticulous crafter, who goes by the name tibtibs on Reddit spent nine long months of her life bringing this amazing cross stitched map from Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past to full term, spending around 500 hours working on this incredible piece based on a pattern free to download online here.

If you don't have anything to do for the next nine months, and need a new map of Hyrule for your guild lodge, then you should follow in tibtibs footsteps, but beware- creating this map is an epic adventure in itself.

-Via Nerd Approved

Having trouble getting your kids to do their chores without the usual dillydallying or complaining? Turn it into a game they'll actually be motivated to play with these DIY game tokens.

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Morocco is known for amazing architecture, rich historical roots, and diverse cultural heritage, but I’ve never heard mention of the colorful gangs of motorcycle riding girls who roam the streets in awesome outfits and decked out bikes.

Photographer Hassan Hajjaj captured these wild girls in their native habitat in a series called Kesh Angels, and these badass bikers are sure to capture your heart with their fierce stares and colorful outfits. Each photo is framed by appropriately colored food products, with appropriated symbols present throughout to give these badass bikers some extra street cred.

Hassan's gloriously captivating photo series is being shown through March 7 at the Taymour Grahne Gallery in Manhattan.

-Via Dangerous Minds

We've shown you lots of cleverDIYways to organize the hardware in your workshop or garage. But these handy pull out trays built with muffin tins look like they'd be just perfect for those little odds and ends to which you need quick access.

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Millions of Graco child safety seats may have a serious problem: their buckles may not release if there happens to be any food or drink buildup in the latch. If you’ve ever met a small child or remember being one, you know that this could be an issue. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and chid products manufacturer Graco have officially recalled convertible car seats that can be used for rear-facing infants under 30 pounds and front-facing infants and toddlers. Affected seats were produced and sold between 2009 and the middle of 2013.

Recalled convertible seats include the following: Comfort Sport, Cozy Cline, Classic Ride 50, Head Wise, My Ride 65, My Ride 65 with Safety Surround, My Ride 70, Size 4 Me 70, and Smart Seat.

Recalled toddler/child safety seats include the Argos 70, Nautilus, and Nautilus Edge.

NHTSA said in a statement to media outlets that Graco should recall an additional 1.8 million rear-facing infant seats that also have the same buckles. These seats include the Snugride, Snugride 30 Snugride 32, Infant Safe Seat-Step 1, Snugride 35, Tuetonia 35, and Snugride Click Connect 40. While the company has not issued a manufacturer recall on these seats, they will replace the buckle if the customer requests it.

So far, the company has not issued an official recall, so parents will have to contact the company on their own to get new buckles.

Harness Buckle Recall – 2014 Announcement [Graco]
Details of the Graco child seat recall [Associated Press]

From Sweets

[Photograph: Maria del Mar Sacasa]

It's early February which means both love and frost are in the air. This original dessert plays to them both.

The trick is that a whole orange and some buttermilk go into the cake, making it bright and tangy enough to blast you out of your winter blues. And, to make things special enough for a special someone, it's topped with homemade candied orange peel (dipped in dark chocolate of course.)

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Restaurant | WA, USA

(I’m at a restaurant with my family and go to the restroom. Waiting outside a stall, there is a very young girl. The girl calls into the stall.)

Girl: “Mommy? Are you ‘just taking a few minutes?’”

Girl’s Mom: *embarrassed and from inside the stall* “Yes, honey. I am.”

Girl: *louder* “…for pooping, right?”

Related:
Oblivious To Stating The Obvious

Note: For more vegan posts, head here!

[Photographs: J. Kenji López-Alt]

Tofu is my favorite food, which makes me an outlier. People don't like tofu. And I get it. There's a lot of bad tofu out there, and it's easy to dislike when it's soggy, mushy, or bland. But great tofu—tofu with a tender center surrounded by a well-seasoned, crisp crust—is one of the most satisfying bites of food I can think of, a food that can and should be appreciated by all serious eaters, no matter their diet.

Here's how to cook tofu so good even tofu-haters might come around. First we're going to talk about how to shop for tofu, then we'll talk about how to crisp up plain slices of tofu, and finally we'll figure out the best way to prepare tofu for stir-frying.

Dry = Good

The goal when frying tofu—whether pan-frying or deep frying—is the same as the goal when frying meat or vegetables: to alter the texture and flavor. In the case of tofu, we're talking about adding some crispness to an otherwise tender food, and adding some rich browning, which brings out tofu's natural sweetness and bring some savory notes to the forefront.

Crispness comes from the dehydration of the exterior layer of proteins in your tofu slices, while browning occurs when those proteins and carbohydrates are exposed to temperatures above around 300°F or so, precipitating the Maillard reaction (that's just the fancy word for "things that make your food golden and delicious").

Some things are not good dry. Cake. Pools. Sex. But tofu is different. The key to both crispness and browning is the removal of moisture, so the drier you get your tofu to begin with, the more efficiently these reactions will take place, and the better the contrast between crisp exterior and moist, tender interior will be.

There are a number of ways to dry your tofu out before cooking it, but the easiest first step is to get the right tofu to begin with. Tofu comes in two basic forms: silken and cottony, which are made using two different coagulating agents. Within these two categories, you'll find varying degrees of firmness from custardy soft to very firm and meaty, depending on their final water content. Some brands conflate soft with silken, but traditionally, the two are orthogonal measures (that is, it is possible to have soft cottony tofu just as it's possible to have firm silken tofu).

For crisping purposes, you want to use cottony (non-silken), extra-firm tofu, which holds its shape and browns better than other varieties.

Cut and Dry

After choosing the right variety, the second step is to slice and dry your tofu. Some recipes recommend pressing your whole block of tofu to remove excess moisture before slicing. This works fine, but takes some time. Much easier is to slice the tofu, then lay the slices out flat on a cutting board or baking sheet lined with paper towels or a clean kitchen towel. More surface area = faster water removal = dinner on the table that much faster.

I've also seen it suggested to employ the microwave in the aid of draining tofu: the theory is a few seconds on high power will cause the protein structure to tighten up slightly, squeezing out excess moisture. It works, but it's frankly a pain in the butt to microwave tofu in batches. An equally effective but much faster and easier method is to do what tofu goddess Andrea Nguyen suggests: pretreat the tofu by pouring hot salted water over it.

It may seem counterintuitive to add water to something you're trying to dry out, but boiling water will actually cause the tofu to squeeze out more moisture, bringing it to the surface and making it easier to blot off, while the salt gently seasons the slices. In any case, your tofu should be dry to the touch before you cook it. Have you ever stuck out your tongue and left it out for few minutes to see how dry it can get? That's what your tofu should feel like.

Marinades

It seems like a no-brainer to marinate tofu, but I'd actually advise against it. While non-silken tofu does have a somewhat spongy texture that will absorb marinades, you end up with tofu that browns too fast and tastes like raw marinade on the inside. I prefer keeping the tofu tasting like tofu, using a sauce applied after cooking to lend it flavor if it needs it. The combination of intense sauce with clean tofu flavor is far more pleasant (or sophisticated, or classy, or whatever it is that'll get you to try it).

Similarly, a dusting of spices can be tasty if the spices are fresh, properly toasted, and balanced, but again, you want to apply them after cooking the tofu. Tofu simply takes too long to crisp up properly to be able to season before cooking without running the risk of burning those spices up.

Where's Your Coat?

Just like there are days when you put on your full winter gear to head out, others in which you lounge around in your pajamas on the couch, and still others where nary a piece of fabric girds your loins from dawn to dusk, the way you coat your tofu depends on the situation.

If you like it plain (as I do from time to time), then the way to do it is to fry the slices in a heavy cast iron skillet over moderate heat until deep brown and crispy on both sides, using a thin metal spatula to flip the slices as they crisp. Taking your time is key: the more gently you brown the slices, the more evenly and deeper brown you can get them without burning them.

If, on the other hand, the tofu is destined for a stir-fry or some other saucy application, you'll want to give them a crispy coating that can both absorb a bit of sauce, and provide a layer of protection so that the tofu can stay crisp even after saucing.

I tried coating tofu with various blends of of flour, potato starch, rice flour, and corn starch, both pan-frying and deep-frying, and found that the crispest, cleanest-tasting results came from a deep-fry in a simple coating of cornstarch.

Crisp fresh out of the fryer, that is. After a few minutes of resting while I prepare the rest of my stir-fry and sauce, the crisp coating had softened. What if I were to use a wet batter instead? I'd spent a long time working out a recipe for a Korean Fried Chicken batter which worked equally well on a batch of Crispy Buffalo-Fried Cauliflower. Would the same coating work on my tofu?

Indeed it did: a quick dredge in dry cornstarch followed by a dip into a cornstarch, water, and vodka mixture before a plunge into a wok with a quart of 350°F oil resulting in ultra-crisp bites of tofu that stay crisp even after you finish them off in a stir-fry.

How To Stir-Fry Crispy Tofu

When stir-frying, the order in which you cook your ingredients is of vital importance. A standard wok range in a Chinese restaurant has separate controls for the gas and oxygen flow, allowing them to reach heat outputs in excess of 80,000 bTUs. This allows cooks to add ingredients in quick succession, keeping everything hot enough to produce smoky, browned flavors without any excess steaming or boiling. It's this high heat that gives a good stir-fry a tender-crisp texture, bright color, and a lightly smoky, charred flavor.

A home burner, on the other hand, is about an order of magnitude weaker than a restaurant wok range. This means that rather than adding all of your ingredients to the same wok, it works far better if you cook your individual ingredients in batches, reheat the wok between batches, and combine them all at the very end. (See our Wok Skills 101 series for more details.) Most stir fries follow the same basic formula: two or three main ingredients, cooked one at a time, followed by some aromatics, and a sauce to bind it all together.

For instance, to make a crispy tofu and broccoli stir-fry with a glossy, garlicky sauce, I start by deep-frying the coated tofu in the wok, then transfer it to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. I then pour off the oil (I save mine in a covered pot to be reused later), wipe out the wok, and heat a little bit more oil in it over high heat until it really starts smoking.

In go the second main ingredient: broccoli florets, cut into bite-sized pieces. For the best flavor, you want a combination of browning through direct conductive heat—that is, heat from the wok—as well as the flavor gained by tossing the broccoli into the air, allowing the hot air rising from the burners to vaporize some of the micro-particles of oil that get sprayed up during the process.

As soon as the broccoli is browned but before it's completely tender, I add the aromatics.

Chinese dishes incorporate a wide range of aromatic vegetables and spices, but for this particular dish, I'm using what's sometimes called the Holy Trinity of Chinese cuisine: finely chopped ginger, scallions, and garlic,. I go heavy on the garlic.

30 seconds-worth of tossing and they're done. The broccoli and aromatics go into a bowl to rest while I cook the sauce.

This particular sauce balances some acidity with some salty, sweet, and savory elements: Chinese rice wine, soy sauce, bean sauce, vegan sugar, vegan stock, and toasted sesame oil. Some cornstarch binds it all together: As it cooks in the hot wok, it should reduce into a syrupy, flavor-packed glaze.

All that's left is to toss your tofu and broccoli in it, garnish with some toasted sesame seeds, and you're ready to eat.

The result is tender-crisp crowns of broccoli and crunchy bites of tofu with moist, tender cores, all coated in a glossy, flavor-packed sauce. Even my wife, the big tofu-hater, finished off her plate (though admittedly, she did very generously insist that my sister take all the leftovers).

The beauty of the technique is that with this coating under my belt, I'm now equipped to incorporate crisp tofu into any number of stir-fries, which means my vegan menu options have just become virtually limitless, and coincidentally, so have yours.

About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where he likes to explore the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can follow him at @thefoodlab on Twitter, or at The Food Lab on Facebook.

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[Photographs: packages, Pasta Chips; others, Brooke Porter]

Jerry Bello—the man behind health-conscious snacks like Sensible Portions, Pita Bites, and Veggie Straws—has a new snack on the market, this one inspired by a meal he had in Tuscany. They're called Pasta Chips; made of semolina flour and oven-baked, they're about the size of ravioli, complete with the ridges. Each flavor is inspired by a sauce, and tied to a region or city in Italy—Spicy Tomato Herb is meant to evoke Calabria, for example; while Mediterranean Sea Salt nods to Puglia (where you'll find the largest salt flat in Europe). Here's what we thought of all five flavors, which—as the bags say—have 60% less fat than regular potato chips.

Marinara

The inspiration for this flavor comes from the pizza mecca of Naples—so I shouldn't have been shocked to discover that the chips tasted exactly like Bagel Bites. Dusted with a red seasoning, the chips are equally tangy and salty, with hints of garlic and onion powder.

Rank: 1, for reminding me of Bagel Bites.

Mediterranean Sea Salt

These were the only flavor without a visible coating of spices or seasoning. All in all, they were simple, salty—but not overwhelmingly so—and satisfying. The ingredients list ran half as long as the rest, which is always a bonus (though there were still a few words I couldn't pronounce). And because these were the most bare bones, they pair well with dips like salsa or hummus.

Rank 2, despite being a bit too plain to stand out on on their own.

Garlic and Olive Oil

I happen to love garlic, so I was not turned off by the fact that these taste (and smell) like someone dumped an entire canister of garlic salt in the bag. It more than lives up to its name, though the olive oil flavor is overpowered. My advice: have a stash of mints handy, for this is one garlicky (and addictive) chip.

Rank 3. The strong flavor was great for this garlic lover.

Alfredo

Though this flavor hints at what the real, creamy sauce tastes like, it falls short of the real thing. They could stand to be cheesier; the parmesan and romano cheese flavors get lost beneath the garlic and onion powder. Bottom line: if it's alfredo you want, just splurge on the pasta. And note that you'll want to have napkins handy to wipe off the fine white powder that will coat your fingers.

Rank: 4, for being a tad too salty and not cheesy enough

Spicy Tomato Herb

For such a savory-sounding name, these were actually a bit bland and unbalanced, and don't really taste tomato-y (despite having both tomato powder and dehydrated tomato in the ingredients). There was just the faintest hint of spice, which only hits once you've swallowed the chip, so those looking for a kick will be left wanting. They have a tang to them, and a hint of red pepper. For some reason, they reminded me of the Italian dressing that comes in packets at fast-food restaurants.

Ranking: 5, for not being spicy or flavorful enough.

Samples provided for review consideration.

About the author: Brooke Porter is a Los Angeles native now living in Brooklyn. She is an associate editor at Travel + Leisure. Follow her on Twitter at @brookeporter1.

Woolzies are felt wool drier balls the size of a tennis ball. I have been using them for several months – after purchasing them on Amazon, and trying for the first time, I just keep them in the drier all the time now.

They save quite a bit of energy as the drying time is reduced by 30-40% or so [See note below - Mark]. Woolzies also work better than plastic drier balls: I have noticed a marked difference in the quality and softness of the dried garments.

This product is efficient and environmentally friendly through and through: they’re made of pure wool so no plastic or other chemicals are used to make them. They drastically reduce the time required to dry clothing, they are gentler on the dried fabric, which also comes out softer and almost wrinkle-free.

-- Denis Zaff

[We use these at home, too. A couple of drops of essential oil (lavender, for instance) make the clothes smell good. A note about drying time from Cool Tools reader Morten Nisker Toppenberg: "I think the science behind the claim to drasticly reduce drying time is somewhat sketchy. "I'm unable to find the any information from the company or other companies making dryerballs on how they come to this result. However a couple of private test pop up: Do dryer balls reduce drying time? | Do Wool Dryer Balls Cut Down on Drying Time? "They seem to suggest that there is little or no effect and describe their method of testing allowing you to replicate the test." - Mark Frauenfelder]

Woolzies- Wool Dryer Balls
$30 / 6-pack

Available from Amazon