All this home cooking everyone has been doing either reveals your cooking skill limitations or inspired you to take thinks up to the next level. How can you become a better cook? What skills should every home cook improve right now? (And how can we improve our cooking skills?) Anne Milneck—chef, owner of Red Stick Spice Co., and host of Smidgen—tells us what are the top skills every home cook should know and how to improve them right away. Catherine O’Brien (Smidgen producer) gets Anne to talk about food presentation and plating (a pet topic of hers after watching so much Smidgen cooking.) For fun, Anne closes the show by sharing recipes and cooking challenges for the beginner, intermediate, and experienced home cooks.
Mentioned on the show:
- Make a curry! WARNING—you may find yourself making curries weekly once you get hooked on this dish. Versatile, easy, delicious—change the spices, change the dish. Work with a variety of veggies and proteins to make amazing curries. Try Chicken Curry in a Hurry to get started; explore all the curry options on the Red Stick Spice Co. website (including some of the spice blends.)
- Soup season lasts 365 days. Award winning Summer Squash soup to handle the “squash situation” that lots of gardeners are experiencing now. Did we mention this soup won Anne an award?
- Talk to your local butcher wherever you live. Our local butcher is Galen Iverstein, of Iverstein Farms. (Galen was on the very first episode of Smidgen, listen here.)
- Change the profile of some of your favorite meals with Smoked Tomato Blend, a rich and aromatic spice blend that brings zest and dimension to sauces, chilis, soups, and more. Let Smoked Tomato Blend do some of the heavy lifting on taking your dishes to the next level.
- Catch Red Stick Spice Company on Facebook Live! Anne and her crew will be cooking live. Follow along or get some ideas for din din. Red Stick Spice Co on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/redstickspicecompany
We invite you to reach out to us with any ideas you have, or just to say hello and check in. Contact us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
Hear all Smidgen episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pandora,or your browser, or your favorite podcast app. Smidgen is the podcast of Red Stick Spice Co.