Keeping Basil Fresh: with out the tatoo, earring and surly expression

Get it? Fresh? You guys suck....

I like fresh basil but sometimes you get this stuff home from the store and it's either wilted, wilts by the next day or has brown patches all over it. This herb is pretty delicate, so unless you're planning on having a little pot of it growing on a sunny window sill, you're gonna have to get creative. Let's face it guys, most of us live in cities where we're lucky if our apartment has a window, never mind sun.

Filet Mignon: a quick & dirty how to

The person who inspired me to start U Can't Cook has done it again. What has she done? Messed up dinner that's what and I know she's not alone. Have we seriously become such a take out nation that the simple act of frying up a steak is equivalent to completing the Friday New York Times cross word?

Video Entry: Basic Skills: How to Chop Carrots

Bumm-ba-DUUUM!!!! The first UCC video is now live! Woo! Excitement, fan fare and less spelling errors! Yes friends it's the moment you've all been waiting for. I have gotten off my fat, albeit cute, ass and put together the first of many instructional videos on how to cook.

I'm starting you off slowly with a chopping demonstration. Carrots! Next, onions! Tomorrow, celery and the world! Ok, so I got a little aggressive with the exclamation points. Hey, I'm excited. What can I say? ON WITH THE SHOW!

Stocking the cupboard: Teaching Old Mother Hubbard how it's done.

A friend of mine, the reason this site was spawned, recently went shopping and wanted some advice. Normally I would have gone with her, but I'm tired this weekend. When I go shopping for basics I try to think about shelf life, ease of use, likely hood of use and storage space.

The Gravy Train Stops Here

For the love of god and all that is good and holy, WHY do people insist on destroying gravy? I was lucky enough to dodge bad gravy this season, but I think back on what my father said to my mother the first time he brought her to his family's Thanksgiving, "don't touch the gravy. It's spackle." He was right. Eventually he broke down and chased his aunts out of the kitchen and commandeered the turkey drippings, thus saving gravy for all in attendance.

OK enough of that crap.

Making Bread Crumbs: When bread is hard enough to kill

We've all gone through this. You buy a beautiful long baguette with the best intentions of using it. You leave it in it's store packaging on the counter over night and the next day it feels like a red wood trunk.

You've got stale!

Your first instinct is to go, "Mother @#$%!" and throw it out. STOP! Calm down. Have some dip. This can be fixed.

Baking Powder vs. Baking Soda: What's the difference and why should I care?

I'll tell you why ya bunch of ingrates! If you mix the two up your libel to cock up your entire recipe, and then you have a mess on your hands and in your kitchen. An inedible mess.

Listen up bake fans. Cooking is different from baking because of one essential reason. Cooking is an art form, baking is a science. What does that mean? Glad you (didn't) ask. That means when a baking recipe tells you to do something you do it without question! Think of it as martial law, especially when you're going though the recipe for the first time. Some of the culinary art's most spectacular fails have happening in baking. You can at least modify a cooking recipe and save it. Ever try to separate a tablespoon of salt from four cups of flour. Forget it kid, you're now officially screwed to the wall.