French apple cider and apple brandy are swirled together with cinnamon simple syrup and fresh crisp apples. More

Earlier this week, we told you the results from our "Original" flavor instant oatmeal tasting. Going the instant route is a desperate move, and as many of you pointed out, one that can be avoided. But for whatever reason (lack of caffeine, camping trip, masochism) some of us eat instant oatmeal. For the Apple Cinnamon flavor round, we were curious if any brands actually tasted like real apples. The kind from trees. Or does it all taste like the McDonald's fried apple pie filling? Find out the results. More

A few months ago, I came across a tomato-based salsa at a Mexican restaurant that I couldn't stop dipping the tortilla chips in. It had all the major salsa players: tomatoes, onions and chiles. But there was something a little different about this salsa, a spice or herb that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It added a touch of earthiness, maybe even smokiness? What could it be? More

Most of what we enjoy and call cinnamon in the U.S. is Cinnamomum aromaticum or C. loureiroi, also known as cassia. It's the brash, bold, sweet-and-spicy stuff we love in our cinnamon buns and gingerbread. But it's not the only cinnamon out there. In the past, when people talked about cinnamon, they were talking about C. verum (née C. zeylanicum when Sri Lanka was called Ceylon). It's not the cinnamon Americans are used to—it's much more mellow and subtle—but it's worth expanding our horizons for. More

Photo from Picky Cook via Photograzing I'd be a lot more excited about Monday morning if I had started it off with a big hunk of monkey bread—a sweet, cinnamony breakfast bread made of fused-together balls of dough, begging to be torn apart with sticky fingers. The Picky Cook has a scrumptious-looking recipe for making one from scratch, along with a gorgeous step-by-step photo tutorial. But if this looks like too much of a project, the King Arthur Flour Classic Monkey Bread mix ain't half bad, either.... More