If you’ve ever been to the kitchen section of a Williams-Sonoma or Bed Bath & Beyond, you might be overwhelmed by how many kitchen gadgets there are.

Those multi-colored plastic cutters, peelers, and dicers may seem handy to keep in your kitchen, but they end up mostly being clutter.

And to be honest, you don’t need anything else if you have a high-quality knife. Keep reading to see what not to buy

A mandolin slicer comes with a vegetable cutter, cheese slicer, and vegetable julienne slicer. And while I love it, all of this could easily be done with a knife.

While an apple slicer makes perfectly portioned apple slices, it’s really not necessary when you can core and slice that apple yourself.

This 3-in-1 avocado slicer claims to help you split, pit, and slice your avocados “safely and effectively.” Your knife is also a 3-in-1 tool that does all of these things.

With the time it takes for you to find this banana cutter in your kitchen, you could have already cut your banana with a knife.

Be honest: Do you really need a special strawberry cutter to hull and slice strawberries? Of course not. Hull and slice them the old-fashioned way with a knife.

This grape and cherry tomato slicer is kind of a neat idea, but you could save yourself the $10 and do it with two plates and a knife instead.

Pizza cutters are a staple in American kitchens, but completely unnecessary if you have a big chef’s knife.

With a well-honed knife, slicing a tomato is not hard at all. And you can use your hand to keep it in place.

You don’t need a bagel cutter to get a perfect sliced bagel. You’ll save yourself counter space by using your knife instead.

No one needs a butter cutter. A “butter cutter” already exists. It’s called a knife.

While a melon ball scooper is a fine instrument, this melon peeler seems like too much work.
Plus, you can cut the fruit from the tough skin easily enough with knife.

Chopping and cooking with garlic can make your hands smell, but a cute little garlic chopper likely won’t make much of a difference if you’re still handling it.
Instead, use a high-quality knife to chop up the garlic and try not to touch the cloves too much with your fingers.

Unless you eat hard-boiled eggs everyday, I’m guessing you’d never use this egg slicer and wedge.

This mango slicer claims to remove the pit and slice the mango all in one smooth motion. You could also just cut up your mango and de-pit it with your knife.

While anyone with braces might appreciate a tool that cuts the kernels from a corn cob, it’s really not that hard to do yourself.

Last but not least, a company created an orange peeler tool that says it’s “perfect for men without fingernails or women who don’t want to damage theirs.”

Let’s just use our knives, shall we?

Peach Cinamon, Banana Nut Muffin Shake, Very Berry Vanilla, Mocha Bannana Wake-up Call, A Glass Of Apple Pie, Chocolate-Peanut Butter Banana, Mango and Tart Cherry, Vanilla Pumpkin Pie, Pina Colada Power Shake, Choco-Cherry Delight, Sweet And Simple Apple and Banana, Blubery Brain Booster, Simple Strawberry Protein Shake, Watermelon Breeze Protein Shake, Coconut Almond Shake, Super Chocolate Mint Shake, Key Lime Pie,
Dark Chocolate Peppermint Shake, Orande Creamsicle Shake, Cookies, Cream and Avocado Shake, Banana Bluberry Blast Shake, Cholocate Ginger Recovery Shake, Strawberry Cheesecake Shake, Plum Power Shake

This recipe is one of the easiest, cheapest and yet good looking ones that will make everyone drool at the table. It’s great for a family party or a friends gathering.

You will need:
– 1 package of lasagna noodles;
– 15 oz of ricotta cheese;
– half package of frozen spinach;
– two and a half cups of marinara tomato sauce;
– 1 cup shredded mozzarella;
– 1 quarter cup of grated parmesan;
– 1 egg, butter, salt and pepper.

Directions:
First, you will have to do is to boil the noodles, then put the spinach in the microwave. Mix the spinach with ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan and eggs. Add salt and pepper as you like it. Take a tray and anoint it with butter. Take the lasagna noodles and put them on the working station. Put some of the cream on them and start rolling. Put the rolls into the tray after you have made every roll, put some marinara sauce over and insert it in the oven for about 30 minutes. Don’t forget to add some wine for serving and you are ready to enjoy your meal.

This cake looks stunning but it’s surprisingly easy, the inside is delicious too!
We can’t describe it with words. Just watch the video. 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBiEhaS7l2A

What can you use coconut oil for? Well, there’s cooking, of course. Given its inherent health benefits, as well as it’s long shelf life, coconut oil is a great substitute for most cooking oils, and is one of the few that is safe to use on high-heat. But beyond the kitchen, there are actually any number of beneficial uses for coconut oil that you might not already be aware of. So, take a moment to turn your attention towards humble coconut oil, and see for yourself just how amazing this deceptively simple substance can be. After all, life doesn’t begin and end in front of your stove…

Do you love the taste of Nutella® but hate the additives and excess sugar? We’ve got a simple recipe for gianduja (or gianduia, hazelnut-flavored chocolate) that uses just a few ingredients and gives you even more of the hazelnut and chocolate flavor you love. When it’s finished, you can eat your homemade spread on toast, incorporate it into a frosting, gift it to friends, or just lick it right off the spoon!

INGRIDIENTS
2 cups roasted hazelnuts
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon vegetable oil

PREPARATION

Infographic by Culinary Schools.org

Gummy bears are some of the simplest candies to make at home. At their core, they are just 4 ingredients: water, sugar, gelatin, and flavoring. Water and gelatin, when blended, heated, and cooled, naturally form a chewy candy, so no expensive equipment or odd ingredients are needed. To get bear shapes, you may need a candy mold.

Ingredients:
– 3 Cups of water
– 50 Grams of unflavoured gelatin
– 200 Grams of flavoured gelatin

1. Egg Yolks Should Be Avoid

Eggs are awesome in taste with lots of benefits inside it. It’s full of lean protein, Omega 3 (healthy fat for our body) with some important nutrients.

Egg whites are great in protein one egg white contains 3 grams of protein. But think the yellow part of egg (yolk) is bad for us, instead it is pretty tasty and contains essential vitamins and minerals which our body needs to function better. Egg yolks are good source of vitamin D, vitamin B, B6, B12. leucine, L-arginine amino acid also found in it which are critical to the production and release of growth hormones. Whole egg contains 6 gram of protein, and we are missing so much nutrients and protein in white part.

2. Brown Bread Are Better Than White Bread

This is the biggest myth in common people; always we innocent people choose brown bread over white bread every time. But unfortunately, we are misguiding about it. Brown bread are actually white bread, bakers add caramel or molasses to make bread brown and looks healthy. Always look up the word 100% whole wheat or 100% whole grain on the packet.

3. Eating Fat Makes You Fat

We have jiggling fat in our body, to prevent it we should stop eating fat, if you are thinking like this than you are not only who thinks this way. But actually it’s not fat which make you fat.

See, what happens in our body whatever we eat in excess our body will store it for future.

What happen when you avoid fat, you tend to eat more carbohydrate or sugar. Actually this is the main reason of obesity also the life style can be the reason for the same. And also there can be more reason for the fat like some diseases, hormone imbalance. Consuming sugar is the biggest reason for the storage of fat in our body.

Fats are good for us but this apply on only good fats like nuts oil, olive oil, oil from flax seed, avocado, fish oil.

4. Low-Carbohydrate Diets Are Dangerous

So many professional nutritionists warned about low carbohydrate diets will end up with blockage of arteries, since last decade so many studies have been conducted on it.

Low carbohydrate are actually better than low fat diet, can it can cause more weight loss and decline the risk of heart diseases. However it is mandatory to have little bit of carbs (like 100-150 gram of carbs) in our diet. Our muscles are made of glycogen found in carbs. If we will kill carbs completely from diet than muscle loss can be seen easily.

5. I Skip Meals, I Lose Weight!!

Wow! You are saying you can drive miles over miles on low oil in the car or bike oil tank. If you cannot ride so long without petrol, diesel or gas; than how can you say you can work all day long with full of energy without eating.

Skipping meals can lead you eat more and more when you eat in next meal. Studies have shown people who don’t eat breakfast are weighing heavy than who eat breakfast, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

You can eat every 2-3 hour. You should have 3 main meals and little snacks in between them. And REMEMBER never ever starve means do not stay hungry for long.

Have you ever visited an unfamiliar city and wondered where you could go for a really good pizza? Perhaps you’ve spent precious minutes debating dining choices with friends as your knees begin to shake from lack of food. Or maybe you just want to cook a meal for yourself, but you forgot to bring a list of ingredients with you to the grocery store. Never fear — as iPhone commercials point out, there’s an app for that.

The iPhone’s sleek design and exhaustive application database have made it a hit. You can find iPhone programs designed to do everything from playing a simple game to plotting out a trip from beginning to end. Considering how most of us enjoy a good meal, it should come as no surprise that many of the most popular iPhone applications have to do with food.
We’re going to look at five applications, listed in random order, to help ease those hunger pains. We’ll start with one of the first applications to debut on the iPhone.

10. Urbanspoon

Apple launched the iPhone App Store in iTunes in 2008. Among the apps Apple chose to demonstrate at its press event was a restaurant-finding application called Urbanspoon. The free application gained early buzz for its innovative user interface and fun design. It remains one of the most popular applications on iTunes.

The app uses three factors to classify restaurants: neighborhood, type of cuisine and price. UrbanSpoon arranges these three factors into slots like a slot machine. Shake your iPhone, and the app spins the three columns. Once the columns stop, the application will search for restaurants that meet those criteria and present you with a result. Results bring you to a page giving you the restaurant’s phone number, address and user reviews. Don’t like the results? Just give the phone another shake.

You can choose to lock a column in place if you like, limiting your choices to a specific neighborhood, type of cuisine or price point. The random element adds in a bit of fun and can inspire you to try a place you’ve never visited before.

9. Epicurious

Some people find cooking a meal just as much fun as dining out. (Some find it even more fun.) Whether you’re a blue-ribbon chef or just learning to boil water, you can use the Epicurious app to help you plan out a full menu. The free application gives users access to thousands of recipes found on Epicurious.com.

The app divides recipes into categories like healthy lunches or decadent desserts. Select the category you want, browse the contents and choose your dish. The app will tell you the ingredients and hardware you’ll need to prepare the meal. Use the app when strolling down the aisles at your local grocery store to make sure you pick up everything you need. The app even has an interactive shopping list that lets you check off items as you pick them up. Then it’s time to head back to the kitchen and get cooking.

You can e-mail recipes to another address if you want to print out instructions or you can use your iPhone to view a step-by-step process. Each recipe has clear instructions on how to go from raw ingredients to a culinary masterpiece. Create a successful meal and you may want to flag the recipe as a favorite — that’ll make it easier to return to if you want to recreate the same dish later.

Epicurious.com updates the application regularly with the latest recipes from the site, so there’s little danger of you running out of options any time soon.

8. VegOut

Sometimes it’s a challenge to find a place where everyone in your party can have a meal. Vegetarians and vegans are familiar with how hard it can be to dine out. That goes double if you’re a vegetarian in an unfamiliar city. The VegOut iPhone app can help vegetarians and vegans find a place that will satisfy both their dietary restrictions and their grumbling tummies.

The application accesses a database of restaurants that are vegan, vegetarian or vegetarian-friendly. You can search by your current location or enter a custom location if you’re planning a trip. And unlike some applications, VegOut is international in scope.

Sort results by alphabetical order, distance from your current location or user ratings. You can also view results on a map if you need to get your bearings. It’s an especially helpful application to have on hand if you’re a vegetarian deep in the heart of barbecue country. The application costs $2.99 in the iTunes store.

7.  Allrecipes.com Dinner Spinner

If you search for a recipe using Google, chances are good it will bring up a result from Allrecipes.com. The cooking Web site hosts more than

40,000 user-submitted recipes for appetizers, desserts, poultry, brunch and everything else you could possibly hope to eat. User ratings help separate the mediocre recipes from the melt-in-your-mouth favorites. The free Allrecipes app for iPhone gives you access to that library of content, but with a twist.
The Allrecipes Dinner Spinner helps you pick a recipe by presenting three simple categories: dish type, ingredients and “ready in” time. Instead of browsing through long lists of recipes, you pick something in each category and set it spinning. Then you get the top-rated results! The “ready in” category can help you choose between a beef dish that takes 30 minutes to prep (like a hamburger) and a beef dish that takes eight hours (pot roast).

Feeling even more daring? Shaking the phone prompts the app to make a completely random search. If you’re looking for something specific or are already a diehard Allrecipes.com user, search and favorites are always available from the menu. A pro version of the app costs $2.99 and removes ads, includes more search options and a shopping list option that automatically adds ingredients based upon the recipes you choose.

6. OpenTable

If you’re out on the town with a few friends and decide you want a meal, OpenTable can help you find the perfect dining destination. The free application searches for restaurants near your location. Results not only include names and locations of restaurants, but also tell you which locations have tables available.

The app has access to more than 10,000 restaurant reservation systems in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. You can either use the application to make reservations for a specific restaurant, or rely on its search feature. Just input the size of your dining party and the time you want to eat and it’ll bring back search results for you.

You can narrow your search by indicating the type of cuisine you want or the price range you’re willing to pay. The application also lets you get a glimpse at menus and has a rewards program for people who register as OpenTable members. Members can redeem points for gift certificates to any participating restaurant.

5. 170,000+ Recipes – Big Oven

Can you imagine looking through all 40,000 dishes in Allrecipes’ catalog? Well, here’s an app with an absolutely mind-boggling number of recipes: BigOven, which proudly proclaims its 170,000 recipes in its app title. The free BigOven app earns its name with a massive catalog of dishes that can be searched by title, ingredient, keyword or course. The app has been downloaded from the iTunes App Store more than 5 million times [source: BigOven].

BigOven’s sheer variety of food makes it an easy recommendation, but there’s a lot more to the app than an endless list of recipes. Free BigOven.com accounts grant access to a menu planner within the app, and the ability save favorite recipes and upload photos and reviews. The menu planner allows you to drag and drop recipes around a monthly calendar to plan out your meals days, weeks or months ahead.

When the menu planner is completed and leaves beta status, it will move up to BigOven’s pro tier, which costs $16 per year for subscribers. That payment opens up far more functionality and interaction with BigOven’s Web site. For example, you can edit the menu planner from your computer, and then access it on the mobile app while you’re at the grocery store. Menu planner can automatically import its ingredient lists into a grocery list, and the app will also import information from your receipts. Finally, subscribing provides detailed nutritional information for the thousands of recipes in BigOven’s library.

4. Local Eats

Exploring a new city can be both exciting and frustrating, particularly when dinner time rolls around. And while chain restaurants are likely to deliver a familiar experience, it’s not the same as finding a locally-owned dining establishment. The LocalEats iPhone app acts as a knowledgeable tour guide, giving you the inside skinny on the best places to eat in towns and cities across the United States.

You won’t find an Applebee’s or Outback Steakhouse using LocalEats — the app doesn’t index chain restaurants. But you will find authentic, locally-owned restaurants. The app uses the iPhone’s GPS receiver to identify your location and pull up restaurants that are nearby. You can also search restaurants alphabetically or by category. If you’re only interested in the best of the best, you can choose “Best in Category” to see the town’s top restaurants for each cuisine.

The app provides links to restaurant descriptions, Web sites and directions. With one quick press on the iPhone’s screen, you can call the restaurant. Users can read or leave reviews as they explore. Also, the application gives users access to dining coupons and discounts to stretch every penny. The app costs only 99 cents in the iTunes store.

3. How to Cook Everything

Recipe sites like BigOven and Allrecipes collect thousands of recipes from users putting their own creations on the Web for public consumption. The How to Cook Everything app, by contrast, contains recipes from only one source: New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman. The $10 iPhone app offers the 2,000 recipes originally published in Bittman’s cookbook at a lower price and in a searchable index.

That’s a slim selection compared to the likes of BigOven, but Bittman has written multiple books on cooking, published a regular column in The New York Times and been on TV programs like The Food Network’s “Chopped.” In short, he’s an expert. How to Cook Everything includes 400 illustrations to go along with its recipes and includes timers for individual steps in the cooking process.

How to Cook Everything is essentially a real cookbook in your hand at a third of its paper price. If you’re looking for a culinary pro to guide your hand in the kitchen, give Bittman a try.

2. Yelp

Yelp is Urbanspoon on a grander scale. Since Apple launched the App Store, Yelp’s been there with a free and exhaustive list of restaurants in cities big and small, from Albuquerque to Washington D.C. The app focuses on community interaction, encouraging users to review and rate the restaurants they’ve been to. Restaurant ratings on Yelp don’t come from critics: Scores are based entirely on regular restaurant goers.

Now here’s where that grand scale comes in: Yelp doesn’t just cover restaurants. The first page of the app allows you to search and check your bookmarks and user page, but the most important icon is called “Nearby.” This feature lets you search for businesses in your vicinity, from a wide range of categories: restaurants, bars, coffee and tea, as well as non-food businesses like banks and drugstores.

You can run a search for locations that are nearby or anywhere in your city. Like Urbanspoon, restaurant/business pages contain information like hours of operation, price range, dine-in or take-out and links to menus.

1. Real Simple Recipes: No Time to Cook?

Like Allrecipes’ Dinner Spinner, the No Time to Cook? app is all about delivering a food plan on the double. Where Allrecipes catalogs thousands of dishes and requires you to sort through the ingredients and kinds of meals you’re looking for, Real Simple Recipes offers a narrower focus on fast and easy food. As the name implies, these are recipes you can cook fast. Real fast.

The first screen of the app displays three time options: 40 minutes, 30 minutes and 20 minutes. It also displays a basic selection of food categories like poultry, beef, seafood and vegetarian. Picking a type of dish and a time frame for readiness will sort through the app’s 850 recipes and pull up something you have time to cook even on a busy night.

Real Simple Recipes includes kitchen timers and how-to videos along with its cooking instructions. Favorite recipe and shopping list support are there, too. The only downside: the $5 app contains advertisements, which are usually only displayed in free apps.

The next time you find your stomach growling in an unfamiliar neighborhood or when you’re at a loss for cooking ideas, remember that the solution may just be one iPhone app away.

Ingredients
4 chicken quarters
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped shallots
3 cloves chopped garlic
3/4 cup chicken stock or broth
1 cup low-sodium soy sauce
2 cups brown sugar
1 heaping tablespoon fresh ginger, peeled and chopped

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°F degrees.

Heat a Dutch oven over medium-high to high heat. Add butter and olive oil.

Generously salt and pepper chicken, add to pot and brown for about 2 minutes on each side until crisp and golden brown. Remove chicken to a plate and reduce heat to medium.

Add in the shallots and garlic. Deglaze the pot with stock, scraping down all of the sides to get all of the delicious seasonings and flavors into the broth. Add in the soy sauce, brown sugar and ginger and simmer sauce for about 5-10 minutes.

Add the chicken back into the pot, place the lid on and bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until chicken is cooked through. Serve with sautéed broccolini and Thai Jasmine rice made with organic light coconut milk instead of water.

Whether it’s on a BLT or in some tuna salad, mayonnaise can make anything more delicious.

Because it’s a whipped mixture of lemon juice, eggs, vinegar, and spices, mayonnaise can also break down in surprising ways and help solve some of life’s weirdest problems.

So instead of slathering this on your sandwich, maybe try one of mayonnaise’s surprising other uses, such as removing sticker residue or buffing scratches out of wood floors.

Keep reading to see the 26 things you can do with mayo.

WOOD FLOORS AND FURNITURE

Fill scratches in wood furniture: If your furniture has any scratches or cracks, you can fix them by applying mayonnaise in and around the affected area. Let it sit for a few days if you want to get the best results before wiping off and buffing with a cloth.

Remove water marks from furniture: Put a few dollops of mayonnaise on a paper towel and press it into the water mark. Let it sit for at least an hour before taking it off and wiping it clean. When the stain is gone, buff with a clean cloth.

Fix cloudy wood finishes: If moisture gets trapped under a wood finish as it hardens, the finish can look cloudy and opaque (this is sometimes called “blushing”). To fix the cloudy finish, spread mayonnaise over the surface and let it sit over night. When you wipe it off, the stains will be gone.

Polish furniture: Oil, lemon juice, and vinegar make mayonnaise a great agent for polishing furniture. Rub it into the wood and buff with a cloth.

Remove scuffs and scratches on wood floors: Rub an oil-based soap like Dr. Bronner’s on the wood floors to get off any grime and then apply a generous coating of mayonnaise for a few hours or overnight. Rub it off with a rag and the scuffs and scratches will be gone.

BEAUTY

Remove bubble gum from hair: Instead of using peanut butter, you can use mayonnaise to get bubble gum out of hair. Rub the gum-covered hair and gum itself with mayonnaise and then rinse while pulling it out.

Hair conditioner: You can use full-fat, organic, or homemade mayonnaise to deep condition hair. Dampen your hair with warm water and smooth on the mayo and cover your head with a plastic cap or wrap for up to one hour. The vegetable oil in the mayonnaise will give hair moisture and shine. Then wash it out with shampoo and rinse.

Condition finger nails: For an unorthodox manicure that will moisturize nails, you can “soak” them in a bowl of mayonnaise. Though it might sound gross, the lemon juice will help brighten nails while the vegetable oil strengthens and moisturizes.

Exfoliate skin: You can make your own skin-exfoliating scrub by mixing mayonnaise with sugar to help buff off dead skin cells. The oil in the mayonnaise will help add moisture and hydrate.

Make a face mask: You can DIY a face mask for dry skin by slapping some mayonnaise on your skin. The vinegar in the condiment will help exfoliate while the oil will make your face feel soft. Leave it on for 15 to 20 minutes for best results.

CLEANING

Remove bumper stickers: Because mayonnaise will break down adhesive, it works really well on bumper stickers you want to remove from your car. Apply mayonnaise on top of the sticker, let it sit for around 15-20 minutes before peeling off.

Clean piano keys: If your piano keys have smudges or grime on them, you can clean them easily with a little bit of mayo. Apply a little bit on keys and let sit for 10 minutes before wiping off.

Clean houseplants: House plants can get dusty, which is something most people don’t think about. To make your plants look shiny and new, rinse the leaves and then apply a tiny bit of mayo to a damp washcloth and lightly rub into leaves for a bit of shine.

Remove crayon from walls: If your kid colored on the walls with crayon, you can remove it with some mayo. Coat the wall in the condiment and let it sit for a half an hour before rubbing off with a damp cloth or sponge. Repeat as necessary.

Wipe fingerprints off stainless steel: For any messy or sticky fingerprints on your gorgeous stainless steel appliances, apply a thin coat of mayo and then wipe off. It will look brand new.

Remove tar buildup: If you have any tar buildup that you need to get rid of, use mayo. Let it sit on the tar for a few minutes before wiping it up. Let it sit longer for even better results.

Sticker residue: To get sticky labels or price stickers off of your products, you can coat the sticker in mayo. Let it sit for 15 minutes to half an hour before wiping it off. The mayo will break down the residue, allowing you to rub the sticker off.

Remove tree sap: If the sap hasn’t hardened, you can wipe it off with the help of a dab of mayonnaise. Let it sit until the tree sap has softened and then wipe away with a rag.

Polish silver: You can use mayonnaise to polish silver in a pinch since it contains lemon and vinegar, two ingredients that will help restore shine. Just make sure to test it first on a smaller area.

MISCELLANEOUS

Make the best grilled cheese: Obviously you can use mayonnaise on sandwiches, but did you know you could make the best grilled cheese ever with mayonnaise instead of butter?

Soothe sunburn: If you’re out of aloe vera and need immediate relief, try applying mayonnaise to any sunburned area to soothe and cool.

Make three-ingredient biscuits: Mayonnaise can be used to make super easy biscuits. Just combine it with milk and self-rising flour.

Stop a squeaky hinge: If you have a door hinge that is squeaky, a dab of mayo rubbed into the metal can do wonders. Work it in by opening and closing the door a few times and then wipe away.

Kill head lice: If you’re ever struck by a case of head lice in your house, mayonnaise can actually make a wonderful head lice killer since it will suffocate them. Using full-fat mayonnaise, coat hair entirely (using a shower cap if necessary) and allow to sit for 8 hours.

Mayo cake: Though you’d never think to add mayonnaise to a dessert, including mayonnaise in a cake recipe can actually yield a remarkably moist cake.

Remove a ring that’s too tight: To get off a too-tight ring, mayonnaise is a good lubricant that will work in a pinch. Apply a lot to your finger and work under the ring before twisting and pulling it off.

These pretty cupcakes feature a dense funfetti cupcake and rich vanilla buttercream, decorated to look like an ice cream sundae!

Ingredients

For the cupcakes

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt1 cup granulated sugar
1 Cup Butter, room temperature
3 eggs
2/3 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sprinkles

For the buttercream

1 2/3 cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup butter, room temperature

For the topping

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Sour cherry candies
Sprinkles

Preparation
For the cupcakes
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside. Cream your butter and sugar together with a mixer then add in eggs, milk and vanilla until blended. Slowly add the dry ingredients until smooth, being sure not to over-mix. Line a muffin tin with baking cups and fill each with the cake mixture, filling each about 3/4 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the buttercream
Cream your butter then slowly add icing sugar and vanilla extract then beat for about 3-4 minutes, or until frosting is light and fluffy.

Assembly
Bring about a cup of water to a simmer in a small saucepan. Set a heatproof bowl over the mouth of your saucepan. Make sure the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl. Pour your chocolate into the bowl and stir occasionally as it softens. Once most of the chocolate is melted remove the bowl from the heat and continue to stir. Stir in the vegetable oil until well combined and smooth. Ensuring that the cupcakes are completely cooled. use an ice cream scoop to to create mounds of buttercream on top of the cupcakes. Use a butter knife to shape the buttercream to look like scoops of ice cream. Spoon the chocolate mixture over your scoops of “ice cream” to replicate the look of chocolate syrup. Decorate each cupcake with sprinkles and top with sour cherry candies.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, that’s a fact that should be accepted. Some people are great at gardening. Others bake. A few are swell bowlers. So, there is no shame in accepting what we are good at… and what we are terrible at. These 36 people are so awful at everything cooking-related they should be banned from any room that has a refrigerator or stove. You may think we’re kidding… but NOPE. Lock your kitchen doors and hide your blenders. These people can’t touch a frying pan without nearly burning down the house.
Seriously!

1. Pinterest recipes aren’t always a good idea.

2. It seemed like a good idea in theory…

3. To be fair, I blame the pan.

4. SO CLOSE to being a genius idea.

5. Oh the HUMANITY.

6. These poor pizzas…

7. I just can’t look.

8. Goodbye, old friend.

9. Pinterest lied to us all.

10. Cupcakes can be chewy if you want them to be.

11. Egads.

12. Still edible, though!

13. Not appetizing, but could be worse.

14. Like this.

15. No. Just… no.

16. If you can’t identify the meat, don’t eat it.

17. Not even close.

18. Technically, this is a win.

19. So the thing about electric kettles….

20. How does one even ATTEMPT to set pasta on fire using water?

21. Cake shouldn’t be unappetizing.

22. Never.

23. Ever.

24. How NOT to cook eggs.

25. This poor spaghetti squash never saw it coming…

26. It’s amazing they didn’t burn the house down with this one.

27. It actually takes talent to make rice look like this.

28. Making cabbage look even more unappetizing.

29. We don’t even want to know.

30. They ruined cookies. Forever.

31. Pasta should never find a way to be frightening.

32. … close?

33. Plastic is NOT the same thing as metal. It just isn’t.

34. Congratulations, world. You found a way to ruin donuts.

35. Goldfish? Sour cream? Ham? Potatoes? … why did this person want to ruin every good thing for me?

36. Happy? Birthday?

We all know that Americans should be eating more fruits and vegetables. But there’s a big difference between eating a handful of carrots or a tangerine, and munching on some leafy greens. The CDC recently ranked 47 of America’s most common fruits and vegetables, and 41 out of 47 tested were determined to be “powerhouse” sources of nutrition.

Each of the fruits and vegetables were analyzed on a scale that measures the amount of fiber, protein, potassium, and vitamins.

But Mason jar, Mason jar on the wall, who is the fairest (and most nutritious) vegetable of them all? As it turns out, the answer is, “all of the vegetables that are green and leafy.” Here are the most nutrient dense vegetables, according to the CDC.

1. Watercress

With a nutrient density score of 100, watercress ranks as the most nutritious vegetable to eat. This small, peppery green is a great addition to salads and makes a wonderful tea sandwich.

2. Chinese Cabbage

Chinese cabbage, or bok choy, is more tender than Western varieties but can also be incorporated into soups and stews very well.

3. Chard

Yes another leafy green vegetable at the top of the list. Chard is distinguished by its red-purple stalk and dark green leaves. Though slightly bitter, chard can be used in a ton of ways the numerous nutrition benefits outweigh that slightly bitter aftertaste.

4. Beet Greens

Next time you’re enjoying a red fleshy beet, don’t throw out the tops. Beet greens are almost as nutritious as chard but pack in more vitamins and minerals than plain lettuce leaves.

5. Spinach

Good old Popeye knew something was special about this tried and true side. Spinach may be one of the most popular leafy greens available but its also rounds out the top five that are great for you.

1. Orange sweet potatoes

2. Sweet potato pie

3. Peking duck

4. Oatmeal cake

5. Palak gosht

6. Baked elbow maccaroni and cheese

7. Jiffy chocolate frosting

8. Bonnie doon oaties

9. Apple muffins

10. Cherry croissants

11. Cocoa cola sheet cake

12. Fish suprise sticks

13. Good meat loaf

14. Tomato ketchup

Most people never realize the importance of designs in our daily living and baking and that it’s one of the greatest outlets of designs we can think of. For a baker, it is essential to include designs in its creations to attract customers. The rolling pin, being regarded as one of the essential part of baking, is now available in Etsy Shop Mood for Wood, with such a playful embossed design to create fun and excitement in designing a cookie dough.

A retailer based in Warsaw used laser engraving to create these various designs on the barrel of wooden pins so that when it is rolled over dough, it imprints different repeating patterns of flowers, animals and dinosaurs.

Each of these kitchenware is made up of Polish beech wood measuring 17 inches long and coated with a food safe oil to prevent it from breaking and and to avoid the dough from sticking in the pin. To ensure that the patterns are carefully and visibly engraved in the cookie, the designs are deeply inscribed.

Mood for Wood has many designs and patterns for simple occasions and special days. These are locally made and produced by an artist whose specialization is in jewelry making and metalsmith. They also offer custom-made engraved items for personalized gifts. Visit their designs and creations at Etsy Shop.

Food has a special meaning to the Chinese people. With thousands of years of history and development, there is a remarkable diversity of cuisines and food in China, which will take ages if you want to taste them all. China Highlights has listed the following must-taste Chinese food in major tourist destinations for your reference.

1. Beijing Roast Duck, Beijing

A saying that is often heard is: “There are two things you must do in Beijing: eat Beijing Roast Duck and see the Great Wall.” When roasting the duck, compressed air is injected into the duck between its skin and flesh to make the skin glossy and shiny. The manner of serving and eating Beijing Duck is also unique. One duck may produce about 120 very thin slices, each containing both meat and skin.

2. Rice Noodles, Guilin

Food and Restaurants in GuilinTaking pride of place as the most popular local snack (or breakfast, lunch or dinner) in Guilin, Guilin rice noodles is pliable but strong, fragrant and mellow, and cheap. Rice noodles, gravy, fried peanuts or soybeans, chopped scallions and thin slices of different kinds of meat are added for various versions of this renowned and tasty dish. Soup may be ladled on or dispensed from an urn.

3. Soup Buns, Shanghai

Soup Buns refers to a kind of buns with soup wrapped within. Soup Bun in Shanghai tends to have Chrysanthemum-like shape, thinner dough skins, and much stuffing which come into wide range of choices. The buns are served hot in the bamboo basket in which they were steamed. The shape and attempting fragrance really stimulate your appetite.

4. Hotpot, Chengdu

Sichuan hotpot tastes very spicy. The broth is flavored with chili peppers and other pungent herbs and spices. The main ingredients include hot pepper, Chinese crystal sugar and wine. Slices of kidney, chicken breast, beef tripe, goose intestines, spring onion, soya bean sprouts, mushrooms eel, duck and sea cucumber form the meat content of the dish.

5. Dumplings, Xi’an

Dumplings are a traditional food widely popular in China, especially in North China. Dumplings generally consist of minced meat and finely-chopped vegetables wrapped into a thin and elastic piece of dough skin. Popular fillings are mince pork, diced shrimp, fish, ground chicken, beef, and vegetables. In Xi’an, you can enjoy dumpling banquets serving various kinds of dumplings.

6. Dim Sum, Hong Kong

Hong Kong will not be complete without trying Dim Sum. Morning or lunch time Dim Sum is a local tradition. The wide range of snacks are delightfully served in bamboo baskets and accompanied by tea. You can stop at Dim Sum restaurants at any hour. The waiters push the wheeling carts full of dishes. When they come by, point at the dishes you want, and the waiter will put them on your table.

Food holidays can be so cheesy. June 4 is National Cheese Day and real cheeseheads know there’s nothing quite like cheese to satisfy a craving for something gooey, salty, umami-filled or just plain delicious.

So whether you like it hard or soft, melted or sliced up on a cracker with fruit, get to the dairy aisle of your nearest grocery store and pick up a wheel of the good stuff. While you’re snacking, chew on these fun facts about cheese:

– Cheesemaking has been around for nearly 4,000 years, according to the International Dairy Foods Association. Though no one really knows who made the very first cheese, historical records indicate that travelers from Asia brought their technique of cheesemaking to Europe before the Roman Empire.

– Today, there are over over 2,000 varieties of cheeses.

– As a country, the U.S. produces the most cheese in the world annually.

– U.S. per capita cheese consumption is about 34 pounds per person—that’s more than one full ton of cheese during the average lifetime. The French eat the most cheese, putting away an average of 57 pounds per person a year.

– Wisconsin has the most cheesemaking plants in the U.S. with 90 percent of the state’s milk being made into cheese—about 2.8 billion pounds per year

– It takes about 10 pounds of milk to make one pound of cheese, according to the Wisconsin Milk Marketing board.

– Mozzarella cheese is the biggest-selling cheese variety in the U.S., followed by Cheddar.

– The world’s most expensive sandwich is Serendipity’s “Quintessential Grilled Cheese” made with Caciocavallo Podolico cheese, a rare Italian variety made from the milk of free-ranging cows fed a diet of fennel grasses and wild strawberries, with a truffle spread and gold flakes. It retails for $214.

Food has been an important part of all cultures around the world. Based on the produce available in different parts of the world, people of different cultures have developed their own taste and flavour. There are the special dishes that are capable of bringing out the true flavor of the traditional food. It all sounds perfectly lovely, until the host of delicacies come up which are, to put it gently, quite disgusting. Let us take a look at 10 of the world’s most disgusting delicacies.

10. Balut

When served, it looks like an innocent hard-boiled egg. It’s only when you break it that you get the embryo of a foetal duck, with tiny bones, feathers, beak, etc., all soft-boiled whole inside the shell, as your surprise. It is a street food available in Vietnam and Philippines and is an ethnic delicacy. It is fertilized duck egg, incubated or allowed to grow in vitro for a few weeks. This is done in the warmth of the sunlight, and the egg is held up against the light to check if it ready to be served. The right way to ‘enjoy’ it is to slurp it from the shell with a pinch of salt and squirts of lemon juice.

9. Pacha/Smalahove

We eat meat, and forget that this meat has come off a being that once had a head, body and tail. But, the Pacha changes that. On your plate sits a whole sheep’s head, and the real beauty is not that you’re eating a face, but that the facial bones get revealed as you do so. The eyeballs and the tongue are there, of course, while one might get the surprise treat of the brain inside. The dish is from Iraq, but recipes of sheep’s head soup and their smoked versions are traditional in Mediterranean and Northern Europe. Known as Smalahove in Norway, it is a Christmas specialty served with potatoes.

8. Sannakji

Asians and their penchant for gastronomic adventures is known throughout the world. One of the most adventurous culinary delights from Korea, the Sannakji, is a variety of ‘hoe’ or raw dish. This variety of hoe serves baby octopus. They are either served whole or in pieces, seasoned lightly with sesame and sesame oil, but the essential part is that they sit squirming and wriggling on the plate. The suction cups on the arm pieces have been reported to be still active and stick to the mouth and throat. Several incidents of choking have also been reported.

7. Milt

Milt or soft roe is the genitalia of male fish which contains sperm, and it is considered as a delicacy in many cuisines. Many of them serve fried milt with horseradish. In Russia, herring milt is pickled, and it enjoyed in the UK, too. In Romanian cuisine, the milt of carp pr other fish is known as Lapti and is eaten fried. The Sicilian use tuna milt as a pasta topping and call it Lattume. The Japanese like their milt coming from cod, anglerfish, salmon, squid or pufferfish, and may be served cooked or raw, as a soft, white, slippery winter delicacy called Shirako, which reportedly melts in the mouth like butter.

6. Prairie Oyster

While we are on the subject of milt, let us jump to another popular delicacy, this time from North America. The Rocky Mountain Oyster, or Prairie Oyster has a paradox in its name, and the creator probably thought this joke would lighten the mood after letting the diner know what it actually is. Well, Prairie Oysters are the testicle of bull calves. Pigs or sheep testicles are also used, which are peeled and deep-fried. And just for additional information, penis of bull is also a dish in Northern America, eaten steamed, fried or even raw, white tiger penis is an expensive soup in Asia.

5. Hasma

The Chinese love eating their animals, even if it is for dessert. That is why they chose the fallopian tubes of frogs and chose to dry them, only to later rehydrate them so that they swell about 10-15 times. These are double-boiled with rock sugar for desired sweetness. The result is a chewy, light and opaque product with a glutinous texture, which is served with tong sui or sweet soup, and a number of other items like jujubes, dried longan fruits, lotus seeds, Chinese pear, snow fungus, etc. It is not easily available, though. Top notch Hong Kong restaurants are known to serve this dessert.

4. Bat Paste/Soup

A dish from Thailand, The bat paste is a wonderful work of art, as the procedure involves chucking a whole bat into water and boiling it to softness. Then, it is mashed into a paste with herbs, and just like that, your bat paste is all ready for you. The bat soup of Palau Islands, a United States Associated State, serves the bat whole in the soup, fur and all, and you can enjoy it while the fuzzy little head stares at you. This dish could kill you, or just make you ill, since bats are well known for carrying a whole lot of diseases in their bodies. But then again, this was supposed to be an adventure.

3. Black Pudding

Blood is drawn from pigs and allowed to coagulate, which is then mixed with large amounts of oatmeal, or even barley which absorb the blood. It is often flavoured with pennyroyal, and is cooked with limited number of ingredients. It is a popular delicacy in European countries, especially Britain and Ireland. While being cooked, a layer of fat is produced on top. While some people discard it, others like its chewiness. It is formed into a kind of sausage, which is eaten cold without cooking further beyond the process of production, or is grilled, fried, baked or boiled in its skin.

2. Chòu Dòufu

The name literally means stinky tofu. Imagine where it starts from: the soya beans. Most people hate it. From them comes the tofu milk. With soya milk is prepared tofu, Apart from the Chinese people or the really health-conscious blokes, no one is really fond of either soya milk, or tofu, because of the taste and smell. Mix it all together and you have this odorous food, prepared by adding fresh tofu to a brine made of fermented milk, vegetable and meat. The brine fermentation can take several months. It is sold in the night markets of China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

1. Casu Marzu

This Sardinian pecorino cheese is also called maggot cheese, and you’ll probably need eye-protection to eat it. A tedious process of fermenting pecorino cheese is followed, and ‘cheese flies’ are introduced into it to make it their breeding ground. When you eat the cheese, the maggots will be jumping – as high as 6 inches – without which it can go toxic. The taste and putrescent flavour will be strong enough to potentially burn your taste-buds. Just so you know: the worms can survive inside your stomach and try to bore through the walls. It is so disgusting that it is illegal.

Now that you have see the 10 most disgusting foods in the world and officially lost the appetite to eat ever again in your entire life, might like to know that there are many more such delicacies which include some very unique ingredients such as bird’s whole nest, larvae of bees, whole insects, cockscomb, tuna eyeball, etc. There are many others, yet, which a weird in the procedure of cooking, like the eggs that are fermented for many years to produce century eggs, the Surströmming which is Baltic Sea herring fermented in shut cans for a year or so, ironically to keep it from rotting, or the Mongolian boodog prepared inside out by cramming every cavity of the body of a goat or marmot with hot stones after hanging it upside down bleed it out. Some boast of both, like in case of Jellied Moose Nose, where the nose of the moose is boiled long enough to disintegrate the hair, and then cooked further to form a gelatinous mass which is sliced and served. There are also several drinks that are as welcoming as these dishes are appetizing.