We may earn a commission from links on this page.Welcome to “Cookbook of the Week.” This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own. I’m nearly positive the first biscuit iteration I ever ate was a Bisquick drop biscuit. While my mom was a well-practiced savory cook, she usually baked from boxes. That was just fine by me and my brothers. But as I grew fond of baking myself, I was pretty surprised when I learned that baking biscuits from scratch was not quite like Bisquick. Simple? Sure. But only where the ingredient list is concerned. In fact, the simpler the ingredient list, the more difficult some types of foods are to make. Biscuits are a great example of the illusion of ease in baking. There’s a balance to strike between shortening gluten and strengthening gluten, adding richness and maximizing lift, and then there’s the question of what to eat it with. This week’s cookbook spotlight shines onto Still We Rise, a cookbook that contains every type of biscuit—from those that can suffice as a butter-slathered side dish to others that are a vital source of comfort.A bit about the bookStill We Rise dropped in 2023 from the owner and chef of Bomb Biscuit Company, Erika Council. You might think to yourself: How many recipes for biscuits could there possibly be? A lot, in fact. There are over 70 recipes in this book—yes, for different types of biscuits, but also for jams and spreads, as well as recipes for savory, stacked biscuit sandwiches.  Aside from serving as a collection of easy-to-follow biscuit recipes for you to enjoy, you’ll find anecdotes and one-page personal stories related to the recipes that follow. Council uses this cookbook as a place to tell the stories of accomplished female chefs, of her family, their experiences as Black people living in America in the 1940s and onward, and how the food cooked and shared by Council's family members has played a crucial role in how she connects to her past and present. The recipe I made this weekWhen I first chose the recipe I wanted to make this week, I was expecting a routine biscuit preparation. I chose the Sour Cream and Onion Biscuits, so I made sure to have flour ready, sour cream, green onions, and plenty of cold butter. I stretched my hands and prepared myself for several minutes of “cutting in” butter. That’s a process where you break cold butter into tiny pieces to eventually flatten them so they bake into flaky layers. You’ll see it often in pie crusts too. It’s like a hyper-lazy version of laminating dough, which you see in croissants and puff pastry. To put it bluntly, it’s pretty annoying, but biscuits taste good, so it’s worth it.  Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann I started mixing the dry ingredients in a bowl and scanned the page for the butter sequence. I scanned again. Where was the butter? Oh, there’s no butter—there’s no butter? (Well there was, but only a couple tablespoons for brushing on at the end.) This recipe uses sour cream and a splash of full-fat buttermilk to lend richness to the dough, and that’s it. No breaking up butter or shredding it with a grater? For those who don’t know off-hand what this news means in a practical sense, this recipe would potentially only take about 10 minutes to prepare. And it did. It was so easy to make. Too easy to make? I was suspicious at first, but the smell wafting from the oven dispelled my fears. The first thing I noticed when I bit into one was the hydration. This biscuit wasn’t your typical towering, flaky specimen, but instead a fluffed and tender oniony morsel. It wasn't wet or cake-y by any means, but it was nowhere near in danger of being a dry biscuit. I should have made a double batch because the sour cream prevented the biscuits from becoming hard or stale even after they had been sitting out for a day. A great cookbook for biscuits that fit your situationIt’s obvious that this is a biscuit cookbook; don’t come here looking for a pizza recipe (though there are pancakes in here). What’s special about this book is that there seems to be a biscuit for every possible need, limitation, or random craving. It speaks to more than simply a variety of toppings or mix-ins.There are recipes that don’t have butter in them, ones that use alternative fats like duck fat, biscuits with regular milk and some with buttermilk, recipes for sweet occasions, savory needs, quick and low-lift recipes, and more complex ones. I can easily see myself thinking, today I don’t have buttermilk and I need savory biscuits ready in 1 hour, so what can I make?—and finding a biscuit that matches my current pantry inventory and time needs.How to buy itI always recommend a jaunt to the local bookstore, but seeing as I couldn’t do it this week, I can’t blame you for ordering online either. I selected the hardcover this week, but if your cookbook bookshelf is getting tight, you can download the ebook for a steal. I’ll be keeping my copy right in the kitchen for strawberry and peach season. (There’s a Honey Roasted Peach Biscuit recipe in here that I have my eye on.)  Still We Rise: A Love Letter to the Southern Biscuit with Over 70 Sweet and Savory Recipes $4.99 at Amazon Shop Now Shop Now $4.99 at Amazon

What’s the Best Way to Cut Onions Without Crying? New Research Suggests That Thin, Sharp Blades Are Key to Minimizing Tears For a new study, physicists visualized and quantified the tear-producing droplets that get expelled from onions when they’re cut New research suggests using a thin, sharp knife and cutting slowly could help prevent crying while cutting onions. Pexels From wearing goggles to rubbing the knife with lemon juice, home cooks have come up with a wide variety of clever tricks to keep themselves from crying while cutting onions in the kitchen. Now, physicists have come up with another possible solution. Using a sharp knife while making slow, controlled cuts seems to be the best way to minimize the spray of tear-producing compounds in onions, according to a new study. The paper has been published on the preprint server arXiv and has not yet been peer reviewed. Scientists know why onions make us cry: When cut, these spherical alliums produce a chemical that stimulates the nerves responsible for producing tears. The volatile, irritating compound is called syn-propanethial-S-oxide. But, recently, a team of physicists decided to explore the underlying mechanisms at play when syn-propanethial-S-oxide gets released from onions. Using techniques known as high-speed particle tracking velocimetry and digital image correlation, they were able to visualize and count droplets as they were being expelled from cut onions, per IFLScience’s Russell Moul. They also studied the onions themselves, making note of strain and deformations on the flesh during chopping. To start, the team gathered fresh onions from local vendors, cut them into halves or quarters, then coated them in black spray paint. (This step made it easier for them to see and track what was happening when the alliums got cut.) Then, they set up a high-speed camera and started chopping. “Cutting is a really strange process,” says Anne Juel, a physicist at the University of Manchester who was not involved with the research, to NewScientist’s Alex Wilkins. “We cut things with knives every day, but to cut something, you need to go down to the atomic scale.” Using a custom guillotine, the researchers experimented with cutting speeds ranging from 1.3 and 6.5 feet per second and blade thicknesses between 5 and 200 millimeters. They changed the steel blades manually and modified the speed by adjusting the height of the blade, which was released from above. By analyzing the footage from the high-speed camera, they could investigate the dynamics of tear-producing particles that sprayed out from the onion as it was cut. The thinner, sharper blades produced fewer droplets that moved more slowly and with less energy, they found. Meanwhile, the thicker, duller blades caused an explosion of high-speed particles that moved at up to 141 feet per second. This is because the dull blade initially bent the onion skin, which caused pressure to build up inside. When the blade finally sliced through, it released all that built-up energy and sent onion juice flying. Then, once the particles were in the air, they also fragmented into smaller pieces to create “an even more diffuse mist of all-natural mace,” writes Andrew Paul for Popular Science. The duller blades produced as much as 40 times more particles than the sharper blades. Faster cutting speeds produced up to four times as many droplets as slower speeds. This suggests that the best way to minimize tear-producing chemicals while chopping onions is to cut slowly with a thin, sharp knife. However, the researchers did not test this theory in their experiments, per NewScientist. Refrigerated onions released a “noticeably larger volume” of droplets compared to room-temperature onions, the researchers write. Pixabay Home cooks are often advised to chill their onions before cutting them to minimize crying. So, the researchers also experimented with onions that had been refrigerated for 12 hours. However, in their tests, the refrigerated onions released a “noticeably larger volume” of droplets compared to room-temperature onions. Preventing tears while cutting onions might seem like a trivial research topic. But the scientists say their work could also have important implications for food safety. The fragmented droplets that spray out of raw foods while they’re being cut could contribute to the spread of disease-causing pathogens, the researchers write in the paper. “Ejected droplets can come into direct contact with contaminated blades or carry surface-borne pathogens as they leave the food surface,” they write. “Lighter droplets [are] readily suspended and can be transported by ambient air currents, thereby posing a potential risk for airborne transmission.” Keeping knife blades sharp, then, might be an easy way to help reduce food-borne illnesses, they posit. “Sharper blades reduce not only the number of droplets but also their speed and kinetic energy,” the scientists write in the paper. “This is particularly relevant for fruits and vegetables, which can carry food-borne pathogens such as Salmonella.” Many other recent research projects have attempted to use science to solve everyday problems. Scientists have visualized the plume of aerosolized particles ejected from commercial toilets during flushing, and some are even coming up with new urinal designs to help reduce urine splashing. And in the realm of enhancing food, Italian physicists came up with the perfect cacio e pepe recipe, while others have figured out the best way to make pour-over coffee and boil an egg. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday. More about: Food Food Science New Research Physics

Sizzling burgers, blistered corn on the cob, and sweat dripping from your brow as you man the grill — this is how many mark the start of summer.Fifty-eight percent of Americans plan to barbecue this Memorial Day weekend, according to a new WalletHub report, and the average cost of a cookout is expected to be about $31, a 4% increase from last year.However, while grilling certainly captures the spirit of Memorial Day weekend, slow cookers can make preparing sides and meats much easier, with minimal cleanup and no need to bother with gas or charcoal.Or at the very least, having a couple of set-it-and-forget-it dishes can help you focus on your grill.From mouthwatering barbecue ribs to savory pulled-pork sandwiches, these slow-cooker recipes are perfect for any Memorial Day cookout. For your Memorial Day cookout this year, try making the potato salad using your slow cooker. Potato salad. ziashusha/Shutterstock You might not know that you can parboil potatoes in a slow cooker. To do so, chop and cover the potatoes with water, a little salt, pepper, and butter, and cook them until they're fork-tender, usually about six hours on low.Then, mix the dressing for your potato salad as you normally would, such as mayonnaise, dill, whole grain mustard, and a splash of red wine vinegar. You can also make a German-style potato salad with bacon, light dressing, and baby potatoes. Dips, such as this spinach-and-artichoke dip, are also easily made in a slow cooker. Spinach-and-artichoke dip. Damn Delicious "I love to make spinach-and-artichoke dip in my slow cooker," Chungah Rhee, the author of the blog Damn Delicious, told Business Insider. "You can just free up so much of your time by using a slow cooker and hang out with your guests instead of laboring in the kitchen," Rhee continued. "Especially for side dishes or dips. You put it all together, set the time, and it comes out ready to go." This set-it-and-forget-it corn-and-jalapeño dip is creamy and easy to make. Corn-and-jalapeño dip. Damn Delicious "Another favorite of mine is this corn-and-jalapeño dip," Rhee told Insider. The recipe combines many of the summer's best ingredients, from fresh and vibrant jalapeños to sweet corn. Buffalo-chicken dip is another quick and easy favorite you can make in a slow cooker. Slow cooker Buffalo-chicken dip. Erin McDowell/Insider One of the benefits of making a slow-cooker Buffalo-chicken dip, like this recipe on Rhee's blog — or any other side dish in a slow cooker — is that it can be prepared well ahead of time and reheated when you're ready to eat.Rhee's advice for someone using a slow cooker for the first time for entertaining is actually to start out with a dip or side dish. "If for some reason it doesn't turn out, because we all know that can happen using an appliance for the first time, it's not detrimental to your dinner party being a success," she said. Queso can serve a whole party when made in a slow cooker. Slow cooker queso with red onion, cilantro, and sliced jalapeños. Erin McDowell/Insider This creamy queso dip from Martha Stewart uses ingredients like American cheese and pepper jack cheese, a can of evaporated milk, diced tomatoes with chilies, sliced jalapeños, red onion, and cilantro.  Brisket is perfect for feeding a larger family and can easily be made in a slow cooker. Beef brisket. iStock / Getty Images Plus "Brisket is a natural partner for the slow cooker, as a gentle braise renders it meltingly tender," Kim Laidlaw writes in her cookbook, "Everyday Slow Cooking: Modern Recipes for Delicious Meals."Laidlaw's recipe for slow-cooked braised brisket includes garlic, onion, dry red wine, carrot, and chicken or beef stock, with a chimichurri sauce. Pulled-pork sliders are another great way to use your slow cooker for a cookout. Pulled pork sandwiches with barbecue sauce and coleslaw. Joshua Resnick/Shutterstock One of the best ways to use braised and slow-cooked pork shoulder is to make pulled-pork sliders, like this Damn Delicious recipe, with all that tender meat.To elevate the dish, top the meat with barbecue sauce and slaw before sandwiching it between two fluffy brioche buns or potato rolls. You can also use the carnitas to make tacos. You can also make barbecue ribs in a slow cooker. Barbecue ribs. David P. Smith/Shutterstock Nothing screams an end-of-summer cookout like sauce-covered ribs, like Laidlaw's recipe as shared on Cooking by the Book. After cooking them in the slow cooker, place them on a baking sheet in your oven and broil them until they're slightly crispy. To save space on your grill, you can also make slow-cooked sausages and beer brats in the slow cooker. Bratwurst with sauerkraut and Dijon mustard on a bun. Charles Brutlag/Getty Images Brats with onions, peppers, and garlic simmered in the slow cooker with beer — like this recipe by The Magical Slow Cooker — are one way to use your slow cooker on Memorial Day.Top your brats with a bit of sauerkraut and put them on buns for an easy summer dish. Mac and cheese can also easily be made in a slow cooker. A spoonful of Martha Stewart's slow cooker mac and cheese. Erin McDowell/Insider If you're looking to add some carbs to your menu, look no further than a piping hot pot of mac and cheese. Martha Stewart's recipe for mac and cheese in a slow cooker calls for evaporated milk, three kinds of cheese, and homemade breadcrumbs. Garlic-and-herb mushrooms are a delicious side dish but can also be used as a burger topping. Garlic-and-herb mushrooms. Damn Delicious "The recipe for slow-cooker garlic-herb mushrooms is divine and so easy," Rhee said. "Mushrooms made in a slow cooker are truly the best." Shredded Buffalo chicken goes great on top of salads. Shredded Buffalo chicken. from my point of view/Shutterstock One of the best — and easiest — ways to use your Crock-Pot or slow cooker is by making shredded Buffalo chicken, such as this recipe by The Magical Slow Cooker.Add seasoned chicken breasts to the slow cooker and cover with your preferred Buffalo sauce. Then add a splash of ranch dressing and a cube of butter, toss your chicken breasts in the mixture to coat fully, and cook until the chicken is shreddable. You can use it for Buffalo-chicken sliders, salads, or tacos. You can even make Buffalo or barbecue chicken wings using a slow cooker. Slow cooker Buffalo wings. Erin McDowell/Insider You can make any style of wings in a slow cooker, from Asian-style to barbecue and Buffalo wings. Add your wings to the slow cooker, add in your sauce of choice, toss to combine, and let them cook for a couple of hours on high.To make them crisp up, add a cornstarch and water mixture to your slow cooker. After they're cooked through, broil them for a few minutes in the oven. Meatballs make a great appetizer for guests and don't require cooking over a hot stove. Meatballs and sauce in a slow cooker. anewlifephotostudio/Getty Images Meatballs make the perfect appetizer for parties big and small and are easy to make in a slow cooker. Place your seasoned, raw meatballs into the slow cooker, top with sauce, and let the slow cooker finish them off, says one recipe by Spend With Pennies. Serve them on their own with toothpicks or stuff them inside toasted sub rolls for a meatball sandwich.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.The reality of home gardening is that you rarely have as much space as you’d like. For many people, all they have is one raised 4x8 foot bed. While that doesn’t feel like a lot of space, you can fit a whole lot of plants into 32 square feet. With a smaller space, you just have to find new and inventive ways to get more variety in your beds. Around where I live, we call this "cramscaping. "Take advantage of plant timing and growth patternsEvery vegetable and fruit out there has recommended spacing (for instance, tomatoes should be 18 inches apart), and in an ideal world, you’d accommodate them perfectly. However, you can plant closer if needed, while understanding your plants might not be as productive as they’d be if they had more space to grow to their full potential.  kohnrabi growing underneath beans, which are trellised up. Credit: Amanda Blum To get the most out of limited space, take advantage of space above and below the soil. For instance, radishes and carrots are mostly below ground, while tomatoes are above ground. Thus, they are great to grow next to one another. Grow beets alongside peas and large squash with climbing beans. Also consider that plants mature at different rates. Lettuce will grow quickly, and be ready for harvest in mere weeks, while eggplants take all summer. If you plant them at the same time when they’re both small, you’ll harvest your lettuce in time to free up space for your eggplants to spread out. Trellising is essential  help plants grow upward using trellises, creating horizontal space Credit: Amanda Blum When you don’t have as much horizontal space, you have to take advantage of the vertical space. You’ll need to keep plants from sprawling on the ground, and the primary way to do that is by training them up. Choose indeterminate tomatoes (which are more vine-like) instead of determinate (or "bush" tomatoes) so they continue to grow upwards despite pruning. Then prune everything but a few stems and train them onto a tall trellis. Use an obelisk or netting to provide structure for climbing beans, peas, or cucumbers. IYellow squash and zucchini can also be trained to grow upwards along a trellis, as can pumpkins and melons. Remember, though, that items on trellises have to be within reach: If you plant a trellis of green beans in the dead center of your bed, you’re not going to be able to reach those beans without stepping on other plants. So trellised plants should be located close enough to the edge of the bed to be accessed. Corners and edges make the most sense. For low trellises such as for squash, you can place them closer to the middle, but test your reach before finalizing planting. Start with the largest plants Start with an empty 4x8 bed (I left last year's nasturtiums.) Credit: Amanda Blum Begin by sketching out a grid for your bed, foot by foot, and a list of everything you’d like to plant. Lay in the largest plants first: in this case, tomatoes. Since they’ll be the tallest, place them in the corners or close to the edge of the bed, so they’re not shading anything. Now consider anything that needs a wide trellis, like peas and cucumbers or beans. Those should live at the edge of the bed, but leave space on either side of the trellis so you can reach what’s on the other side. These trellises are good at the short ends of the bed, so they don’t prevent you from reaching in. Now, start working your way down the list of plants in descending size. I placed eggplants and peppers, which will all need a trellis, on either side. For the center, which is hard to reach, I chose plants that don’t need support and won’t get too tall, but are larger: kale, chard, and onions. What’s left to plan for are short crops that will grow quickly like lettuce, radishes, beets, and carrots. Lettuce is a great buffer between nightshades like eggplant and cruciferous plants like chard and kale, so you can add heads of various lettuces. I don’t worry about root vegetables yet. I then add some beneficial flowers like nasturtium, alyssum and marigolds throughout, particularly hanging over the edges of the bed. These flowers will trap aphids, keep pests at bay, and add color. Next, I lay in herbs like basil, dill, parsley, and cilantro. In addition to being great in the kitchen, these all help control pests. These herbs can be sprinkled throughout the bed, but basil and dill do best next to nightshades. Now, in all the spaces left, I backfill with root vegetables: rows of carrots, circles of radishes, and blocks of beets. Plant established seedlings first, then seeds Sketch of the finished garden. Credit: Amanda Blum When it comes time to plant, work from the inside out. Start with the plants in the dead center of the bed, and work towards the outside by putting your seedlings into the ground. Once your starts are planted, go back and work sector by sector, seeding things like beets and radishes. Working in this way allows you to see what you’ve already done, so you don’t accidentally overseed an area you’ve already worked on. Water everything well and then simply pay attention. Prune plants as soon as they need to be pruned. As plants need to be harvested, replace them or allow larger plants to infill the area.  Keep your bed moist, but not wet, watering at the root —and use a fish fertilizer every other week, adding it to your water. Over the season, some plants might do better than others, and you may need to replace them. Because of the tight spacing, eggplants might not get enough sun where they are, or lettuce might get too much. You’ll learn over the season where each plant might succeed, and you should chart it for next year. Each season is another opportunity to learn about your yard, sun profile, and soil, and each season your vegetable garden—no matter how small—will get better.

I've been around the burger block, and Burger King's cheesy, flame-grilled burgers consistently rank among my favorites.According to an original menu reported by Delish, Burger King has sold cheeseburgers since its inception in the 1950s, but exactly how the chain makes them has changed considerably.The chain started with simple broiled cheeseburgers, but now the Burger King menu includes cheeseburger melts, seven variations on its classic Whopper, chicken sandwiches, nuggets, fries, and more.To determine which Burger King burger reigns supreme, I compared five different cheeseburgers from the chain. I tried the classic Whopper with cheese, the Triple Whopper with cheese, a plain cheeseburger, a double cheeseburger, and the Bacon King.Here's how the burgers ranked, from my least favorite to my favorite. My least favorite cheeseburger I tried was the chain's classic plain cheeseburger. Burger King cheeseburger. Erin McDowell/Business Insider The cheeseburger from Burger King cost $2.79, excluding tax. The cheeseburger came with American cheese, pickles, ketchup, and mustard on a sesame-seed bun. Burger King cheeseburger. Erin McDowell/Business Insider The burger was extremely simple, but I was impressed by the generous serving of toppings. There was a hearty amount of condiments on the burger, and the cheese was thick and perfectly melted. The sesame-seed bun also added a lot of flavor, but this burger was just a little simple compared to the other burgers I tried. Burger King cheeseburger. Erin McDowell/Business Insider The flame-grilled burger had a grilled, smoky flavor that worked well with the ketchup and mustard.Not only was this burger flavorful, but it also provided the best value, priced at $2.79, which was the cheapest option among the cheeseburgers I tried.I enjoyed this burger a lot, but it could have been improved with an extra patty or more creative ingredients. At the end of the day, it was a basic fast-food cheeseburger. Next up was the chain's double cheeseburger, which was a step up from the basic cheeseburger. Burger King double cheeseburger. Erin McDowell/Business Insider It cost $4.09, excluding tax and fees. The double cheeseburger came with two of the chain's beef patties, American cheese, pickles, mustard, and ketchup on a sesame-seed bun. Burger King double cheeseburger. Erin McDowell/Business Insider Like the regular cheeseburger, there was a hearty serving of ketchup and mustard. The pickle slices were thick and crunchy, and I enjoyed the flavor of the bun. Burger King double cheeseburger. Erin McDowell/Business Insider I thought this burger was certainly a step up from the regular cheeseburger. It packed the same grilled flavor and low price, but the extra patty made it even more flavorful and filling. The Triple Whopper with cheese landed squarely in the middle of my ranking. Burger King Triple Whopper. Erin McDowell/Business Insider The burger cost me $11.49, excluding tax, making it the second-most expensive burger I tried. The Triple Whopper comes with three quarter-pound beef patties, one slice of cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, mayonnaise, and ketchup. Burger King Triple Whopper. Erin McDowell/Business Insider The burger patties had a deliciously smoky and savory flavor that gave the sandwich a freshly grilled taste. The lettuce and tomato slices tasted extremely fresh, and I liked the addition of mayonnaise.However, I thought this burger could have been improved with another slice of cheese between the layers of beef. The cheese's flavor was lost amid all the meat and other toppings. I thoroughly enjoyed this burger and would certainly order it again — if I have the appetite for it. Burger King Triple Whopper. Erin McDowell/Business Insider This burger was extremely filling, and I would struggle to eat it all, in addition to fries. However, if you have a big appetite or simply love Burger King's beef, this might just be the burger for you.The burger was also significantly more expensive than the smaller cheeseburgers and the regular Whopper with cheese. However, I don't think the higher price was worth it — the two extra patties were a hindrance, rather than an asset, to the burger. My second favorite burger was the Bacon King. Burger King Bacon King burger. Erin McDowell/Business Insider It cost $11.29, excluding tax and fees, making it the most expensive burger I tried. The Bacon King comes with two quarter-pound beef patties, bacon, two slices of cheese, ketchup, and mayonnaise on a sesame-seed bun. Burger King Bacon King burger. Erin McDowell/Business Insider The burger was swimming in mayonnaise and ketchup, but I didn't mind.I like mayonnaise a lot, but I quickly noticed the generous amount spread on both the burger and the sesame-seed bun. If you're not fond of mayo, you might consider customizing or skipping this burger. It was the most decadent, filling burger I tried. Burger King Bacon King burger. Erin McDowell/Business Insider The slices of cheese were evenly layered over the burger patties, which had a distinct smoky taste.The perfectly crispy bacon added even more smoky flavor, and the cheese and condiments added a lot of moisture, which I felt the Triple Whopper lacked. My favorite Burger King burger — and one of my favorite fast-food burgers, period — is the Whopper with cheese. Burger King Whopper. Erin McDowell/Business Insider Burger King's signature burger has been around since 1957, just four years after the chain opened. Back then, the Whopper cost 37 cents.It now costs $8.49, excluding tax and fees. A Whopper comes with a quarter-pound beef patty, pickles, onions, lettuce, tomato, ketchup, and mayonnaise. I always add cheese for an extra 50 cents. Burger King Whopper. Erin McDowell/Business Insider Immediately, it was evident that this burger would be bursting with flavor. Thick layers of ketchup and mayo spilled from the sides of the burger, but the sizable sesame-seed bun kept all the ingredients together. I'm not surprised the chain's signature burger is so famous — it was my favorite, by far. Burger King Whopper. Erin McDowell/Business Insider The cheese coated the burger patty, and the lettuce, tomatoes, and onions all tasted very fresh. They added a delicious crunch to the burger.Even though this burger is a classic, and perhaps not the most creative burger I tried, it was the most satisfying. I also thought it was a great value for the price, and I would definitely order it again and again.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.Vegetable plants are expensive. To get the best yield out of them, you need to pay attention to more than just the soil, sun, and watering. You need to get your plants off on the right foot by planting them the right way. Here's what I mean. Choose the right plant at the nursery Credit: Amanda Blum When I first started gardening, I thought the best vegetable starts to buy were the ones that were the biggest, with flowers and fruit already on them. This would give the plant a head start, right? Sadly, no. Plants go through something called "transplant shock" when you move them. You’re disturbing the plant's roots, and moving it to a new environment. To survive, the plant needs to focus all its energy on the plant's roots, and if there's a lot of plant matter like leaves, flowers, and fruit to support, energy is wasted supporting them. Plants with established fruit, in particular, struggle during the transplant process. Choose plants that look healthy, with strong stems and leaves without damage, but that don't yet have flowers or fruit. Prepare your soil Credit: Amanda Blum There are legions of ways to handle your garden from season to season. Some people till the soil, while others employ a no-till method, and still others use something called "chop-and-drop." Regardless of the method, the soil you’re planting into has to be pliable enough that roots can flourish in them. For that reason, ensure that the soil is turned over and broken up—from a shovel to a shovel and a half’s depth. You can use a broadfork for this, if you don’t want to disturb the soil structure, but otherwise, just use a shovel. Breaking up the soil will help you see the texture—so you can add sand if the soil has too much clay in it, or compost if it isn't holding any moisture. You can use this time to add amendments such as vegetable fertilizer and lime. Fertilizer is obvious, but lime is used to turn your soil less acidic, which happens over time through watering and growing. Most vegetables don’t enjoy acidic environments. Turn the amendments into the soil. Choose an overcast dayYour plants will already be stressed by transplanting. Planting them into the blazing sun is even more stress. A stretch of overcast days is the perfect planting time. If that's not an option, plant at twilight to give your plants a night to adjust. Consider giving the plant some shade the next day to help it acclimate.Get the plant out of the pot without damaging the roots Credit: Amanda Blum By the time plants reach the nursery, they’re often root-bound in the plastic pots or six packs you buy them in. Roots are resilient, but you don’t want to disturb them more than necessary. The best way to break a plant free from a plastic pot is to use two fingers and squeeze the bottom of the pot. This should free the plant. Don’t turn the pot over or pound on it with your palm, and definitely don’t try to pull it loose by the plant’s stem.  on the left, the eggplant seedling just out of the pot, and on the right, after the roots have been broken up Credit: Amanda Blum Once the plant is out, you want to break up the roots by using your fingers like a comb on the bottom of the plant, so that roots are freed. That said, these plants do not enjoy their roots being disturbed: cucumbers, beans, pumpkins, luffa, beets, and most root vegetables. For these, I simply dig a hole, remove the plant from the plastic tray, carefully plop the plant in, and walk away.  Separate plants as necessary Credit: Amanda Blum Most pots have more than one seed in each cell. In some cases, like tomatoes, someone usually culls the seedlings so only one is left to flourish. However, in some cases, like herbs and lettuce, nurseries leave the seeds alone and let multiple seeds grow. In other cases like onions and carrots, the cells are purposely overseeded to be filled with lots of seedlings. Strawberries usually come in a pot of five to 10 starts.  If you take a cell of onion seedlings out, you can separate them by diving the block in half over and over again, until you have individual seedlings. Credit: Amanda Blum When there’s more than one seedling, you need to separate them. You shouldn’t try to plant them altogether. For lettuce or herbs, this is simple: Remove one cell, and with your fingers, gently pull the soil pod apart. Start by pulling the pod in half, and then keep dividing until all the seedlings are free. This works on larger plants like squash, and smaller plants like carrots where there can be 20 or more seedlings in a single cell. Once the individual seedlings are free, they can each be planted as if they’re a whole plant. This is how you get a whole row of carrots or onions. This is also a great way to save money, since you usually get far more than six lettuce heads from a six-pack of lettuce. Know the right depth Credit: Amanda Blum Plants need to go in the ground at the right depth, ensuring that the base of the plant is at soil level. In some cases, though, you can (and should) plant the stem deeper.Leeks and onions, for example, can be planted deeply. In particular, leeks can be planted as deeply as possible, with only an inch or two of seedling above the surface of the soil. This will help blanch the leek (keep it white). Tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers can be planted deeply, as they’ll form roots along their entire stem. If your tomato is leggy (tall with little horizontal branching), this is a spectacular way to fix the problem. When in doubt, follow the directions on the plant tag, or simply plant at a standard depth so the roots are covered, but the stem is exposed above the soil. Don’t mulch against your stemsWhile mulch is an important part of insulating your vegetable plants and keeping moisture in the ground, it’s also a way to spread pathogens. You want to ensure plants have a few inches of clearance between them and the mulch. Keep your labels or make new ones Keep those plant tags. Credit: Amanda Blum In the melee of planting, it’s common to lose your plant tags. After all, a tomato is a tomato. However, you’ll be sad at the end of the season when one tomato does spectacularly and another doesn’t, and you don’t know what variety each was. Label your plants! 

Sharp knives are key to avoiding any unwanted tears. Credit: Deposit Photos Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Suggestions to avoid the dreaded onion-induced tears in the kitchen run the gamut of ideas—from freezing them, to cutting them underwater, to sporting special goggles, to even stuffing some bread in your mouth beforehand. But what’s the actual science say about how to escape your next onion encounter unscathed? According to a team of physicists at Cornell University, it’s all about the sharpness of your weapon of choice and your speed of approach. Their findings are laid out in a preprint study—and it even involves a tiny onion guillotine. Onions have been an agricultural staple as far back as at least 3000 BCE. Ancient Egyptians actually revered them as representations of eternity due to their concentric inner layers, and would place the vegetables in the tombs of pharaohs. Apart from their spiritual use, onions also have very clear health and medicinal benefits, particularly when it comes to their nutritional, antioxidant content, and antibacterial properties. But after over five million years  of use around the world, the fact remains that one onion compound in particular still poses a problem for our eyes: syn-propanethial-S-oxide. The chemical is released in the sulphur-rich spray that accompanies dicing the vegetables, which then travels through the air and eventually comes into contact with your tear ducts. To test the dynamics of these aerosols and how to best avoid them, the Cornell researchers set up a small guillotine outfitted with various steel blades before coating onion quarters with black spray paint. This wasn’t to establish a more funereal mood in the lab, but instead to help the team track the onion’s  deformation in response to the blade. After using an electron microscope to measure the blade tip’s width (which varied between 5 and 200 millimeters), they  commenced slicing at speeds between 1.3 and 6.5 feet per second (or 0.4 and 2 meters per second). But no word of if that could match the current Guinness World Record for most onions peeled and sliced in a minute–21.69 ounces.  Their recordings clearly showed that sharper blades offered fewer droplets traveling with less energy. The duller the blade, the more it was liable to bend the onion’s skin before cutting. These delays stored elastic energy that built up pressure in the vegetable before ultimately slicing open, resulting in a more explosive release of juice. In some cases, the aerosol particles reached speeds around 141 feet per second. To make matters worse, those droplets fragmented while flying through the air to create an even more diffuse mist of all-natural mace. Dull knives can be such a nuisance that they even create as much as 40 times as many droplets as a sharper alternative. Meanwhile, faster cutting speeds generated four times as many particles as slower rates.  The data from this preprint still needs to be peer reviewed. Yet from this research it seems pretty clear that a sharp knife and a slow approach will most consistently minimize the undesirable effects of onions. What you do with all those sliced bits, however, is totally up to you.

Cutting onions can be a tearful experienceFoster.r/Getty Images If you find yourself crying when chopping onions, physicists have found a possible solution – but professional chefs probably aren’t going to like it. When onions are cut open, they spray a mixture of sulphur-rich compounds into the air, one of which is syn-propanethial-S-oxide, a chemical that triggers the nerves in the eye responsible for producing tears. Sunghwan Jung at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and his colleagues used a high-speed camera to analyse in detail the spray produced when…

Americans are living through interesting times, economically. The tariffs imposed, delayed, and frequently adjusted by the government have thrown household budgets into confusion. One thing that’s pretty certain is that the baseline tariffs applied to just about every country are likely to raise prices at the grocery store no matter what happens from here (prices could go up by about 3% overall).For families that are already struggling to make their grocery budgets work, this is unwelcome news, but there is one thing you can do right now—while prices are still largely unaffected by tariff chaos—to help mitigate the impact and protect you from future grocery inflation: start putting together a “tariff pantry.” This involves laying in a supply of nonperishable groceries to lock in today’s prices, and focusing on recipes and meals that will keep your grocery costs down in the coming months. Here's what to consider.How to plan out your tariff pantrySetting up a “tariff pantry” requires a little planning. “Take inventory first,” advises food blogger and bestselling cookbook author Kyndra Holley. “Know what you already have and make a list of essentials—stick to long-lasting pantry staples you actually use. Stock up gradually. Monitor prices and buy when it makes sense, not out of fear. Then set a budget and stick to it: Decide how much you can spend and avoid impulse buys or panic stockpiling. Buy what you already use when it’s discounted—don’t get lured by deals on items you wouldn’t otherwise use or need.”Holley also warns against relying too much on bulk-buying. “Bulk can save money—but only if you’ll use it,” she says. “Always check unit prices and shelf life, and don’t buy more than you can store safely. Use airtight containers and freeze what you can’t use quickly.”Changing your whole diet and meal-planning approach can help deal with tariff cost increases. “Go more plant-based,” Holley suggests. “Reduce meat and opt for beans, lentils, eggs, and grains. They’re cheaper, filling, and shelf-stable. One-pot, sheet-pan, and slow cooker meals use fewer ingredients and repurpose leftovers easily. And simplify recipes—use fewer, local ingredients. Stick to basic seasonings like garlic, onions, vinegar, and herbs.”Careful meal prepping can also reduce waste and make the most of items bought in bulk. “When you cook in bulk, you maximize every ingredient, stretching your dollars further,” says Laurie Hise, founder of the budgeting blog Passionate Penny Pincher. “Think buying meat in family packs, prepping meals in batches, and locking in today’s prices before more inflation sneaks in!”Hise also suggests broadening your grocery store choices. “Don’t put loyalty above savings! Make sure Aldi is in your store rotation, and scan weekly ads to get your must-haves for the cheapest. Eggs are almost always the cheapest there, they have a great Keto and Gluten Free selection, and you can buy meat for cheap on Wednesdays.”What to stock in a tariff pantryAlthough the blanket tariffs imposed will likely raise prices in general, the grocery items most likely to be affected by tariffs include fresh fruits and vegetables (the bulk of which are imported), coffee, cheese, olive oil, seafood, nuts, and candy. Aside from dodging future price hikes, you want to focus on items in those categories that have lengthy shelf lives and flexible uses. “Stock up on items that are both cost-effective, long-lasting, and versatile,” Holley advises, including:Grains and legumes, like rice, pasta, lentils, dried beans, and oats.Canned and frozen goods. “A variety of canned tomatoes (whole, diced, crushed) are perfect for sauces, soups, and stews,” Holley notes. “Canned vegetables and fruits can be stored for long periods, and frozen vegetables are often cheaper than fresh, and retain nutrients. And canned tuna or salmon are protein-rich and shelf-stable.”Baking ingredients like flour, sugar, yeast, baking soda, baking powder, and cornstarch. “Basic ingredients for a wide range of uses,” notes Holley.Shelf-stable dairy and dairy alternatives like powdered or evaporated milk can be rehydrated and used for baking, cooking, or even drinking, protecting you from price spikes on the fresh stuff.Oils and vinegars are likely to go up in price and are useful in cooking, dressing, and preserving food.Seasonings and spices—the U.S. imports a lot of spices from countries like India, China, and Peru, so they’re vulnerable to tariff price spikes. Laying in a supply of herbs and spices like salt and pepper, garlic and onion powder, paprika, chili powder, ginger, basil, parsley oregano, thyme, as well as soy sauce, hot sauce, mustard, and bouillon cubes will help ride out any disruptions or price hikes in the seasonings aisle.Nuts and seeds—Holley recommends adding a supply of peanut butter or almond butter. “They’re high in protein, and last a long time.”Coffee and tea. “Tea is a low-cost way to diversify your drink options,” notes Holley.Canned meats and proteins. “Canned chicken or Spam can be used in a variety of meals, especially in emergencies,” Holley notes. “And canned ham or sausage can add protein and are good for quick meals.”Building up a tariff pantry will pay off even if the impact of those tariffs is overestimated—as we all know too well, prices never go down.