Seasonal Recipes

Which leftover Halloween candy melts and which one seizes

Baking with leftover Halloween candy: why chocolate seizes, caramel melts into sauce, hard candy shatters, and what actually works in a batter.

12 min read

Seasonal Recipes

Potatoes and onions cannot share a bin until March

How to store winter vegetables at home: the exact temperature and humidity each crop needs, and why potatoes and onions can never share a bin.

14 min read

Seasonal Recipes

Fresh pumpkin puree carries too much water for a pie

Homemade pumpkin puree holds too much water for a custard pie. The roast, the overnight drain, the target weight, and how to adjust a canned recipe for it.

12 min read

Seasonal Recipes

Press the apples, hold the juice at 160F, then bottle it

How to make apple cider at home, from sorting windfalls to bottling: yield per bushel, the 160F hold that pasteurizes without cooking, and keeping times.

13 min read

Seasonal Recipes

Some apples hold their shape at 375F, others collapse into sauce

The best apples for baking, ranked by what survived 375F across nine varieties, plus the acid and calcium steps that firm up the ones that collapse.

13 min read

Seasonal Recipes

Concord grapes give you three weeks and then they are gone

Three concord grape recipes from one five-pound box: juice, jelly that sets on its own pectin, and a shrub, with yields and the overnight chill that matters.

14 min read

Seasonal Recipes

Twelve ingredients worth buying the week the season turns

September seasonal produce comes as two lists with opposite orders: eight crops to buy by the case this week, four to buy small, four worth waiting on.

14 min read

Seasonal Recipes

A 3.5 percent brine and two weeks turn late peppers into hot sauce

A fermented hot sauce recipe built on a 3.5 percent brine: the salt math by weight, what each day should look like, when to blend, and how to bottle it.

13 min read