Just Eat It: Brain Food 101

Brain Food 101: Why You Need To Boil Your Pretzels in Baking Soda

March 15, 2011
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Welcome to Day 2 of Soft Pretzel Week! Thanks for all your post suggestions…I’ll be adding to this week’s line-up.

But first, some Brain Food for you all.

When I posted my traditional homemade pretzels, quite a few people asked me why I boiled the pretzels in baking soda + water before baking them. Was it really worth the extra time and effort, they asked?

My answer: a resounding YES. Definitely worth it!

The reasoning is really two-fold.

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Brain Food 101: Keeping Your Hot Chocolate Hot

February 10, 2011
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You know what I hate? A mug of hot chocolate or tea that gets cold before I can finish drinking it.

It seemed to me that hot chocolate topped with marshmallows stayed hot for a longer amount of time. Being the food science nerd that I am, I naturally wanted to test whether or not I was imagining it. And if I was right, I wanted to know why. We can all thank my food science & engineering degree for that one.
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Hot Cocoa and Hot Chocolate: What’s the Difference?

February 8, 2011
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As I was perusing cookbooks and blogs for ideas for Hot Chocolate Week, I learned that there is a difference between hot cocoa and hot chocolate. I had no idea! On most American menus, hot chocolate is the term used for all chocolate-y drinks, whether or not it is the accurate term.

So what’s the difference?

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The Great Missing-Ingredient Baking Experiment

November 4, 2010
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Gather up your cookie baking ingredients, folks. What’s that you say? You’re out of eggs? No butter to be found?

Never fear, there are some easy vegan substitutions you can make. Each egg can be replaced with 1 “flax egg,” while 1/3 c of vegetable oil can be subbed in for each stick of butter. Yes, there are egg replacers and vegan margarine out there that you can use, but not everyone keeps those on hand…I know I don’t!

To help you all out, I did an experiment to see just how well these substitutes performed in a typical chocolate chip cookie.

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Let’s Talk Turkey

November 2, 2010
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Let’s talk turkey. Specifically, Thanksgiving turkey. In my quest to eat ethically and locally, I decided that the only way I was serving turkey on November 25 was if I chose one raised ethically and sustainably. In order to do so, I logged onto Ithaca’s latest local foods resource, Harvestation, and read up on my [...]

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