Category Archives: Cooking

Microwave cooking tips

If your kitchen is like most kitchens these days, you’ve probably got a microwave oven sitting in it. And what do you use it for? Reheating? Melting butter or chocolate when baking? Maybe the kids throw a hot dog in once in a while. Well, if that’s how your microwave gets used, you’re missing out on a great cooking tool. After all, why heat up your oven when you can do the whole job in the microwave in the time it takes to pre-heat your oven?

A couple of good reasons to use your microwave instead of your oven are that no pre-heating is needed and the cost is greatly reduced. Using your microwave for 100 hours will cost about $7.00 compared to about $70.00 for 100 hours of conventional oven use.

Understanding how a microwave works will also help you rethink using it a little more, too. Molecules of fat, sugar and water within food attract microwaves that reflect against the metal walls of the oven. The molecules begin to vibrate against one another causing friction and that’s the heat that cooks the food. The microwaves can only penetrate food 1-1&1/2 inches so larger dishes need the vibrating molecules to move from the outside edges to the center of the food for it to be cooked. That’s why food placement, dish quality and cooking quantity are all important when cooking in the microwave.

Microwaves can pass through plastic, paper, wood and glass but not through metals. That’s why you’ll get “Arching” or sparking if you put metal in the microwave.

A good rule to remember when cooking in the microwave is that approximately 6 minutes per pound will cook most foods including meat, poultry and fruit and vegetables. Seafood will take less time and reducing the power of your microwave will require longer cooking time. About 20% of the cooking time takes place after the oven turns off so make sure you remember that your food will continue cooking after you’ve removed it.

You might be used to your ovens temperature in degrees but you can convert your microwave’s temperature that is described in power or watts. A microwave on high or 100% power is about the same as having your oven at 425 degrees. A 350-degree oven would be about the same as a microwave at 50% power.

You can determine the wattage of a microwave by placing 1 cup of tap water in a two cup measuring cup. Heat on high for two minutes. If the water boils in two minutes or less, the microwave is probably 700 watts or more. If it takes longer than it is 600 watts or less.

Different foods will require different temperatures to cook properly and while you should follow the 6 minutes per pound rule, add more minutes as you drop the power. Using 50% power, you’d want to cook your food for about 11 minutes. Cooking something that takes an hour in the oven should take about 15 minutes in the microwave.

Here are some helpful hints when cooking in the microwave:

Arrange food in dish so that the thicker part is on the outside and the thinner part inside for more even cooking.

Using a dish with a cone in the center will also help distribute heat evenly.

Let foods such as cakes with baking powder in them stand a few minutes before cooking to allow the leavening agents to work.

Don’t use as much liquid — if a recipe calls for milk and water, cut back on the water. You might want to use fewer spices as well.

Open covers away from you to release steam.

If you cover it in the regular oven, cover it in the microwave too.

Ready to try it yet? Get out your favorite cookbook and get cooking. You’ll be saving time and money and still eating those foods you love.

Discovering Easy Cooking Recipes From Around The World

There are many different areas that make every country around the world unique somehow. The language, traditions, beliefs, clothing and foods all make up these very individual cultures. It is possible to sample different countries through books, movies, language classes and easy cooking recipes without ever leaving your home or city. This is certainly something that you and your family can enjoy and experience together.

It may not be as simple a task as you thought to decide which easy cooking recipes to try. There are so many tasty ethnic foods to enrapture your taste buds with. You may never go back to the same old meatloaf and mashed potatoes again. It could be fun and educational to create theme nights around these newly found easy cooking recipes.

Give the Globe a Yummy Spin

Begin your food sojourn in beautiful and exotic Africa with an easy cooking recipe for Chicken Couscous. Just wait until you begin to smell the delicious aromas of chicken, sweet limejuice and zesty garlic, as it will be enough to make your mouth water buckets. Garbanzo beans, artichoke hearts and raisin couscous ensure this easy cooking recipe to be a definite favorite.

Next, head to the Far East and sample some of the oldest and healthiest easy cooking recipes. While you might be tempted to conjure up a batch of fried rice and spicy chicken that would make General Tso blow his top, your taste buds will have more fun with a sweet and sour stir fry or even a teriyaki cabbage stir fry. Many popular Asian recipes call for duck instead of chicken, which is still poultry, but a slightly tastier alternative.

A food trip around the world would not be complete without a night in Tuscany. Or even Rome. While spaghetti has been a family dinner favorite for many years, there are many more amazing Italian dishes that remain undiscovered treasures for your stomach. Give your family something really different on this night with an easy cooking recipe for Lamb Chops Scottadito. The succulent taste of lamb paired with olive oil, garlic, and rosemary will draw a chorus of praises.

Easy French cooking is as delicious as springtime in Paris. It is not all chocolates, croissants and red wine though. The French love food and love preparing it. Follow their lead with dishes that entwine eggplant, asparagus, potatoes and the tastiest herbs in the Western Hemisphere. Stew Provencale is rich and full of flavor, just like the French countryside where it was created and remains so very popular.

Nutrients saved with pressure cooking

A lot has improved in the last 20 years with the modern day pressure cooker. They’re most definitely safer than Grammies pressure cooker, and theyre built with style. Even though the pressure cooker was first built around 300 years ago, it’s become the leading cooking method for today. When food is cooked with pressure, it’s cooked the healthiest way possible. Food comes out tastier and faster than any conventional method. Meats come out tender and juicy, and vegetables are colorful and their flavors are intensified. Pressure cooking makes it easy for even the busiest cooks to prepare meals. With a 70% reduction in cooking times, your time spent slaving over the stove-top can be spent on more important things. Use your pressure cooker to make complete casserole style meals, or cook several foods at the same time and have a home cooked dinner served in minutes.

Nutrients

How meals are cooked can have a huge impact on their nutrient content. Cooking your food in an open pot of boiling water is the most effective way to destroy the vitamins. To conserve the most nutrients feasible, many experts recommend that you use as little water as possible. You should also cook your food as rapidly as you can because many vitamins are sensitive to water, heat and air exposure. Water used for cooking can dissolve and wash away water soluble vitamins, while the high temperature deteriorates them. Many vitamins including “B” and “C” are water soluble and the simple act of washing them takes away some of the vitamins. Fat soluble vitamins such as “E” and “D” are stored and metabolized with the fat in our bodies. Fat Soluble vitamins are not as sensitive as water soluble vitamins and are not cooked away so easily.

It is crucial to select the best cooking method that optimizes and keeps the nutrients in food. In a study published by Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, experts looked at the effects of different means of cooking broccoli. Up to 97 percent of specific antioxidant compounds were ruined by microwaving, while steaming the broccoli caused only 11 percent loss. Therefore, any cooking that lessens the time, temperature, and water will help to retain nutrients. Pressure cooking under steam is one of the best methods because it minimizes time and calls for little water.

The super-heated steam which is created by high temperatures within a pressure cooker, makes the food cook swiftly, and intensifies the natural flavors. This enables cooks to use less salt, sugar, and use less costly herbs and seasonings and also get a far better taste. Pressure cooking creates an airless atmosphere that holds more nutrients than other cooking methods. When food is cooked with less liquid, more vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients are preserved and not boiled away during cooking. The procedure of cooking in a steam environment is virtually a fat-free method of cooking as well.

As a rule, accelerated cooking approaches are much better for preserving nutrients than slower methods. Any type of cooking alters food in some way, and more nutrients are wasted when food is subjected to heat, light, moisture and air. The order in which nutrients are typically preserved from quickest to slowest is: Pressure Cooking, Microwaving, Steaming, Stir-frying, Poaching, Roasting, Baking and Broiling.

There are a few tips you can utilize to maintain nutrients. Leaving vegetables in larger portions will minimize the surface area of food. That way fewer vitamins are damaged when they are subjected to air. Always cover your pot to hold in steam and heat. This will also assist in decreasing your cooking times. Leftover cooking water can be used for: sauces, stews, soups or vegetable juice.

It’s not tough to see why a lot of people are beginning to catch on to pressure cooking. They’re efficient, save electricity, lock in nutrients, safe to use, designed to last and highly flexible.

Automatic Fettuccini Maker – Fashions of Fettuccini Machines and What They Do For You

Cooks put to use different appliances to boost the flavor of their precious meals. Preparing macaroni is a general exercise in kitchens. Many folks want made in the home manicotti because of the vivid flavor of some quality and smell. All the same the effort of preparing fettuccini is complicated for people with inadequate time. Family with limited time in the kitchen are advised to bring into play fettuccini maker to have the benefit or use of fresh meals. Chefs take pleasure in many advantages by adopting divers trademarks of gnocchi maker.

Gnocchi maker machine lessen the work of a lot of chefs in the cook’s room

The course of action of making fresh gnocchi has been grown easier by means of those automated macaroni maker machine Cooks enjoy an easy project nearby the kitchen while fitting different macaroni meals. The endeavor offorming and rolling dough to put together ravioli is exhausting. Hence, it is good to invest some capital on macaroni maker machine to set free time and task in the cookhouse.

Fettuccini maker mix fettuccini filling and move the dough outside

A little manicotti machines exert out the dough through thin parts to accommodate necessary types of manicotti. Those machines bear additions like scimitars that hack exact varieties of dough. Ravioli machines help chefs to create enjoyable noodles cooking because they carry the skill to create the right width of noodles type. Pasta style pasta are easily done to form with the assist of pasta makers machines compared to do-it-yourself manicotti.

Noodles makers have large benefits for cooks to practice. Made in the home ravioli is popular than wholesaling macaroni due to jillion factors. Chefs bear the benefit of adding filling to their macaroni to add flavor of some quality and essence. Alongside the help of macaroni makers chefs are capable of merge ingredients suitably to boost tastes. Cooks are apt to put together divers manicotti meals like noodles on account of the availability of makers with different features to form ravioli with quantity squares.

Ravioli meals are most often tasty and fresh while they are homemade. Cooks employ miscellaneous ideas to arrange divers dishess in the cookhouse. Eating fettuccini cookings with divers sizes and shapes is adorable. Makers come in handy for cooks who want to augment on their inventiveness and type in the cuisine. Made in the home noodles is for the most part tasty because they have the accurate compound and essences. Chefs can beef up sauces to do-it-yourself pasta to enhance original taste and essences.

Machines aimed to cook gnocchi come in different sizes and shapes. These features make the effort of chefs easier because they are able to put together divers sizes and shapes for their noodles. Chefs do not have to put to work the same size or shape of dough to generate noodles. Chefs can cook fettuccini with wanted kneadings and designs. Pasta machines effort effectively making the task of cooks appealing to the eye.

The mainstream macaroni freak can put to work different fashions of macaroni makers to put together labor easier. Machines come in miscellaneous types that ease the chore of chefs. Cooks can select to invest in electric fettuccini machine or retail fettuccini maker to enhance their accessibility in the kitchenette. Many people elect hand-operated fettuccini machine due to it works effectively in the kitchen. But, cooks can bring into play wholesale gnocchi machine.

Obtaining divers types of fettuccini maker is not difficult. Chefs only need to make a large numbers estimations when buying for automatic gnocchi maker machine or done by hand fettuccini machine. Chefs ought to consider the payment of commercial ravioli maker machine and maintenance services. Gnocchi machine come with divers prices. The fashion of machine chefs procure need to be affordable and worth the investment.

It is valuable for cooks in households and eating places to analysis prior to procuring a maker. Cooks are thought out to agree items that are elementary to keep up. Albeit not automatic makers are proper for making fettuccini they are annoying to maintain. This is due to they ought to to be cleaned frequently. Chefs should pull out pieces on standard machines to clean them and grease them to add efficiency. Electrical noodles makers are easily done to keep because they have movable hard pieces that are hand washed.

Chefs are advised to put to work commercial noodles maker to cook pains easier. Those machines enhance chore in the galley due to they have speed to produce a volume of pasta. Cooks can also use a hand-operated gnocchi maker machine to charge up functioning when fitting ravioli. Manicotti freak practice adequate flavor of some quality of do-it-yourself pasta.

Chicken & Turkey Cooking Tips

People want to eat healthy foods today, and a good way to accomplish that is
through poultry. There are some chicken cooking tips that can help you in the
kitchen and protect your family as well.

Here are a few of the best chicken cooking tips available.

You must take care to always wash your hands, knife, and cutting board in
hot soapy water after preparing raw poultry.

You should never use the same utensils and cutting board for other
ingredients without thoroughly washing them first and after use. This
prevents cross contamination.

You should always marinate poultry in the refrigerator. Never leave it out
in the open.

Do not use the poultry marinade for basting.

If the marinade is to be used for the basis of a sauce, bring it to a boil
and boil for 2 minutes.

Never put cooked poultry on the same plate that was used to transport raw
poultry. Again, this prevents cross contamination.

Here are some chicken cooking tips for storing your poultry:

Fresh poultry is a very perishable food. You should not leave it out in the
open air. Instead, wrap it in plastic as soon as you get it home from the
store and always store it in the coldest part of your refrigerator. You
should use it within two days; if this is not possible, place it in a freezer
bag and freeze for up to three months. You should always freeze giblets and
livers separately from the whole bird.

Cooked poultry dishes can be frozen. However, you should not freeze poultry
dishes that contain mayonnaise or hard-boiled eggs.

Allow small poultry dishes to cool completely before wrapping and freezing
them. Allow larger items to cool in the refrigerator and then wrap airtight
and freeze.

You should never freeze stuffed poultry.

Some of the most important chicken cooking tips involve proper thawing of the
bird.

It is especially important that the poultry be properly thawed before cooking.
Allow it to thaw in the refrigerator while it is in the original wrapper.
You can place it on a tray to catch any drips that may fall as it thaws.

When thawing in the refrigerator is not possible because there is not enough
time, there are two other alternatives. For rapid thawing, you can put the
bird in watertight wrapping and then submerge in cold water. You should
change the water frequently as this will help quicken the process. Smaller
birds require about one to two hours.

The other alternative is to leave the bird in its wrapper and put it into a
heavy paper grocery bag. Close up the bag and put it into a cool room. You
will need to check it frequently, and once the bird is thawed, you must cook
it immediately.

Now for the Turkey!

Turkey is a long time favorite of many families and now there are some great
cooking tips tricks that anyone can learn and use to better prepare these
wonderful birds.