Blog Posts by bon appétit magazine

by Bon Appétit

Grilled, smoked, or roasted, salmon holds up to almost any cooking method. Here are 5 of our favorites.

See also:

10 Snacks You Thought Were Healthy But Really Aren't

25 One-Bite Appetizers

3 Recipes Every Chef Should Master

10 Ways to Make Better Brownies

Conde Nast Digital Studioby Sara Dickerman, Bon Appétit

Our week of dinners for under $100 has come to a close. But the idea, really, was to leave you with lasting lessons for stretching dollars in home cooking, even if we aren't serving up a specific recipe every day. Here are a few tips I gathered in the process of creating the dishes:

1) A little repetition goes a long way. Variety is fantastic, but try to repeat the same recipe a few times a month. You'll find yourself ready to go, staple-wise, so you won't need to pick out new oils, vinegars, and dry goods each time you cook the recipe. At the same time, be flexible. If you're comfortable with a few substitutions, you won't need to run out to the store if you're short on a single ingredient in your house. It might not be ideal, but substituting red wine vinegar for white, spinach for chard, or Parmesan for Pecorino shouldn't ruin your dish.

2) Sometimes you'll save money in surprising places. The local food co-op or even Whole Foods might not be the

Conde Nast Digital Studioby Jason Kessler, Bon Appétit

In the hierarchy of American cuisine, you have Thomas Keller all the way at the top and fast food on the bottom. There's a sub-category, though, just underneath traditional fast food. It's so vile that it barely registers on the scale at all. Where is this demonic gustatory hell? It's the food court at your local mall.

Crass, nutritionally bankrupt, and offensive to pretty much all discerning eaters, it's perhaps the worst place you could possibly get hungry--rivaled only by airports and amusement parks. Food courts exist for culinary masochists, those people who seem to relish punishing their bodies with as much salt, fat, and sugar as possible. With those people in mind, we've put together a collection of the worst of the worst mall foods, from orange chicken to virtually everything at Cinnabon. Enjoy!

Related: 10 Snacks You Thought Were Healthy but Really Aren't

Orange Chicken
It's almost inaccurate to call this chicken, because it's really just a

by Sara Dickerman, Bon Appétit

It seemed easy enough: Develop five meals for a family of four using less than $100 worth of groceries. Simple, right? I know how to economize. I almost always use my leftovers. I rarely cook with flashy proteins. I even love rice and beans. But once I started shopping, my heart sank as I truly realized how much pantry staples cost: a bottle of balsamic vinegar -- even a cheap one, runs about $5. Fennel seed, a favorite of mine, averaged almost $5 a jar (I cut them from a recipe). Little by little, though, I whittled down my recipes to have as much flavor as possible with a radically simple shopping list. When I included a pricier ingredient, I made sure that it had maximum flavor impact -- otherwise it had to go.

Get the Under $100 Shopping List for all 5 recipes HERE.

More from Bon Appétit:

10 Snacks You Thought Were Healthy But Really Aren't
25 One-Bite Appetizers
10 Quick and Easy School-Night Dinners
10 Ways to Make Better Brownies

Jamie Chungby David Lynch, Bon Appétit

When you think about Bordeaux, what comes to mind? The British fop sipping "claret" in his drawing room? The Wall Streeter buying futures for his insta-cellar? We've been conditioned to believe that Bordeaux must be expensive to be good, which isn't surprising given how much power is concentrated in the hands of a few in the fabled region. All anyone talks about are the "classed growths"--that is, the top-ranked (and priciest) wines, which were set by brokers back in the 19th century.

See also: 21 French Desserts. Delicieux!

As a sommelier who likes to think he's on top of what's cool, I used to shun Bordeaux because of its "corporate" vibe: Producers set prices, cartel style, then parcel out wine to merchant-middlemen called negociants. Sorry, but that's not sexy; today's wine geek favors the weathered paysan who plows his vineyard with a draft horse, not the chateau owned by an insurance company.

But once I got over myself, I realized that (a) the region

Levi Brownby Adam Rapoport, Bon Appétit

I hear it from friends all the time. "My kid loves sushi!" Or, "She totally devours asparagus!"

And I can't help but think, "Really--who are you? Who are these kids of yours?"

My kid loves chicken tenders. And pasta, with butter and cheese. And scrambled eggs. And French fries. And yogurt. And bagels. And breads of all kind.

If it's white, he'll eat it. If not, doubtful. He literally recoils at the sight of broccoli.

Related: Junk Food Makeover: Chicken Nuggets

However, he's certainly not going hungry. At 4 1/2, he's already built like Tim Tebow. And while his diet is not nearly as varied as my wife or I would like, we're not ready to hit the panic button.

My wife, being the diligent one in the relationship, makes sure he eats more than just starch and crispy, breaded proteins. Smoothies are her weapon of choice. She makes them daily and packs them with frozen berries, mango, bananas and yogurt. And, whenever possible, she amps them up with even healthier

The author and his sonby Bon Appétit

Nine months ago, I became a dad. I'm an anxious guy in general, but this parental situation presented a host of new issues: Would I be able to keep my son safe? Would he be healthy? And, following close behind these matters of survival, would he turn into one of those 8-year-olds who insisted on a rotating menu of chicken fingers, mac n' cheese, and PB&Js?

I know, I know. Even I'm rolling my eyes. But hear me out: When I was growing up, eating was the one thing that united my family. We all loved food, despite my sister's brief anti-potato phase. As kids, we ate tons of seafood, Italian-American classics, vegetables from the garden, mostly because we had to. My mom did not play short order cook. We all sat down and ate the same thing, together.

I wanted that.

These days, I spend a couple of hours each weekend making what I guess is "baby food": mostly vegetable, meat, and fish purees for him to eat. In fact, I cook more for him than I do for me and my wife.

by Hunter Lewis, Bon Appétit

Finesse gets you only so far when carving a whole bone-in ham. There's a science to this task: anatomy. What you want to do is use the bone as your guide, dividing the ham into four distinct and meaty sections. It will make carving and presentation a breeze. Here's how to do it.

More from Bon Appétit:

10 Snacks You Thought Were Healthy But Really Aren't

25 One-Bite Appetizers

10 Quick and Easy School-Night Dinners

10 Ways to Make Better Brownies