Decluttering Blueprint – Step 3 – Organizing Your Kitchen

If your kitchen isn’t living up to your expectations, give it a makeover for convenience and pizazz using the steps below.

Take stock of your kitchens purpose. Is it for cooking, baking, eating, and storing food? If so, move all the items that are unrelated to the purpose of your space (such as papers, magazines, tools, etc.) to other, more appropriate rooms of your home.
Identify the major categories of items to be kept in your kitchen. For example:

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How Do You Cut an Onion Without Tears? Some Useful Tips

Onions are our common vegetables in our kitchen, thanks to its unique taste. Of course, this vegetable needs to be cleaned first. After cleaning and removing the outer shell, the onion should be cut. The cuts cause almost always tears. We give some tips how you can prevent this.

Why do we tear up when cutting an onion?
By cutting the onion, an ingredient that contains sulfur comes free. If this material comes in contact with water (our eyes), it creates sulfuric acid. This acid, irritates our eyes and the eyes become more moist.

Genetic modified onions prevent tearing
A Japanese team led by Shinsuke Imai of the House of Food Corporation, has localized the enzyme that produces propanthial S-oxide, which causes our eyes begin to tears when cutting onions. Thanks to this discovery it is perfectly possible for bring an onion on the market which causes no tears and which still has the same taste. Continue reading “How Do You Cut an Onion Without Tears? Some Useful Tips”

Cream Cheese Dainties – A Serious Christmas Cookie

Here’s a serious Christmas cookie; it’s white like snow, has a little red Christmas color in it, and it’s full of fat, like Santa. How could you go wrong? It’s also sweet with a crispy texture, and has a hint of almond flavor. This recipe comes from my grandma. She’s been making these cookies at Christmas time for as long as I can remember Christmases. The funny thing is she brings these to Christmas every year but I refused to try them til about two years ago. I think I was afraid of the cherry piece in the middle. So I’m here to tell you don’t be afraid, they’re good, even if you don’t like cherries. Be brave this year and try that Christmas cookie that looks weird and has too many nuts stuck to it, you just might like it.

Tip: to crush cereal use a food processor or place cereal in sealed bag and crush with a rolling pin. These cookies also freeze well.

1/2 cup butter Continue reading “Cream Cheese Dainties – A Serious Christmas Cookie”

Catering Equipment That Make Life Easier

There is a wide variety of catering equipment out there. Some are necessities and there are some that simply make your life much easier. Here is a list of catering equipment that is designed to make your life easier.

Avenia Rice Cooker. This rice cooker has an 8.5 litre capacity unit with a power output of 2650 Watts. It is designed to cook the rice for you automatically while you proceed to other food preparation tasks.
Avenia Soup Kettle. Once you’ve made the soup, you tend to keep it on the stove to keep it warm. But when you do this, the soup tends to burn at the bottom. This soup kettle keeps the soup warm for as long as you need without the burning bottom. It is also suitable for sauces, curries, stews and breakfast porridge.
Robot Coupe Food Processor Combo. This is a nifty unit. It comes with four different blades: slicer, grater, julienne and cutting discs. Each disc gives you the convenience of preparing vegetables faster and with less fuss than before. You simply insert the vegetable and out of it come the sliced, grated, julienned or cut vegetables. No more chopping vegetables by hand.
Ankor Dough Mixer. If you are someone who loves to bake cake or other dough based confections then this catering equipment will take a lot of hassle out of the baking process. The spiral shape is designed to ensure that the dough is perfectly mixed within a few minutes. It has an electronic timer, 2 speed motor and a silent transmission system.
Butcherquip Biltong Slicer. If you’re a fan of biltong or a butcher then this is the gadget for you. It is an electronic unit that enables you to quickly cut biltong into thick slices for easy consumption.
Cheese Cutter Hand Held with Wire. Slicing cheese is no picnic if you don’t use the correct utensil. Having a cheese slicer at hand when you’ve prepared a cheese platter is convenient for guests. The ideal unit is one that has a slicing wire and a base. The slicing wire slides through cheese seamlessly and without a mess.
Delux Ice Crusher. This mini electric unit is so powerful that it can crush up to 10 kilograms of ice in an hour. That’s a neat party trick. You can serve your party guests fun cocktails and drinks without struggling to crush ice.

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The Coffee Grinder: Handy Tool For Coffee Lovers

Grinding coffee in your own kitchen provides the opportunity to touch and smell the beans, as well as anticipate the sweetness, acidity, taste and flavor of the cup. The coffee you prepare is rich and fresh and the aroma filling the room is a great way to start a new day. There are tools and appliances that are prized possessions on the kitchen counter full-time. Yours may be different from the ones someone else prefers but they probably include several of the following: a coffee maker with a built-in grinder or a standalone coffee grinder, a blender, juicer or food processor, a set of quality knives, and a radio.

The choices of grinders available are many. Antique grinders in cylinder shaped mills. Manual grinders you place above a bowl to catch the ground coffee. Hand-cranked grinders with a drawer below the blade for the grounds. The mortar-and-pestle coffee grinder is another antique version that requires manual strength and patience to grind the coffee. Other types of available coffee grinders include electric and manually operated models with conical or wheel burr grinding. Continue reading “The Coffee Grinder: Handy Tool For Coffee Lovers”

Fixing Common Cooking Mistakes

Bread is too soft to slice: Freeze it and slice it frozen.
Bread Stale: Sprinkle it with a small amount of water, put it in foil, and bake in an oven at moderate heat for about ten minutes.
Cake Stuck to Pan: Let it sit until it is a little cooler, and then try again. If it’s already cold, reheat for a minute or two.
Cheese tough or rubbery after cooking: Blend in a blender or food processor at low speed for a minute or two, then cook slowly.
Coffee or broth cloudy: add eggshells.
Coffee overcooked: Add a pinch of salt
Dough is lumpy: Add more liquid and pound the dough thoroughly.
Dough won’t rise: Put the bowl of dough in a warmer place – in an oven, for instance, with a pilot light (do not turn the oven on). You could also mix a bit more yeast in ¼-cup warm water and knead into dough.
Dough won’t shape: Let it rest for 15 minutes.
Eggs crack when cooking: Put in 1 teaspoonful of salt and a bit of lemon or vinegar into the water to keep whites from oozing out of the shell.
Egg whites won’t whip: Add a bit of baking soda or salt.
Fudge hard: Add a tablespoon of milk and 2-3 tablespoonfuls of corn syrup and beat, then pour. Put in an airtight container for 24 hours.
Gelatin stuck in mold: Dip the mold in hot water, but not so the gelatin is touched by the water, for just a few seconds. Put the mold on a plate, turn it upside down and shake.
Gravy gray: Add red currant jelly, soy sauce, a bit of sherry, meat extract, or 1 teaspoon instant coffee.
Gravy lumpy: Beat it with eggbeater or wire whisk. Strain it.
Gravy salty: Make more. Sometimes adding a bit of brown sugar helps. Cook small pieces of potato into the gravy.
Ham salty: Soak slices in milk for 15 minutes to a half-hour. Wash off.
Icing sugared: Add a bit of vinegar and keep cooking.
Lemon hard: Heat it for 5 minutes in boiling water or for 15 seconds in a microwave on HIGH, then try juicing it.
Meat burned: Cut off burned parts, cube and sauce the rest. Serve over pasta.
Pasta stuck together: Put back in boiling water with a tablespoon or so of oil in it.
Pie dough burning on edge: Cover edge with aluminum foil.
Popcorn won’t pop: Soak corn in water for 5 minutes, dry off and try again. For very recalcitrant corn, freeze overnight and pop while frozen.
Rice burned: Get it off the flame, then put a piece of bread on top of it, cover for 5 minutes.
Scummy stock: Add leek tops and tomato peels, which absorb the scum.
Soup too salty: Slice in potato, simmer until potato turns translucent, then lift potato out.
Stew meat tough: if you haven’t had the time to let the stew continue cooking under gentle heat, add a few tomatoes or a teaspoon of sugar to tenderize it.
Vegetable old: To pep them up, add a pinch or two of sugar and a little salt to the cooking water.
Vegetables overcooked: Puree them. Or make a cream soup of them Or put them in an oven-safe dish, cover them with bread crumbs and grated Parmesan cheese, and broil for a couple of minutes.
Vegetables too salty: Pour the water out, rinse them off, and return them to the stove in new water. If you are already done, wash in hot water.
Whipping cream won’t whip: chill everything (bowl, cream, beaters) and try again. If that fails, add an unbeaten egg white or 3-4 drops of lemon juice and whip as hard as you can.

Source by Kiya Sama

Bouillabaisse Soup

This excellent, ancient recipe from Provence excites huge passion and interest. Bouillabaisse consists of fragrant fish chunks poached in a saffron-enhanced broth. The dish is served as two courses. First the broth is spooned over toasted bread croutes topped with rouille sauce, which enriches the soup; next the fish itself is eaten. It is undoubtedly a triumph, so do devote several hours to making it.

Ingredients:

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Got Mushrooms? Stuff Them and Soup Them

I have always found mushrooms to be an interesting sort of comfort food. Here are two delightful recipes, great for lunch or dinner, as a complement or even as the main attraction.

WILD MUSHROOM BISQUE

1 and 1/2 pounds portobello and cremini mushrooms

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Pizza – Can This Be A Healthy Food?

Every component of pizza – crust, toppings, sauce and cheese are thought to be unhealthy. This is no longer the usual case today. Many pizza parlors today offer this delectable food in a new way – the use of organic ingredients only. Thus, every slice of organic pizza becomes healthy food.

Many of us believe that pizza is very unhealthy food because it contains ingredients that can add weight to the consumer. A slice of pizza has many calories, depending on its toppings and crust. This connotation will change if you know how the making of pizza had been modified by many people who advocate the use of healthy and organic ingredients.

You may believe that you cannot rely on pizza delivery and that the healthy kind can only be made available when you create it yourself. But you are wrong because today, many pizza stores had started to serve purely organic pizza. The making of a healthy pizza means using the right ingredients, all natural and organic. Continue reading “Pizza – Can This Be A Healthy Food?”

Healthy Comfort Food For Stressful Times

Human beings want to be happy all the time, and when stress punctures our happiness bubble, we turn to our favorite comfort foods, with their familiar rationalizations. “I deserve this, I work hard,” followed by, “I’ll get back on track tomorrow,” and of course, “I’ll have just a little bite.” You will work just as hard before you eat those chips as after, tomorrow either never comes or takes the scenic route around various parts of your body, and that little bite can somehow make a pint of ice cream disappear!” The only thing these rationalizations change during stressful times are your weight, self-esteem, and the level of guilt leading to more stress.

Everyone experiences varying degrees of stress, and these days you don’t have to look past your television to find more than enough stress to add to your load. The good news is you don’t have to ban comfort food, you simply need to redefine it and choose the types of comfort food that keep your body running efficiently and at optimum health. Continue reading “Healthy Comfort Food For Stressful Times”