Tag: Easy and Quick

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Katharine Hepburn’s #1 Trick for the Best Brownies Is Totally Brilliant

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Countless Allrecipes community members—and the whole of our staff—are a little (okay, a lot) obsessed with brownies.

On a constant quest to take them to the next level, we have tested and perfected Mmm-Mmm Better Brownies. We’ve got the Best Brownies. And if this recipe could talk, it would say “Not so fast, I’m, Absolutely the Best Brownies.” We can’t forget Brooke’s Best Bombshell Brownies and The Ultimate Brownies, either.

The competition for the ultimate, absolute best brownie of all time is stiff, so we’ll leave that up to you to decide which earns your trophy. But before you make your final call, we have another contender to add to the mix after scouring the archives of the PBS project, The History Kitchen: Katharine Hepburn’s Brownies.

We’ll be dishing up the recipe below, but before we do, we have to take a moment to highlight the silver screen icon’s remarkably simple secret that makes her brownies—and honestly, any brownie recipe—better.

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Chef John’s Mom’s Best Tip for Perfect Potato Salad

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

There are so many types of potato salad out there made across the world. But sometimes, it’s hard to beat a cookout classic dressed up with mayonnaise, crunchy celery, zippy onion, and perfectly-cooked hard-boiled eggs. That’s exactly what Chef John’s recipe inherited from his mom serves up: an aptly named Perfect Potato Salad. 

In that recipe, Chef John highlights one very important rule in making this potato salad: After cooking whole potatoes, they must come down to room temperature before you combine them with the remaining ingredients and toss them with your dressing. If you dress your potatoes while they’re still hot, the mayo-based dressing will end up looking greasy and unappetizing. 

Waiting for the potatoes to cool has another bonus. For this potato salad, you start by boiling whole, skin-on potatoes as opposed to cut or peeled potatoes. Then you peel and cut the potatoes after they’ve been cooked. Peeling cooked, room-temperature potatoes is much easier than peeling raw potatoes. Because the potato skin peels so easily from the flesh of the potato, you also waste less of the potato. 

That’s not Chef John’s only potato salad tip. Here are his top tips for making a perfect potato salad.

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Jennifer Garner’s Hack for Quickly Softening Butter Is a Real Game Changer

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Actress Jennifer Garner may be most known for her unforgettable performances in 13 Going on 30, Daredevil, and Alias, but we like to think of her as one of our favorite home chefs.

That’s right, Garner is an avid home cook who enjoys narrating her recipes as if she’s on her own cooking show just as much as we do. Celebrities — they really are just like us!

Jennifer has hosted what’s she’s aptly named the “Pretend Cooking Show” on her Instagram since December 2017. In each episode, she showcases a new homemade recipe, plus her goofy and adorable personality that we all know and love. Her cooking show has become so popular over the years, that Jennifer has even been asked to host a real cooking show, according to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

During her cooking videos, Jennifer shows off the true struggles of at-home baking and cooking — like in her December 2018 video where she made a major baking mistake: She forgot to soften her butter.

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Chicken Scampi Pasta

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

This chicken scampi pasta is the perfect weekday meal—you can never go wrong with garlic, butter, and lemon. It’s hearty, full of flavor, and great the next day for leftovers. Serve with your favorite vegetable and crusty bread.

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Grandma’s Swedish Meatballs and Gravy

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

This Swedish meatballs recipe has been passed down from a Swedish grandmother to her beautiful granddaughter. They are the best Swedish meatballs I’ve ever tasted. Even better than Ikea®! Easy to make, full of flavor, swimming in the most amazing creamy gravy sauce.

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