You may know what you’re cooking for Christmas dinner, but have you thought yet about what you and your family will enjoy that morning? Whether you love sweet, savory, or a little bit of both, we have a few ideas you might like to try. Some can be made the […]
If there has ever been a time to embrace the Scandinavian concept of “hygge,” now is certainly it. Hygge, pronounced hue-gah, is a Danish word that generally means cozy, intimate, or special, and it is used to identify small moments of comfort and contentment in the everyday. It can’t be […]
A person’s Christmas cookie plate is very personal, but we believe the perfect plate of holiday cookies contains representatives from all of the major cookie groups: chocolate, fruity, nutty, shortbread, and spice. These categories are broad with plenty of room for interpretation, but if you hit each one, you’re sure […]
Where I grew up in New Jersey, there was a local candy shop that sold macadamia nut brittle that was a prized possession in my house. It was, as you can expect, expensive as kids candy went, and my parents/Santa only got it once a year to sneak into our […]
Royal icing is a decorative icing made from egg whites and confectioners’ sugar. In professional bakeshops, it is used to decorate cakes, pastries, and candies, but at home, it is primarily used to decorate rolled out sugar or gingerbread cookies. We explain how to make and use traditional royal icing […]
One of the most frequently asked questions from guests at our CIA campuses is: “Can I freeze this?” And it’s a good question! After all, no matter how much you like to cook, there are some days that having a back-up dinner ready to go can be a life-saver. You’ll […]
An often overlooked element of Thanksgiving Day is lunch. Yes, you may be eating a big dinner, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be hungry until 7pm. If you are one of the many families who eat Thanksgiving dinner at 3pm, ignore this and go peruse our pie recipes. But […]
One of the best and easiest Thanksgiving side dishes is a platter of simple roasted vegetables. We’ve talked about the basics of roasting veggies, but let’s talk about how to dress them up for the holidays. For a typical weeknight dinner, you most likely roast your vegetables in olive oil […]
If you’ve been following along with our To-Do list, you probably don’t have much cooking to do this weekend. Way to go! If you still have some projects to check off, this is a great weekend to make broth, pie dough, cranberry sauce, and gravy (check out the CIA’s free […]
There are plenty of reasons why you might not have a turkey on your Thanksgiving table this year, but our firm stance is that no turkey does not have to mean no gravy. Whether you are vegan, vegetarian, flexitarian, or just not a big fan of turkey, gravy is still […]
It is two weeks until Thanksgiving, and there are a few things we plan to do this weekend to get ready. This is the weekend to wrap up your chicken stock or broth. If you already made some, consider taking a quart of it and making a batch of fortified […]
If there is anything on your Thanksgiving checklist that isn’t worth stressing over, cranberry sauce should be it. We know that lots of people don’t make their own cranberry sauce, and maybe you prefer the nostalgia of can-berry! Even some of us who work night and day for weeks to […]