Kitchen Dictionary

From tips for cooking through chemotherapy to busting healthy food myths to easy, pantry-friendly meal ideas — our team of experts covers it here.

Kitchen Dictionary

Artichokes: Health Benefits & Recipe Tips

The artichoke can be an intimidating vegetable—with all its prickly, user-unfriendly construction. But really the artichoke is just the edible flower bud of a spectacular giant thistle. Underneath...

Kitchen Dictionary

Rhubarb

Because it rarely makes an appearance outside of a crust, rhubarb is sometimes referred to as the pie plant. The bright red stalks are easy to find in...

Kitchen Dictionary

Brown Rice

Chewy and nutty brown rice is a heart-healthy whole grain with only its outermost layer, the hull, removed. Unlike refined white rice, the brown version provides important nutrients...

Kitchen Dictionary

Peas

Packages of frozen garden peas are sometimes used to cool aching muscles, and even to soothe black eyes, though this is not the origin of black-eyed peas. But...

Kitchen Dictionary

Kidney Beans

Few foods can claim to be as simultaneously healthful and satiating as the kidney bean. The big, cabernet-colored bean named after the anatomical organ they resemble, are an...

Kitchen Dictionary

Stocks & Broths

Although store-bought chicken stock and broth are readily found in grocery stores, making your own at home is easier than you might expect and can be a great...

Kitchen Dictionary

Celery Root

Celery root, also known as celeriac or knob celery, is, as its name implies, the root of the celery plant. Don’t let its gnarly exterior fool you; the interior...

Kitchen Dictionary

Salmon

It might not be the splashiest of species in the seafood world, but salmon is a genuine superfood. It is one of the best food sources of omega-3 fatty...

Kitchen Dictionary

Honey

Honey has been used as a sweetener for millennia, and before the advent of cane sugar. Because of its scarcity, honey became an expensive luxury food only eaten...

Kitchen Dictionary

Mushrooms

Mushrooms have long been essential and delicious ingredients in Mediterranean kitchens, but a wide variety of fungi have been used for centuries in Chinese medicine to promote well-being...

Kitchen Dictionary

Figs

Originating in the Mediterranean region, figs were brought over by Spanish and Portuguese missionaries to the New World around 1520, eventually reaching California in the 1700s. Figs are primarily...

Kitchen Dictionary

Vanilla

A Thrilla in Vanilla By Fiona Breslin Though we may take vanilla for granted, so much so that it has become a metaphor for ordinary, it was once so rare...