Burritos are delectable - but can be a sloppy mess. But this 4-minute video from The Daily Meal takes you by the hand and shows you how to build the perfect burrito - one that doesn't get soggy or fall apart. There are several keys:

• The order of ingredients is truly important - beans, rice, shredded cheese, meat/vegetable, salsa, guacamole, sour cream, hot sauce.
• The ratio of ingredients is key, especially rice to bean - about even. And not too much guacamole.
• The desired shape is a rectangular, elongated form.
  
• Rolling is a four-step process: in with the sides, over the top using your fingers to insure coverage, corners in, and tucked under itself (not really a roll) - and take your time.

Now this is an art form everyone should - and can - learn.

Photo courtesy of The Daily Meal

Discussing chocolate is always appropriate, but never more so than approaching Mother's Day. So here's a shout out to The Daily Meal's article, Truth Behind 4 Chocolate Myths. By busting these myths, they produce even more reasons than you may already have for eating chocolate. Check out the article for the full details, here is a synopsis:

"Myth #1: Chocolate is bad for you
Eaten in moderation, chocolate can be good for you. Flavanols - antioxidants that have been linked to heart health - aren't just found in tea and red wine. Chocolate has them too, along with dietary fiber and assorted minerals.

Myth #2: Chocolate is an aphrodisiac
Chocolate stands alongside oysters and asparagus as an alleged agent of sexual arousal. [We're not so sure about this - but a gift of chocolate never hurts the mood.]

Myth #3: Chocolate causes acne
Even though mom said it for years, chocolate does not cause acne. 

Myth #4: Chocolate is loaded with caffeine
Unless you're consuming it in large quantities, chocolate isn't likely to keep you up at night. Milk chocolate has about 12 milligrams of caffeine per serving, with dark chocolate clocking in at 20 milligrams to 40 milligrams per serving. To put that in perspective, an 8-ounce cup of coffee contains anywhere from 65 milligrams to 120 milligrams of caffeine."

Of course it's certainly no myth or secret that chocolate is the base for some of our best desserts and beverages, but don't forget chocolate can make an appearance in savory dishes. As a gentle reminder, and for another way to consume this latest health food, check out these online recipes for Mexican mole sauce featuring chocolate.

And don't forget to also continue to check out our Mother's Day Pinterest page for more great Mother's Day ideas and recipes.

Photo courtesy of The Daily Meal

No less an authority than the Wall Street Journal has chosen to crown hummus as the new king of the snacks. In their online article, Hummus is Conquering America, they discuss how the growing demand for hummus is encouraging farmers to trade transplanting tobacco for chickpeas. Apparently the chickpea harvest has been concentrated in the Northwest, which creates a diversity of climate issue,  and now the large hummus producers (e.g. Pepsi which partially owns Sabra, and Kraft which owns Athenos) are encouraging Southern farmers to add chickpeas to their crop list.

Sales of hummus in the market are skyrocketing; up 11% from a year ago and up 25% from two years ago. And certainly the fact that a low fat, high protein snack item is popular is nothing to sneeze at - any consumption is a good thing. But perhaps this is a classic example where, since it doesn't take much more effort to make hummus at home than buy it at the grocery store, we can do a little preaching and encourage people to take a look at these online hummus recipes from the EYB Library, sorted by buzz. In particular, we noted that this hummus recipe from the prize-winning cookbook Jerusalem (which has 8 pages devoted to hummus) is the favorite.

Or, since we assume that many of our members already make their own hummus, please share your favorites. A fresh batch might make for an unusual, but highly appreciated, Mother's Day gift.

Mother's Day is approaching, and what mother wouldn't want the ultimate chocolate dessert - the "Big Mac of Dessert?" Mark Bittman has bestowed this title on Jean-Georges Vongerichten's molten chocolate cake - the original lava cake that has spawned so many offspring. But Vongertichten produces over 1,000/day, so if you want to go to the master, this is the one to choose. And to help everyone make it, the Braiser has provided this helpful NY Times video to show you exactly how to make it. 

But if cake doesn't fit the occasion,  check out our EYB's special Mother's Day Pinterest board which currently has 109 pins to recipes from savory to dessert to beverages to brunch.

We don't usually bring attention to cooking contests - there are far too many of them - but the winner of the recent Fonseca contest caught our attention. First, the contest was rather unique - design a cookie that would go well with Port - and the judges (Jacques Torres and Dorie Greenspan) are no slouches. Then the cookie itself is really good - and designed for mature audiences. 

The cookies, labeled Portofignos, are described in Food Republic's article,   The Cookie Recipe That Caught the Eye of Jacques Torres & Dorie Greenspan, as "not-too-sweet, chocolate sablé filled with salty walnuts and Port-soaked figs." They also publish the recipe for those who are interested in trying it out.

 

And even if you don't want to make the cookie, Jacques Torres has a great tip for macerating fruit, "When I marinate fruit, I like to do so cold, rather than warm. It's best if the fruit marinates for a few days to absorb a great deal of flavor. The alcohol will still cook out when the cookies are baked."

Last month we published An honest to goodness foolproof way to poach an egg - which became one of our most highly viewed blogs. That blog pointed to a video from Kenji Alt at the Serious Eats Food Lab on, obviously, egg poaching. Now he has followed up with a somewhat related video how-to: The Food Lab's Foolproof Hollandaise in 2 Minutes.

He describes the secret as a backwards approach: "But there's a super easy way to do it at home that requires no whisking, is completely foolproof, and produces a hollandaise that's indistinguishable from one made using traditional methods.

It stems from the realization that rather than heating your eggs then adding relatively cool butter, you can just as easily heat your butter and add it to relatively cool eggs, cooking them as the emulsion forms. It's a sort of backwards way to think about hollandaise, but there's no denying it works."

With these two videos, if anybody's mother want Eggs Benedict for breakfast on Mother's Day, you have it covered.

Image from video by Jessica Leibowitz

We all have little challenges in life that aren't momentous but are a constant irritant - and cooking a perfect poached egg was one of ours. Somehow, despite numerous attempts, research and, yes, even cooking school (where we were taught to carefully lay the eggs on a kitchen towel and manually trim the eggs with scissors), our poached eggs tasted fine, but still looked awful.

So this article, How to Poach Eggs, The Foolproof Method (Really!) from the Food Lab over at Serious Eats,  with a method that actually  really works, may not be exciting to everyone, but it's something we just had to share. It turns out that a key step in producing a great poached egg is to strain the egg. By straining the egg, you lose all the especially watery white that creates those wispy little strange edges that either make the egg look like something from a 1950's B-rated science fiction movie or get loose and clog up the water, making visibility impossible. 

The article give full instructions, with a very helpful video - and delivers on its title.  If a poaching egg technique has ever been an irritant, it's definitely worth a look.

Photo and Video by Jessica Leibowitz, Article by Kenji Alt

Thomas Keller is certainly one of the top 5 most respected chefs in the world, so it wasn't surprising that NPR visited him to talk about his favorite Easter recipes, as reported in Homemade Peeps, And More Easter Treats, A La Thomas Keller. Keller's  new book, Bouchon Bakery,  is up for numerous awards, so a lot of the conversation had to do with baked goods such as Hot Cross Buns and Carrot Muffins, but we were intrigued by his discussion of Peeps (America's most popular marshmallow treats). 

As Keller says, "They're very cute," he says, "and, you know, they remind us of when we were kids. I mean, we ate those all the time. And the boys would usually bite the heads off first."  Of course, Keller's version (which are eggs, not chicks) incorporate homemade marshmallow that is creamier than store-bought marshmallow. And each egg is hand-rolled.

As a bonus, in his discussion of Carrot Muffins he provides some excellent advice on how to tell if a carrot is fresh and sweet - use small carrots (not "horse carrots") that are less than an inch in diameter, preferably with fresh tops that look fresh. Carrots should also be crisp, with vibrant flesh and skin color.

The article includes recipes for the muffins, which are stuffed with carrots, the marshmallow eggs, and the hot cross buns.

Photo by  Doriane Raiman for NPR

Since Friday is a good day to clean up loose ends, we thought we'd finally note the death - or at least the coma - of Mayor Bloomberg's attempts to ban the sale of mega-sodas in New York City. And the most creative coda to this story  has come from a surprising source, NPR, which invented The Bloomberg - the "sugariest drink in the world."

For those who haven't been paying attention to the soda ban tale, some time ago Mayor Bloomberg (New York City) passed a law, designed to fight obesity, prohibiting the sale of sugary drinks in cup sizes larger than 16 ounces. While seemingly simple (and not completely restrictive as you could buy two cups of 16 ounces to get 32 ounces of drinks) the implementation turned out to not be quite so simple. Among the thorny questions were "what is a sugary drink" (the ban eventually included coffee and smoothies) and "who should be allowed to sell them, if anyone." And there were a number of people who protested the concept of the government telling them what they could, or could not, eat.

However, despite the protests the ban was to go into effect this week, until a judge voided the law rather harshly, ruling it "arbitrary and capricious." So while the law is now being appealed, NPR's The Salt created a drink to honor the occasion.  As they write, "To celebrate our right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Diabetes, we've created the sugariest drink in the world. We call it 'The Bloomberg."'  What's in the Bloomberg? Here's the list:

Ingredients:

• 1 part Coca-Cola
• 1 part Yoo-hoo
• 1 part Starbucks Vanilla Frappuccino
• 1 part Red Bull
• 1 part Mountain Dew Kickstart, Mountain Dew's inexplicable new energy drink
• 1 part Pillsbury Funfetti cake frosting
• 1 part Marshmallow Fluff
• 1 part Hummingbird Food (We actually couldn't find any, due to supply chain issues and a Divine Force protecting us.)
• 1 part Mrs. Butterworth's pancake syrup
• 1 part aerosol whipped cream
• 1 part Kool-Aid
• 1 part Cadbury Creme Egg creme (You'll have to extract the creme yourself, because for some reason they don't yet sell it on its own. If you're trying to eat healthy, just use the Cadbury Creme Egg white.)
• 1 part Nutella
• 1 part sugar
• 1 part Country Time Lemonade Mix
• 1 part Gatorade (for fitness!)

Since we don't want to steal their thunder, we'll let you read the article for the instructions of how to make it and some (rather crude) taste reviews. We'd say "enjoy," but that wouldn't be sincere.

Most of us cook with cheese, so tips on managing cheese are always appreciated. Here are five tips from Cook's Illustrated on handling cheese (check out the article for full illustrations):

• Fit round cheese slices on a square slice of bread by breaking the cheese slices into quarters.
• Grate and store cheese in one easy step - and keep your hands clean at the same time - by putting your cheese grater in a plastic bag.
• Keep semi-soft cheeses from getting mushy and clogging the holes of a cheese grater by first spraying the grater with non-stick cooking spray.
• The easiest way to get Parmesan cheese shavings is with a vegetable peeler.
• The best way to store goat cheese - and make it easier to slice - is to unwrap it and store it in a butter keeper.

And while we're on the subject of goat cheese, here are the goat cheese recipes that receive the most buzz from members' cookbooks. We especially liked the looks of Deborah Madison's Goat Cheese Enchiladas with Red Mole, (which you can find here).