Whether you’re cooking a meal or phoning it in this Valentine’s Day, treating the evening like a dinner party for two will ensure you strike a special, thoughtful tone.

Basically, if it’s a move you’d bust out for a dinner party, you should bust it out for the dinner you serve on February 14th. Dinner parties are all about impressing people with how mature and considerate you are, which is a vibe that should be extended to your valentine, who is — more than likely — the person you have been around almost constantly for a full year. Attention to detail can be a love language, and can make an at-home meal feel different , even if you haven’t left that home in over 11 months.

Set the table

If you have “nice” dishes, use them. If you have children, banish them for the evening so you don’t have to worry about them breaking the nice plates (have them watch a movie or put them to bed early). Don’t, however, use plates that are so nice you can’t put them in the dishwasher, or plates that are so nice you feel anxious eating off of them. This is supposed to be fun, after all.

Once you’ve picked the plates, you can focus on the rest of the table. Place mats, cloth napkins, and — yes — candles are all things that make the meal feel more intentional and thoughtful. I also recommend place cards, even if there are only two places at the table. Write your Valentine’s name on a cute little card or — better yet — a clementine (get the kind with leaves still attached if you can), set it in front of their chair, and watch their face light up at the adorable, edible detail.

Warm your plates and chill your glasses

If you are going to go through the trouble to cook a beautiful medium-rare steak, or mix a perfectly chilled and diluted martini, you might as well take the extra step of serving them in or on a vessel that won’t negatively affect their temperature one way or other. For plates that will be graced with hot food, just set them in a low-temperature oven (the lowest it will go) on a baking sheet for a couple of minutes right before serving time. (This is also a good brunch move — few things ruin a hot egg like a cold plate.)

If you’ll be serving a salad, pop the salad plates in the fridge (for 20 minutes) of freezer (if you’re in a hurry) to help keep your greens cold and crisp. This may not be necessary, depending on how warm you keep your house, but it’s useful if your plates are fresh and warm from the dishwasher.

If you’ll be serving cocktails, white wine, or even Diet Coke, pop a few fancy glasses in the freezer while you prepare the meal. This is a particularly nice — some might say “crucial” — move if you’ll be sipping martinis, which are at their best when they are icy.

Learn a few fancy plating tricks

I did not expect artful plating to be one of the things I missed during this pandemic, but it is — I miss the stark white plates with their negative space and carefully placed garnishes. People truly do eat with their eyes first , and while sculpting mashed potatoes may feel silly in the moment, it feels thoughtful on the plate. If you’re uncomfortable with that amount of bourgeois decadence, at least finish your dish with a squeeze of lemon, a drizzle of good olive oil, or sprinkle on some fresh herbs and crunchy stuff ,.

Don’t forget the butter (and nice salt)

An ample supply of room-temperature butter is what separates my favourite bread-serving restaurants from the rest. If a waiter brings me butter that’s topped with some sort of flake salt, I’m theirs for the night, and will follow them into hell, or at least the more expensive pages of the wine menu. It’s a powerful move, is what I’m saying, and you can harness its power by setting out good butter (which is different from your everyday butter ), nice salt (Maldon or something similar), and a pepper mill full of whole peppercorns.

If your meal or your valentine requires any condiments, pickle, or sauce, make sure to set all that out before dinner is served so no one has to leave the table, and clean the bottles and lids of those condiments before setting them out. You can also transfer them to cute little bowls with cute little serving spoons, but cleaning the hot sauce bottle should suffice.

Discuss the division of labour beforehand

If you are presenting the meal as a “gift,” then cleaning up the mess you make in the kitchen should be part of it. One of the best things about going out for Valentine’s Day is not having to clean anything, so don’t foist an unexpected chore on your partner or spouse.

If the meal is a combined effort, divvy up the labour before February 14.

Decide who is making the main, who is making dessert, and who’s in charge of the drink program, mood music, and cleaning up ahead of time so you don’t end up bickering on an evening that is supposed to be romantic. Do this even if you’re getting takeout. Tossing the plastic takeout container in the dishwasher after dinner isn’t as big of an ask as cleaning grease out of a cast iron pan, but it is still an ask, and you might want to ask for other after-dinner activities instead.

The post Treat Valentine’s Day Like a Dinner Party for Two appeared first on Lifehacker Australia .

I am a bit of a grilled cheese purist. I like mine on white bread, slathered with butter ( not mayo ), and filled with gooey, processed American cheese. A good havarti is also acceptable if the mood dictates a touch of luxury, but harder, acidic cheeses like cheddar or parm are not allowed — unless you’re putting them on the outside of the sandwich.

The qualities that make parmesan, cheddar, and other hard cheeses like them so poorly suited for the inside of a grilled cheese are what make them so well suited for the outside . Because of their low-ish pH, these cheeses tend to grease out and congeal, rather than melt into a soft, creamy blob (which is what you want in between your bread). But when placed on the outside of a sandwich, the fat inside the cheese renders, frying the proteins and leaving behind a lacy network of crispy, salty, fried cheese. It’s frico , except it’s stuck to bread.

Basically, if you can make a cheese crisp with it, you can use it to create a crunchy crust on the outside of your sandwich. Cheddar works, shredded parmesan works, even the powdered shaker parm gets the job done. Throughout the course of my many serious sandwich experiments, I found that the powdered parm does the best job of sticking to the bread and releasing from the pan, but the shredded stuff has a better flavour. (Real Parmigiano-Reggiano would have the best flavour, obviously, but it’s the priciest option.)

Adding an external layer of cheese to your cheese sandwich is easy: Spread some soft butter on the outside of the bread (or dip it in melted butter ), then sprinkle half a tablespoon or so of your desired cheese on the buttered bread, pressing it down gently to help it stick. Place on a piece of bread, cheese side down, in a nonstick pan, layer your softer “filling” cheese inside, then cook over medium heat until the outside cheese forms a golden crust and the inside cheese melts completely. If you’re worried about it burning, use a plastic spatula or take out utensil to carefully lift up a corner and take a peek. Slide on to a plate, cut it in half diagonally, and devour.

The post Give Your Grilled Cheese Sandwich a Parmesan Crust appeared first on Lifehacker Australia .

Flour made from chickpeas has more protein than regular white flour, and more fibre. But if you’ve seen headlines recently about chickpea flour’s health benefits, there are some serious caveats you should know about.

What’s all the talk about chickpea flour?

The headlines, sometimes implying that chickpea flour can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, are based on a recent study . In the study, buns made with a specific type of chickpea flour resulted in a lower blood glucose spike than buns made with regular white flour.

But the flour in the study was not the kind of chickpea flour you can find at a grocery store (often labelled gram flour or besan). It was specially manufactured to keep the plant cells intact.

Cell walls are made of fibre, and the starch in plants is contained within the cell walls. When you eat whole foods (like actual chickpeas), your body takes more time to be able to digest the starch that is inside the cells. Grinding the cells into flour, however, makes the starch more available and more quickly digested.

So what the study found was that this specific, unusual type of chickpea flour made of intact cells (PulseON is the brand name) slowed down volunteers’ digestion a bit, which is a good thing if you are trying to manage type 2 diabetes or prediabetes. They did not test grocery store chickpea flour.

What about regular chickpea flour, then?

Still, this study may have piqued your interest in regular chickpea flour. The good news is that even the grocery store type is high in protein and fibre, and can work well as part of a healthy diet. Here’s how the nutrition facts stack up:

One cup of chickpea flour (92 grams) has:

• 356 calories

• 21 grams of protein

• 6 grams of fat

• 53 grams of carbs, including 10 grams of fibre

For comparison, one cup of all-purpose white flour (125 grams) has:

• 455 calories

• 13 grams of protein

• 1 gram of fat

• 95 grams of carbs, including 3 grams of fibre

And a cup (120 grams) of whole wheat flour has:

• 408 calories

• 16 grams of protein

• 3 grams of fat

• 86 grams of carbs, including 13 grams of fibre

So the chickpea flour has more protein than either type of wheat flour, although it has slightly less fibre than whole wheat. It also has fewer calories per cup. So if you like how the macros compare, and wouldn’t mind experimenting with a different flavour profile, chickpea flour could be worth a try.

How to use chickpea flour

When you’re looking for recipes, searching for “chickpea flour” tends to turn up American style recipes that use chickpea flour as a substitute for other ingredients — like these vegan frittatas that contain no egg. Meanwhile, searching for “besan” is more likely to pull up Indian recipes like these , including its traditional use in pakora (fried dough stuffed with vegetables or meat).

If you want to make baked goods, it’s possible to substitute some chickpea flour for regular wheat flour, but find a recipe that accounts for the difference in texture. You may have to add wheat gluten, or use a mix of flours. Either way, be aware that eating more fibre than usual can be a recipe for an upset stomach, so ease into any new dietary changes.

The post Is Chickpea Flour More Nutritious Than Regular Flour? appeared first on Lifehacker Australia .

There is a red binder in my kitchen cabinet, and in that red binder resides the following: A recipe for barbecue sauce I tore from a magazine years ago and never made. Scrawled instructions on a Post-it Note to remind me how to roast pumpkin seeds once a year. Directions from eHow on how to stir-fry “anything.” Countless handwritten recipes on a wide variety of paper, including stationary with inspirational quotes, stationary from my first newspaper job and, for some reason, Hello Kitty stationary I do not recall owning. There are recipes I use all the time and recipes I made once and promptly forgot about forever. It is a mess — and it’s the most organised system I have.

My other “systems” include: a folder in my email full of recipes I found online that I want to try some day . A board on Pinterest where I add recipes I find mostly by stalking my mother-in-law’s much more extensive Pinterest board. A recipe box that contains a few recipes I make once in a while and a whole bunch I don’t. And, finally, this family recipe book my husband and I received as a gift and have yet to write a single thing in. Not to mention the countless recipe books with bookmarked pages because I like the pasta salad recipe in one book but the lemon chicken orzo soup in another.

There are some recipes I want to preserve forever, like the printed-out email with detailed directions from my dad, instructing my 20-year-old self on how to make mashed potatoes for the first time. (“Add any additional milk sparingly,” he wisely advised, “because once it’s in there, you can’t take it out, and you don’t want runny potatoes.”) And the directions I wrote down one night after I called my grandma, just months before she died, to ask how to make her meatball sauce. But I need a better system.

The binder itself is a pretty good way to organise loose recipes, as I use plastic sleeves and dividers to keep my bread recipes separate from those for veggies, main courses, pastas, and desserts. But it quickly becomes overrun with things I want to try (but never will), and still I find myself rummaging through my email for that creamy tortellini soup recipe I sent to myself a few weeks ago.

Tell me in the comments: How do you organise your recipes, both online and offline? How long do you hang on to a new recipe before you decide you’re never going to make it, and it’s time to set it free? How often do you go through your physical recipes to purge the ones you don’t use? What apps or other online systems do you use to organise the recipes you don’t yet want to print? How do you even remember that you liked that spicy Thai shrimp you made from that one cookbook last week? How you keep track of and organise the endless recipe options at your disposal?

The post How Do You Organise Your Recipes? appeared first on Lifehacker Australia .

I love hardboiled eggs. I have them in my salad, make deviled eggs (probably more than I should), and eat them as a healthy snack. So when a TikTok video revealed a clean way to peel an egg in one swift blow, I was intrigued. This hack could be perfect for a quick hardboiled egg snack, especially when peeling can feel like it takes longer than the cook time. (My personal issue is having a clean peel, as sometimes I spend way too much time picking off little pieces of shell, or chunks of the egg whites come off while peeling.)

The hack involves cracking and peeling a small hole on one side, and cracking the other end until it’s loose but not peeled. Once the cracks are set, you hold the egg with the small hole end to your mouth, and blow. Watch the TikTok here to get and idea of what’s supposed to happen when you blow on the egg.

This hack isn’t necessarily an everyday way to peel an egg, but it’s fun and extremely hilarious to watch. Take a look at the video below to see how the process actually works–and for shits and giggles.

The post Is This TikTok Hack the Best Way to Peel an Egg? appeared first on Lifehacker Australia .

I like Super Bowl Sunday for one thing: the food. I am not an avid sports fan in general, and football is the game I know the least about. Despite this, every year I look forward to enjoying a whole lot of food (and getting excited about whoever is winning). And sure, maybe we’re not going to big parties this year (right?), but even if you’re just watching the game with your family or your roommates, you’ll want a nice spread that doesn’t break the bank. With that in mind, check out some of the freebies and discount deals Superbowl Sunday has to offer.

DiGiorno

DiGiorno wants to make sure you are paying attention to the score on Sunday for a chance to win a free pizza . If the game score hits 3-14 or 14-3, go to DiGiorno’s Instagram page for a link to win one free frozen pizza.

Red Baron Pizza

Red Baron Pizza is giving out free pizzas to 55 families in honour of the 55th Superbowl. Enter to win by following Red Baron Pizza on Instagram and tag a friend in the comments of the offer. See the full page of rules here .

TCBY

TCBY is offering a BOGO (buy one get one free) deal between 2pm and 6pm on Saturday, February 6, at all franchise locations. Tomorrow, you see, is National Frozen Yogurt Day , which is conveniently scheduled during Super Bowl weekend. I suggest ordering some froyo to put in the freezer and save for the next day’s big game.

7 Eleven

7 Eleven is using game day to promote their online app “ 7NOW ,” their new service offering delivery right to your door. If you missed out on the free pizza deals for the game, this is a way to get it for cheap. Use the 7NOW app for delivery and get a piece of pizza for one dollar on Superbowl Sunday. You might as well through in a slurpee to go along with it.

Applebees

Order wings from Applebees with their Super Bowl deal . With a purchase of $US40 ($52) or more, customers receive 40 boneless wings for free. All you need to do is order online and use the code “BIGGAME ” upon check out. One dollar per wing is too good of a deal to pass up; hopefully, you live in a house with a bunch of people because 40 is … a lot of wings.

Drizly

Drinks are just as important to the Super Bowl celebrations as the food. (You can’t have wings and pizza without the beer.) Drizly is an online service that works with liquor stores in your area to deliver beverages right to your door. Drizly is offering $US10 ($13) off your order through CouponFollow , using the code FOOTBALL10.

The post How to Get Free Food on Super Bowl Sunday appeared first on Lifehacker Australia .

Whether you’re planning to roast a big ‘ol turkey or a head of cauliflower , a good brine ensures the final product is tender, moist, and flavorful throughout. Simple brines are little more than sugar, salt, and water, but peppercorns, citrus zest, bay leaves, and all sorts of plant parts can be used to make things more interesting. One universal truth about brines, however, is that you must heat the liquid to get those crystalline solids into solution.

If your brine is meant for meat, it must then be cooled completely before your pork chop, turkey breast, or troupe of shrimp is submerged into those salty, sugary waters. You can wait for this to happen, or you can use some ice.

Of course, you can’t just dump a bunch of ice in your brine; that will throw off your proportions and dilute your flavours. Instead, divide the amount of water called for by your recipe in half, use that volume to dissolve your salt and sugar, then add the rest of the water in the form of ice. The ice will chill the brine as it melts, bringing it to the correct temperature and volume.

You will — I’m so sorry about this — have to do a tiny amount of maths to calculate the correct amount of ice. Water expands as it freezes, meaning one cup of ice is not equal to one cup of liquid water. Luckily, a milliliter of water weighs one gram at room temperature, so all you have to do is count your milliliters, convert to grams, and weigh out that many grams of ice. Let’s use this very simple brine recipe to illustrate:

Basic Brine from myrecipes :

Ingredients:

• 1 cup salt

• 1 cup light brown sugar

• 2 quarts cold water

• 3 bay leaves

The recipe instructs you to add all the ingredients to the pot and heat to dissolve the sugar and salt, then wait for the brine to cool completely before proceeding. To speed the process up with ice, add the salt, sugar, and leaves to the pot with a single quart of water and heat it up, dissolving everything but the leaves.

Next, add the ice. A quart of water weighs 946 grams, so grab a bag of ice and weigh out 946 grams of ice. Add that to the brine, stir to dissolve and cool, and submerge your meat. No need to wait.

The post You Should Use Ice in Your Brine appeared first on Lifehacker Australia .

Spring onions are a complete steal. They’re flavourful, versatile , and cheap. You can usually snag a bunch for under a dollar, they keep for a very long time, and you can grow more spring onions from the scraps. I like them raw (try one dipped in salt alongside a rich, creamy cheese), but I’m currently all about the air fried spring onion.

Besides making my home smell warm and allium-y, an air-fried, turbo-roasted onion adds deep flavour to whatever you fling it on. It’s my favourite thing for a half-used spring onion that is mostly pale green and white. You know, the little scrappy guys who look like this:

I rub a little cold bacon grease down the entire length of each spring onion (you can also toss them in olive oil), then throw them in my air fryer basket for 5-7 minutes, depending on how thick they are. (I usually start checking after two minutes, and give ‘em a little shake.) You can do whole spring onions too, but you’ll need to cut them in half for two reasons: Depending on the size of your air fryer, they may not fit if kept whole, but I mostly separate the deeper green from the paler green because the deeper green portion browns much more quickly than the rest of the spring onion.

If your air fryer is set to 200 degrees Celsius, the green part will wilt about two minutes in; the colour will intensify, and you’ll start to see a few brown spots. After four minutes, the green portions will start crisping in a major way. After six minutes, the pale green and white parts will soften and start to char.

I like to chop up the crispy green parts and mix them into dips, or mash them up with some cream cheese to make roasted spring onion cream cheese. The lighter coloured ends are good all on their own, as a side or garnish, but they’re pretty stellar in sandwiches, wraps, and tacos.

If you want to roast an entire bunch, the oven makes more sense, but it will take much longer (at least 30 minutes longer if you include pre-heating). The accessibility of an air-fried spring onion means you don’t have to commit to an entire sheet pan — you can roast a couple, or several, or a single spring onion in under 10 minutes, then repeat if needed. I am averaging about three roasted spring onions a day, one for each meal.

The post Air Fry Your Spring Onions for the Perfect Garnish appeared first on Lifehacker Australia .