Do you dice and slice onions “freestyle,” with mixed results?

The same size pieces cook evenly. If your dice range from small to medium, the small pieces can burn while you’re waiting for the larger dice to soften.

Watch a professional chef show you how to dice and slice onions the right way. Don’t worry that your knife skills aren’t as fast as his: He’s been slicing all day for decades!

Watch his technique—how he holds and moves the knife. Then, start at the speed you’re comfortable with and increase speed bit by bit.

Remember: More accidents happen with dull knives. A dull blade is more likely to slip instead of slice through. Take your knives to be sharpened professionally, or treat yourself to a good knife sharpener. It’s less than $30, less than having your set of knives professionally sharpened once!

By the way, if you take a knife skills class, you’ll start out by slicing onions—lots of them. So consider spending a couple of hours with a bag of onions, working on your technique.

You can use the results of your labor to make onion soup, or make lots of caramelized onions. They’re so good, they’ll disappear quickly. (While most people caramelize sliced onions, you can also use your diced onions.)

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You can give one, two or three bags of this truly delectable and better-for-you gourmet trail mix. Even the cellophane bags are chic.

Just about everyone we’ve gifted with Comfort Crunch continues to bring up how good it was. (Hint, hint?)

You, too, can be known for giving the tastiest, guilt-free treat.

Comfort Crunch mixes are delicious combinations of dried fruits and crisp nuts, sometimes with bits of toffee or chocolate that really hit the spot. Part of the profits are donated to cancer research (the founder is a cancer survivor).

The three-bag gift box, $30.00, includes eight-ounce bags of:

While every family has its own Christmas traditions, how about adding one from medieval England: the wassail bowl?

Wassail (pronounced WAH-sul) is an Anglo-Saxon term meaning “good health,” from the Middle English “wæs hæil.” During the holiday season, the host would invite friends over for a drink. The festivities began when he held up the bowl and called out, “Wassail!”

The tradition began in the 14th century in southern England, home to apple groves galore. The first wassail bowls contained hot mulled cider.

But your wassail bowl can contain whatever type of punch* you like.

This festive interpretation combines brandy plus sherry or madiera with holiday spices and eggs, to make a frothy punch. It’s like egg nog without the cream. The recipe carries on the apple tradition in the form of baked apples that float in the bowl. (To make it easier to scoop the wassail into cups, we suggest a flotilla of small apples rather than a blanket of large ones, as shown in the video.)

If you don’t have sherry or madiera, you can substitute red wine. If you don’t have brandy, use whiskey or rum.

Pick a date and invite friends to share the wassail bowl!

Prefer hot mulled cider? Here’s the recipe.

*FOOD TRIVIA: The word “punch” is adapted from the Hindi word, “panch.” In India, panch was made from five different ingredients: sugar, lemon, water, tea or spices and an alcoholic spirit. The word for “five” in Sanskrit is panchan–hence the name. After carbonated water (soda water) became mainstream in the late 18th century, it became a sixth ingredient, added to the punch for some effervescence. However, the word for six in Sanskrit is shata. “Shat” just doesn’t work, so we’ll stick with “punch.”

Find more of our favorite cocktail recipes.

The new, all-natural line of dairy-free, lactose-free, soy-free, kosher-certified creamers is delicious. And most people won’t be able to tell the difference from conventional creamers.

Vegans and the ever-increasing community of lactose-intolerant people can rejoice. If you’re cutting down on sugar, you can rejoice, too: There’s none in the Original flavor, proving that you can create something excellent without refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup.

Also available in French Vanilla and Hazelnut, the creamers arrive just in time for the holiday season. You can serve a flavored creamer that fits in with virtually any food regimen. (Calories/tablespoon: 20 for Original, 30 for flavors.)

Learn more at GoodKarmaFoods.com. If you “like” Good Karma on Facebook, you can enter to win a nifty Technivorm Moccamaster Coffee Maker, a brewer for serious coffee lovers. We tried it at Williams-Sonoma and would like to win one ourselves.

The company also supports sustainable agriculture. Good karma, indeed!
  

If you’re like most people, you probably enjoy carrots. But have you tried their cousins, parsnips?

Parsnips look like large, pale yellow carrots (the flesh underneath is creamy white). When cooked, they have an even sweeter taste than carrots, delivering subtle notes of butterscotch, cardamom and honey.

Like carrots, parsnips are native to the Mediterranean. Early Romans ate them wild, then cultivated them. Food trivia: The original carrots were purple, not orange. Today’s ubiquitous orange carrot was bred in Holland in the late 16th century. You can find heirloom purple carrots at some farmers markets. A mutant strain called white carrots—the same pale yellow color as parsnips—is also grown.

In this video, the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten, shows how incredibly easy it is to make a delicious (and healthy!) side of roasted carrots and parsnips. Make a double batch—they’re delicious hot or cold, not just at dinner but also with lunch or for a low-calorie snack.

You can add your own twists to this recipe, including fresh herbs or a drizzle of flavored olive oil before serving.

Find more of our favorite veggie recipes in our Vegetables Section.