The Chopping Block Cooking Blog | Cooking Techniques

New Ideas for Breakfast

It is 7am as I write this. I woke up this morning as I usually do, ready for a cup of coffee but not breakfast. In fact, I rarely wake up ready for breakfast. I’m pretty sure some of that might be ...

The Art of the Vinaigrette

I remember the first time a house-made salad dressing rocked my world. It was the summer of 1988, and I was bussing tables at a swanky new bistro in town. I was 17, and just beginning what would ...

The New Way to Cook Tofu

One simple step when cooking has changed my tofu life. This method may not be new to everyone, and it certainly isn’t revolutionary, but I’ve been seeing it popping up on the food media scene ...

Don't Knock Mushrooms until you've had them Cooked Properly

I often hear from students in our cooking classes about the foods they say they don’t like. When I hear this, my next question is always “What don’t you like about it?” As a nutritional chef, I run ...

The "S" Words of Cooking

I remember as a child I always had one friend that liked to experiment with cursing. The scenario was always the same: my friends and I would be somewhere out of the listening ear of an adult, ...

The Time Machine in your Kitchen

We are all time travelers. We all go about our daily lives traveling into the future at a rate of one minute per minute. As far as we can tell though, time just sweeps us along toward some ...

Salt 101

How on earth did salt get so complicated? I’m sure some of you have got to be thinking that! Growing up in my hometown in Iowa, there were two kinds of salt: table salt and salt for the deer… oh, and ...

Choosing, Understanding and Making the Most of a Recipe

Have you ever looked up a recipe online and ended up buying $70 worth of ingredients to make it? It's so common these days with the millions of recipes available on the internet. Although some ...

How to Make Homemade Mexican-Style Chorizo

I love chorizo, and I am honestly baffled when I meet someone who doesn’t. When I ask people what they don’t like about chorizo, they often say it is because it is greasy. I’ll admit it can be ...

Don't Waste Food, Preserve It

Food waste is a huge issue in our society, and can be a huge issue for your pocketbook. Finding out what to do with those leftover veggies or extra filet of salmon can sometimes be difficult for home ...