Christmas Cooking – Tips To Make It Easy

August 20th, 2010 No Comments

The most energetic and frenetic time of the year for most of us is Christmas. It seems that we are so consumed by preparations and planning for the festivities that there is little time to consider anything else. But consider we must. Cooking for Christmas is the most time consuming task of all and it is obviously not the normal fare. For some,Christmas cooking is just a bit too challenging for their culinary skills. So to avoid disappointment and the fear of criticism, some simple yet effective ideas for meals have been devised for you to buy and prepare well in advance. Your guests and family will certainly enjoy the results and hopefully you will be applauded for your talent!

There is a simple solution to the problem and that is to prepare and freeze dishes in advance. In that way there is less pressure to perform miracles when short of time and allows you the space to create some wonderful casseroles that you know your family will enjoy at your leisure, thus reducing the risk of failure. Casseroles and similar dishes are perfect for prior preparation and freezing and are ideal for the times when cooking a meal is the least of your priorities. If you have guests to dinner in the Christmas holidays a home cooked casserole with a traditional edge to it will always be well received. You can prepare and freeze your favorite dishes months in advance and if you really want to be prepared for Christmas you can make and freeze enough for many Christmas occasions and events, giving you more time to spend on all the other myriad of preparations.

There is another interesting and innovative way to achieve all the benefits of home cooked food without actually preparing it yourself. There are quite a few companies that offer you a service that enables you to create an entire menu for a meal. The food is frozen and can be taken home for you to keep in this way until you are ready to bake and serve. These meals are a fantastic idea for convenience and because you have included your specifications are the closest thing to a home cooked meal as you can get. You can choose from a variety of dishes but remember that their menu choices are not always constant so your particular preferences may not always be available. The best thing to do is to keep an account of when your favourite dishes are on the menu and to plan to buy them at that time and keep them frozen for those occasions when you will enjoy serving them.

If you are looking for a simple uncomplicated way to have good food at hand without a great deal of expense and planning, then it is certainly worthwhile looking in the frozen food section at the supermarket you frequent. The choice of dishes is actually very good as is the quality. These frozen ready meals can be heated easily at home in your oven and usually come in ovenproof containers. The best choices are usually pasta dishes such as lasagne or macaroni. They may not be as attractive as your own frozen casseroles or the assembled meal menu option but are certainly good value in terms of cost and are quick and easy to prepare making them an ideal choice for informal family meals.

It is not always necessary to be the consumate chef or to spend hours of your precious time preparing a Christmas dinner for it to be enjoyed. There are shortcuts and its worthwhile taking them. If you have planned your Christmas meals well in advance you will be assured that one aspect of the Christmas season is taken care of.

Cooking Tips To Help You In The Kitchen

August 18th, 2010 No Comments

When you are cooking a meal, there are many things that can go wrong and many simple, household solutions to issues that arise that you may not know. To that end, we’ve written this article to discuss some simple hints that can make your time spent in the kitchen much easier.

- Did you burn food, and now the whole house smells of the terrible burning odor? Well, don’t fret – there is a simple fix. Simply take a half of a cup of whole cloves and put them in a saucepan with two cups of water. Bring the mixture to a boil and simmer for twenty to thirty minutes. The house will now smell sweet due to this mixture.

- Flare-ups on the grill can be worrisome and dangerous. For that reason, it is important to minimize the risk of flare-ups while grilling. Any excess fat on cuts of meat that you are about to cook should be removed. Also, if you bring food to room temperature before placing it on the grill, you’re more likely to cook it evenly.

- Need to check your grills temperature, but you don’t have the feature on your grill? One simple test that you can perform is to hold your hand facing palms-down over the coals, roughly around where you will be cooking. You should count how long you can stand to keep your hand there as it will give you a rough estimation of the temperature. If you can only count to about two, the heat level is high, and it’s best for cooking meat. If you’re looking to grill vegetables, you should cook with a medium heat. If you can count to about four, the grill is the proper temperature. Be sure to keep it safe when you are performing this test.

- When baking cookies, it’s tough to get them to turn out exactly round. There is an easy solution, however: after creating the dough, place it into empty concentrated juice cans and put it in the refrigerator. When you’re ready to bake, just slice off the end of the can and push the dough through, slicing off cookies as you go. They should be perfectly round!

- Need to make your own croutons fast? There’s an easy way to do it, and you probably have all the ingredients in your house! Cut slices of bread into cubes that are three quarters of an inch. Place them on a baking tray and add cooking spray and garlic powder. Broil the tray for roughly three minutes, and there you go! Try adding different spices to suit your individual fancy.

Teaching Gourmet Cooking – 3 Gourmet Cooking Tips For Instructors

August 16th, 2010 No Comments

You would be loaded with options if you are looking for someone to teach you gourmet cooking. You need to gain all the education that you desire from gourmet cooking also in instruction. You can learn gourmet cooking through workshops or from any of the culinary art professional schools easily without any hesitation.

If you are planning to teach gourmet cooking then you need to acquire fundamental understanding about the history, skills and techniques of gourmet cooking that are required in every process. You may also need to learn the best and effective way to communicate with the students. If you combine all these requirements, you would be able to understand the process in a better way.

Some of the gourmet cooking strategies that would assist you in teaching gourmet cooking are as follows:

1) Use of demonstrations is the best way to provide education to students in gourmet cooking classes. There are many students who can learn in a better way when they see, touch and smell the recipe along with lecture. More the senses involved, better are the chances that students can understand you easily and quickly. Such practical classes also help students to remember the lesson for a longer period.

2) You need to explain the reason behind every act. For example, you should provide reasons as of why are you using this technique when several alternatives are available. Provide difference between the effectiveness of techniques. This would help the students to understand its importance in true sense and help them remember the technique more easily.

3) You should ensure that there is a positive environment wheare students can be taught gourmet cooking. Once you are able to establish a positive environment in the class, learning would be an enjoyable experience for your students and you would not feel any task a chore that cannot be achieved. Your students would take it as a challenge and try to excel in that. Such attitude is itself a key to successful training and successful students.

You can join variety of classes or invest in workshops to learn skills that are required to teach gourmet cooking. Once you are delivered with right kind of training and educational foundation, you would be able to cook in a specific style of expertise. It is upto the student that he or she uses, loves it, pick it up or not. Still, teaching gourmet cooking properly would divert them towards the right way to prepare a recipe and learn good cooking skills. Therefore, it is important for an instructor to learn all these fundamentals of teaching gourmet cooking before starting his or her teaching career.

Cooking Tips for Healthy Eating

August 14th, 2010 No Comments

Being health conscious seems to be part of everyone’s lifestyle today. Here are a few helpful tips taken from the Good Cooking Central website that you can use as a guide for more tasteful and healthful eating:

• ALTERNATIVES TO COOKING WITH BUTTER:

When browning or sautéing onions, hamburger, etc., replace the butter by spraying your skillet with non-stick spray or use chicken or beef broth instead.

When baking, use reduced-calorie margarine instead of butter (but note that the texture may not always come out the same). Non-fat margarines currently on the market do not tend bake well.

Cutting butter in some of your recipes can cut a lot of the calories making it a diet-friendly option.

• CUTTING FAT WITH APPLESAUCE:

To reduce the fat content in your baking recipes, substitute applesauce for half of the amount of vegetable oil called for in the recipe. Using all applesauce produces a low-calorie, moist product.

• TO CUT CALORIES:

To cut calories when making stir-frys and stews that contain both vegetables and meat reduce the amount of meat by 1/3 and increase the amount of vegetables by 1/3.

• USE THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT

Eating healthy doesn’t have to taste bland or bad. Using the right equipment can make a world of difference in the healthy dishes you prepare. For example, using a simple grill pan provides you with a lot of flexibility in your meals. You can grill everything from fruits and vegetables to meats, while the fat just drips away.

• CUTTING FAT FROM A BROWNIE RECIPE

To cut fat from a brownie recipe, you may cut the butter back from 8 TBSP. to 3 TBSP. and add 5 TBSP. of fat-free sour cream to the batter to make up the difference.

• CUTTING OIL FROM A CAKE MIX RECIPE

When making up a cake from a cake mix, do not add the ½ cup of oil the recipe calls for. Instead add ½ cup of unsweetened applesauce to the batter for a moist healthier cake.

• USE EGG BEATERS

Substitute Egg Beaters for half of the eggs in mostly egg dishes (use 1/4 cup of Egg Beaters substitute per egg).

• IT’S O.K. TO USE LESS

Use less oil or butter for frying than the recipe calls for. Using about a tsp. of olive or canola oil can usually suffice. Using olive or canola oil instead of fat, butter or shortening for most recipes is a healthier choice.

• USE RUBS OR MARINADES – GRILL FOODS TO ADD FLAVOUR.

1. Rubs are dry spice blends and usually include both salt and sugar. They are rubbed directly on and into the meat before cooking. They add a mild flavour, but if you add the rub a day or so in advance the flavour of the spices will penetrate more into the meat.

2. Marinades are liquid and can be made from a variety of ingredients, but most importantly include something acidic (like lemon or lime juice, vinegar, yoghurt or fruit like papayas, pineapple or kiwis). This adds enzymes to the meat which tenderize it. Use caution in the amount of time you marinade meat to avoid the meat becoming “mushy”. A general rule is, for seafood as little as 15 minutes, 4-6 hours for thin cuts of meat and up to 12 hours for larger cuts.

3. Use a re-sealable plastic bag to marinate meats. Add the marinade and meat into the bag, seal, and shake or mush together to combine. Then let sit in the fridge for the required amount of time.

4. Never re-use marinades. If you wish to make a sauce or gravy from the marinade the meat has been in, boil the marinade for at least two minutes.

5. Brush the extra marinade onto the meat before grilling for extra flavour. Use it like a barbeque sauce, but be sure to let it cook through

If you would like to read more tips and hints, and get great recipes too, visit the Good Cooking Central website.

Cooking Tips for Broiling a Chicken

August 12th, 2010 No Comments

For decades, broiled chicken has been the meat of choice for those on low-fat and low calorie diets. Unfortunately, broiled white chicken has also acquired a reputation for being bland, rubbery and dry.

That’s a real shame, because chicken – especially white meat chicken – is one of the most versatile proteins available. All it takes is a bit of knowledge about how to broil (or grill) chicken so that it stays moist and flavorful and you will find that chicken tastes great even without all the sauces and gravies.

How to Broil Chicken That Melts in Your Mouth

One of the most important things to keep in mind about chicken white meat is that it has little fat of its own. The fat is all in the skin. While that makes it relatively easy to cook chicken with almost no fat, it also means that chicken white meat is prone to becoming very dry when cooked without the skin. Want to avoid dried out broiled chicken breasts? Here are some tips for broiling chicken that will be moist and delicious.

1. If fat is not a concern, broil breasts with the skin on, and turned toward the heat source. For broiling, start with the skin side down, and then flip chicken pieces halfway through. Broiling breasts with the skin on will not appreciably increase the fat content of the meat as long as you remove the skin before eating it.

2. If using skinless breasts, rub them lightly with olive oil or marinade before broiling. Experiment with flavored olive oils to find flavor combinations that you like. Or, brush breasts with Italian dressing – or spray lightly with cooking spray to give them a light coating.

3. Precook chicken breasts in chicken stock before putting them under the broiler. They will start out infused with extra moisture and flavor, and spend less time drying out under the broiler.

4. Use an herb rub to crust the chicken on the outside. You will a get browned, crusted outside and moist, tender inside.

5. Your heat source should be about 5 to 6 inches away from the top of the chicken for best broiling.

6. Flavor chicken meat with herbs, salt and spices before broiling.

7. Preheat the broiler for 9 to 10 minutes before putting the meat in. If you try to broil chicken in a broiler that is not preheated, they will dry out before they cook through.

8. Keep your eye on the chicken while it is cooking. If edges are cooking too quickly, rearrange the pieces on the pan or adjust the heat.

9. Conversely, shield the thinner edges of chicken breast with foil to prevent them burning before the rest of the chicken is cooked.

10. Flip chicken when top side is browned. Since breasts will not all cook at the same rate, keep an eye on the chicken so that you can remove breasts when they are done and prevent them from drying out.

11. Use tongs to turn chicken. Do not pierce with a fork or juices will escape, leaving chicken dry and stringy.

12. Brush top side of chicken with marinade, barbecue sauce, Italian dressing or flavored olive oil after turning. A light basting will refresh the moisture and infuse flavors into the meat.

Broiling a Whole Chicken

Generally, whole chicken is roasted, often after being stuffed with forcemeat of some kind or other. However, a whole chicken can be cooked under the broiler for a very different taste. You just need to flatten the chicken before cooking. Follow these directions for flavorful broiled whole chicken.

1. First, butterfly the chicken

2. Remove the backbone: Using a heavy knife or kitchen shears, cut close to the backbone from neck to tail on each side of the bone, and then remove it.

3. Flatten the chicken: Spread the chicken skin side up on your table or counter, and bang the breast with your fist to break the collar bone and some of the ribs.

4. Fold the wings to either side of the shoulders.

5. Cut a slit in the skin at either side of the breast tip.

6. Insert the tips of the drumsticks through the slits in the skin.

7. Brush the chicken with olive oil and spices. Or use flavored olive oil.

8. Put chicken skin side down in broiler pan – not on a rack.

9. Broil about 5 inches from the heat for five minutes.

10. Brush the chicken with oil and spices and place back under the broiler.

11. After five minutes baste again, using the juices in the pan, and place back under broiler for five minutes more.

12. Baste chicken, and then sprinkle with salt, pepper and spices and turn skin side up.

13. Broil and baste skin side for fifteen minutes more, basting every five minutes to ensure meat remains moist.

14. Chicken is done when juices run clear yellow from pricked drumstick.

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