Top Ten Kitchen Tools and Gadgets!

Hello and thank you for reading my article.

Here we go my Top ten favorite kitchen tools I feel every cook should own!

1. A Cake Tester – When I am cooking I always have a cake tester on me and I use it almost as much as my knife. You can use a cake tester to tell if a steak or piece of fish is medium rare or well done, you can also use it to tell if something is hot inside such as a meatball or crabcake. I explain exactly how you do this on my website.

2. Tongs – Cooking without a pair of tongs and a towel in my hand is to me like being on a battlefield with no gun. The obvious use of tongs is great, can’t grill without tongs! With a pair of strong tongs you can slide baking sheets closer to you so you are not sticking your arms in the oven. You can reach deep in the oven for something that may have fell, and one of my favorite things about tongs is that you can gently place a piece of chicken in the oil for frying without splattering hot oil on you. Continue reading “Top Ten Kitchen Tools and Gadgets!”

How To Plan A Banquet – A Guide To Planning Perfect Banquets For Company Or Private Parties

First time planners are often stricken with complete fear! Even those that plan events over and over again still fear that something will go wrong and they will be the subject of ridicule. Hopefully we can allay the fears and quell the butterflies in your stomach by helping you through the entire project.

There are a lot of questions you need to ask. First timers probably don’t have the foggiest idea what questions to ask, so, the first thing we’d better do is outline these for you.

Perhaps the easiest way to do that is to fill out a form. (I love forms!)
If you were to phone me and ask me to help you make arrangements for a special event, the first thing I would do is reach for a blank form, and over the phone we would fill it out. When I had all the information, I would be better prepared to help you.

Before you continue reading, you may want to print the banquet planning worksheet(PDF) from my website. That way you can follow along with the worksheet as I describe the planning process. I’ve also included a pre filled sample planning worksheet that you might help.

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The History of Rice Cookers

Rice has been a staple food of mankind across thousands of civilizations for almost as long as recorded history. As such, the cooking of rice dates back almost as far, which in essence requires the same basic principle steps today as it ever has. In short, the rice itself, hot water or steam and something in which to cook it.

Of course, never content with doing things the old fashioned way, manufacturers have moved away from tradition methods of cooking rice in favor of modern alternatives which offer both convenience and quality of end product. However, that state of the art rice cooker which takes pride of place in a huge number of modern kitchens may not in fact be as modern as many would think.

Using electrical heating to cook rice is fairly old concept, dating back to the first half of the 20th century. In fact, it is known that as far back as 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army created something of a primitive electric rice cooker in the form of a wooden box with a pair of electrodes attached at opposite ends. In order to cook the rice, the wooden box would be filled with water and washed rice, to which an electrical current was subsequently applied. The electricity would then heat the water to boiling point and cook the rice exactly as would be done conventionally. The first japanese rice cooker.

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A Novel Way to Survive Hosting a Dinner Party – Easy Dinner Party Ideas

Hosting a dinner party for the first time can be so stressful for the host or hostess, that actually enjoying the event could be considered a totally alien concept. It can though, be different, if we use a bit of guile and imagination. Even if the method I’m going to describe is not suitable for your idea of a dinner party, it works just as well for more informal gatherings. Either way, what follows is a way to entertain without having frazzled nerves.

The formal dinner party has been around for goodness knows how long, centuries probably. Let’s have a look at a modern take on the dinner party idea, make it less formal and more enjoyable.

A typical dinner party involves the host or hostess disappearing at various times to take care of cooking a meal. This in itself seems to me to be somewhat anti social – it being a social event. Of course, in years past, if you were wealthy you would have servants to cook and serve. A bit of a rarity these days. However, there is a way to enjoy and take part in my sort of dinner party, have a good time and your guests will leave admiring your somewhat laid back efforts. Continue reading “A Novel Way to Survive Hosting a Dinner Party – Easy Dinner Party Ideas”

Natural Food Sources of Hyaluronic Acid and Collagen – Try This

So you are looking for natural food sources of hyaluronic Acid and collagen?

I understand how you feel – infact not too long ago I too was in search for a diet rich in food that could help rejuvenate the look and feel of my skin.

On my search, I stumbled upon many sources of both collagen and hyaluronic.

The only problem is that almost all of the recommended natural food sources of Hyaluronic Acid and Collagen were not sufficient enough to the extent where I could rely on them to reduce the wrinkles and fine lines that made me look much older than I actually was.

What I really needed and wanted was a natural anti-aging solution that I could rely on to easily rejuvenate my skin. Continue reading “Natural Food Sources of Hyaluronic Acid and Collagen – Try This”

Discover the Health Benefits of Fermented Foods

If you’re like most Americans, you don’t eat a lot of fermented foods. Fermented foods are more popular in the Chinese, Korean and Japanese culture where fermented soy products like tempeh and kimchee are a dietary staple. In fact, the only exposure many Americans get to fermented foods is when they eat a container of yogurt with active cultures – but that’s rapidly changing.

Fermented products are growing in popularity including fermented beverages like kombucha, a beverage prepared from fermented mushrooms, and kefir, a fermented milk drink. More natural food stores are carrying fermented foods and beverages because of the health benefits they offer.

What Are the Health Benefits of Fermented Foods?

One reason fermented foods and beverages are good for you is because of the natural probiotics they contain. Probiotics are “good bacteria” that keep disease-causing bacteria in check by competing for the same resources. There’s only so much room available in your gut for bacteria and when the good guys move in, they push the bad ones out. Unfortunately, most people who eat Westernized diets don’t get many natural probiotics in their diet. That’s changing as yogurt and other fermented foods grow in popularity. Continue reading “Discover the Health Benefits of Fermented Foods”

6 Reasons to Eat Home-Cooked Food More Often

Read on to Find out Why You should Eat Home-Cooked Food

Thanks to our increasingly hectic lifestyle, eating has become one of the lesser priorities in life. For example, we eat only when we are meeting someone in a lavish restaurant or snack mindlessly while watching a movie. When was the last time you took out a couple of hours only to prepare food and to relish it leisurely? When was the last time you put “LUNCH” on your daily to-do list? However, eating home-cooked food is one of the healthiest habits one can cultivate. It has multiple positive effects on the body as well as on the mind.

Nutritious:- Restaurant and other commercially prepared foods are notoriously high in fat, salt and sugar. Home-cooked meals, on the other hand, are free from these and also have the option of replacing certain items with their healthier alternatives. Eating home-cooked meals regularly prepares our palate for simpler and more wholesome foods in the long run, which eventually start reflecting in our trimming waistlines and overall health.

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Some Advantages Of Bento Lunch Boxes

Now most of us reading this have grown up with the old classic lunch box that was metallic, and probably has their favorite television show characters on them. Including the thermos that our parents would put milk or some kind of juice in the box. The lunches were delicious, sometimes they were healthy, sometimes not so much. However, as kids we did not care about that of course. We just wanted to eat. However, as things always do times have changed, and a more portable and covenant type of lunch box has come in to the mainstream market. This is a concept and design from the famous Japanese bento box, and if you have kids, once you see one of these lunch boxes you will never want to use anything else ever again.

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How To Use The Right Japanese Words For Cooking

Japanese has many kinds of cooking style and each method has it’s own unique way of cooking the food. Learn how to distinguish the differences between these cooking methods in Japanese can be very useful for learning Japanese cooking recipes.

Let’s start with the most basic way of cooking and that’s to boil. The Japanese verb for boiling something in Japanese is waku. Waku means to cook something using water.

Ane wa ima oyu wo waite imasu.

My sister is boiling hot water now.

Kono niku wo sanjikan waku to, yawaraku narimasu. Continue reading “How To Use The Right Japanese Words For Cooking”

Why Am I Still Hungry? Discover Japanese ‘s Acupuncture Weight Loss Method

The most difficult part about weight loss is how to control your cravings for food. I believe many people would agree with me. You attended slimming courses, do a lot of exercises everyday, tried yoga, lemon diet, tried varies kind of diet food etc etc etc. But, you would ask yourself the same question in front of the mirror everyday: “Why am I still looking fat?”

The answer to this question is, because you are still always eating! You want to always be in control about your appetite for food because you want to slim down, however you would think of all kinds of excuses when the food is served right in front of you, right? Being overweight = liking the taste of food. Chocolate is your friend, right? Continue reading “Why Am I Still Hungry? Discover Japanese ‘s Acupuncture Weight Loss Method”