Now That's A Mouthful

We challenged ourselves with some fairly straight forward cooking this round, things you’d expect to be easy and produce excellent results. Most of the recipes we tackled were pretty straight forward using common ingredients, many from our home-pantry. While all of the recipes rated well enough to land on Now That’s A Mouthful Recipes Page, that didn’t mean they weren’t without issue. We learned a lot, asked a lot of questions and, as usual, our testers had a lot to say about what we were cooking! Take a listen... Join us at Now That’s a Mouthful as a Recipe Tester or signup for our Weekly Updates.  You can keep the conversation going by joining us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and tag us by using #nowthatsamouthful and #mouthfulpodcast

Do recipe names deliver what they promise? Are pictures truly worth 1000 words? And what really entices us to choose a recipe, make it, and ultimately like it? The name of a recipe is similar to the saying, we eat with our eyes first! We talk about whether the name of a recipe influences us in our choices, first to cook it, and then to actually like it. Listen in... Join us at Now That’s a Mouthful as a Recipe Tester or signup for our Weekly Updates.  You can keep the conversation going by joining us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and tag us by using #nowthatsamouthful and #mouthfulpodcast

In Part II we learn how to work in the baker’s home kitchen and achieve picture perfect results, how our testing community fared with the recipes and what we learned from the books they came from. We talk about how authors help us with details and their textbook-like introductions so we can succeed. Listen in... Join us at Now That’s a Mouthful as a Recipe Tester or signup for our Weekly Updates.  You can keep the conversation going by joining us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and tag us by using #nowthatsamouthful and #mouthfulpodcast

Baking Basics Part I helps home cooks with any skill set level the playing field when it comes to baking.  We talk through the fundamentals of baking and setting up a baker’s home kitchen.  We talk with Rose Levy Beranbaum of The Cake Bible and now Rose’s Baking Basics and hear her tips and insights.  You’ll learn the right things to do with what you have on hand so you can be a successful home baker! Join us… Join us at Now That’s a Mouthful as a Recipe Tester or signup for our Weekly Updates.  You can keep the conversation going by joining us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and tag us by using #nowthatsamouthful and #mouthfulpodcast

The reason to have salt and pepper, seasoning blends – and salt free blends, in our cooking repertoire. You’ve never heard salt and pepper talked about like this, and when we wrap you’ll know just how important this dynamic duo is to our experience of taste and flavor. Listen in… Join us at Now That’s a Mouthful as a Recipe Tester or through our Weekly Updates.  You can keep the conversation going by joining us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and tag us by using #nowthatsamouthful and #mouthfulpodcast

Recipes are written for a specific purpose by cookbook authors, and we learn their techniques and understand their voice when we cook their recipes. So why are we forever changing and tweaking recipes? We’ll talk about the reasons to follow a recipe, and the reasons to jump off and go rogue! Join our conversation. Join us at Now That’s a Mouthful as a Recipe Tester or through our Weekly Updates.  You can keep the conversation going by joining us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and tag us by using #nowthatsamouthful and #mouthfulpodcast

We dive into a diverse set of cookbooks and recipes our Recipe Testers took on to see what worked and what we did to improve upon them. Listen in. Join us at Now That’s a Mouthful as a Recipe Tester or through our Weekly Updates.  You can keep the conversation going by joining us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and tag us by using #nowthatsamouthful and #mouthfulpodcast

We’re changing up the way we think about and use chicken in our daily home-kitchen food repertoire. Explore what we know about chicken, and how to keep those chicken recipes relevant in our changing food culture so we can enjoy them time and time again. It’s the "coop" on chicken! Join in the conversation with us. Join us at Now That’s a Mouthful as a Recipe Tester or through our Weekly Updates.  You can keep the conversation going by joining us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and tag us by using #nowthatsamouthful and #mouthfulpodcast

Taste and our taste memories influence whether we seek out new and different tastes or stay in our safe-flavor lane. The combination of flavor and memory has an influence on our expectation when it comes to food and food choices. Join the conversation with us. Join us at Now That’s a Mouthful as a Recipe Tester or through our Weekly Updates.  You can keep the conversation going by joining us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and tag us by using #nowthatsamouthful and #mouthfulpodcast

We discuss the first few books and recipes our testing community faced at the beginning of Season 2. All the recipes rated high enough to find a spot on Now That’s A Mouthful Recipes Page, but that didn’t mean they weren’t without issue. Listen in. Join us at Now That’s a Mouthful as a Recipe Tester or through our Weekly Updates.  You can keep the conversation going by joining us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and tag us by using #nowthatsamouthful and #mouthfulpodcast

We all learn to cook in unique and different ways. Our recipe testing community shares how they learn, and what they've learned from the recipe testing experience. It's a fun conversation worth having. Join us at Now That’s a Mouthful as a Recipe Tester or through our Weekly Updates.  You can keep the conversation going by joining us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and tag us by using #nowthatsamouthful and #mouthfulpodcast

The squeeze of a lemon is as good as a dash of salt to bring out the flavor of just about any food. There are endless uses for the wonderful lemon in the home kitchen. Join us at Now That’s a Mouthful as a Recipe Tester or through our Weekly Updates. You can keep the conversation going by joining us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and tag us by using #nowthatsamouthful and #mouthfulpodcast

We all bring something unique, different, and important to the table.  And it's worth talking about. Join us at Now That’s a Mouthful as a Recipe Tester or through our Weekly Updates.  You can keep the conversation going by joining us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and tag us by using #nowthatsamouthful and #mouthfulpodcast

As we wrap our first season of Now That’s a Mouthful, we take a look back and revisit some of the best cooking experiences, recipes and learning that this podcast gave us. Become a fan of Now That’s a Mouthful and keep the conversation going by joining us on Facebook. We encourage you to share pictures of your cooking and taste-testing adventures on Instagram by using #nowthatsamouthful or by tagging Now That’s a Mouthful. Also be sure to follow the official Now That’s a Mouthful Instagram account for more photos, news, and a look behind-the-scenes.

Everyone has, or should have, a handful of “back pocket” recipes.  These are the recipes that are tried and true in your kitchen; these are the recipes that consistently cook-up great and taste delicious.  We’ve found a few new recipes that our testing community loved that just might be worthy of “back pocket” status!

It took 7 months but we finally hit upon an all-star line-up of recipes!  We tested 15 new recipes from 5 very different cookbooks and all but one recipe rated 4.0 or higher.  We even had our first 5-star rated recipe.  We loved every minute in the kitchen this month but that didn’t stop our testers from asking questions and trying different ways of doing things.

We’ve cooked caramel three times with three very different approaches.  Is there an easy or foolproof way to make caramel?

The good recipes and the bad recipes both teach, inspire, and help you focus on the ultimate goal – being a better cook in your kitchen.  This month our testing community – you might say – had their share of both.

Gluten-Free, Grain-Free, Vegan and the whole host of dietary preferences along with common food allergies can send any one into meltdown.  Whether you eat within specific dietary parameters by choice or by need, today’s modern kitchen is (and possibly should be) more ready than you think to handle a variety of eating and dietary parameters.

For some, baking is as easy as… pie!  For others, (like me) we’re lucky if we have something that’s edible!  We tackled a couple of cookbooks that promise fabulous results – both with cookies and with cakes and brownies.  For the most part, we nailed it.