How to Be a Healthy Cook

oh3468-pizza-mBeing a healthy cook might take a bit more time and effort, but the rewards in health and well-being make it very much worth-while.

Often it just takes some small changes to make a big difference in the quality of the meal you are preparing.

For instance, there is a world of difference between a boiled or poached egg and an egg fried in margarine. Even if the whole world knows getting the perfect 3 minute boiled egg is one of the mysteries of the kitchen.

There is also a big difference between your every day pancake batter and whole wheat pancake batter. Or between white bread and whole wheat bread. Often making the healthiest choice is just a matter of doing a bit of reading and understanding the composition of certain foods.

Understanding the balance between fat, protein, and carbohydrates is also important. To quit eating fat and omitting it from your recipes for the sake of good health is a big mistake. Fat is essential to provide fuel. Just make sure it’s quality fat and you will have a clean fuel that will burn in the

The Most Effective Uses Of Garlic

Garlic1Garlic is an amazing super-food, which has been used for its various medicinal properties to improve health and healing for over 5,000 years. Today it is used in almost every household for adding flavour to food or in your daily supplements as well as various other home healing remedies. Read on to find out some interesting facts you never knew about garlic and how to prevent medical conditions, if used correctly.

The history of garlic and its uses

Boosts immune system – Ancient Egypt:

It is believed that the Egyptians used this herb to feed to the slaves in order to keep them fit and strong in the era when the pyramids were still being built. Scientists later on discovered the reason why this herb was so good for the slaves and found that it boosted the immune system and it prevented various health and age related conditions.

Antiseptic – World War 1:

Garlic was a well-known remedy used during the time of war for cleansing, treating and healing wounds of the injured soldiers in the trenches with poor sanitary conditions.

At the same time, it was also used to

How to Get Perfectly Toasted Buns

81nuAlbHciL._SL1500_-300x300Who doesn’t enjoy a tasty burger on toasted buns? I’m sure that’s all of us. Restaurants that serve burger meals are in a very competitive industry because their burgers must be better and very tasty. In addition, you need to have consistency when it comes to the delivery of the burger meals. What you serve to one customer today needs to be the same when you serve it to another customer next week. One way to guarantee consistency is to invest in quality catering equipment which has measures and timers in place such as the Anvil Vertical Bun Toaster.

The Anvil Vertical Bun Toaster is an ideal piece of catering equipment that has a compact small footprint so it can be placed on a countertop in any sized kitchen. The twin feed system allows you to prepare twice as many buns because you can feed two buns into the machine at a time until it is full. This bun toaster has 6 position thickness settings that control the toasting process and heating surface. It has a heavy duty stainless steel wire conveyor system that is

Top Cooking Tips For Lowering The Fat In Your Diet

Many people are looking for ways to adopt a healthier lifestyle. If you are looking for ways you can eat healthier, cooking at home is definitely a great idea. Of course, even when you are cooking at home, you want to avoid cooking high fat dishes that pack on the pounds. Learning how to lower the fat in your diet is important. Here is a look at the top cooking tips you can use to lower the amount of fat in your diet.

Tip #1 – Start Trimming Your Meats

Before you even start cooking the meat for your meal, take the time to trim those meats, no matter how you plan on cooking it. Work to cut off most of the fat. If you are dealing with meats that have a skin, such as chicken, cut off the skin as well to save big time on calories and fat.

Tip #2 – Avoid Using Fat Drippings

Many people use fat drippings when making sauces of gravies. While this can add flavor, those drippings are high in fat. There are easy ways to make sure you get the flavor without the fat. Let the drippings sit for a few minutes and skim off that

Tips On Choosing Nutritious And Delicious Food

Tips On Choosing Nutritious And Delicious Food For You And Your Family!

Many people believe that practicing good nutrition is synonymous with losing weight loss and dieting first when they hear the word “nutrition”. Nutrition encompasses a myriad of factors, weight gain, getting adequate levels of nutrients, eating enough minerals and vitamins, good hudration levels, and many more factors. Each type of body needs a unique nutrition plan that goes with their lifestyle. The following article below contains tips that everyone can use.

Pregnant or lactating women need to make sure they eat a properly nutritious diet. One way to make sure those protein needs are achieved is to combine egg whites into a morning smoothie. Egg whites have a good amount of protein and other nutrients.You should choose pasteurized eggs if you don’t get salmonella.

It is wise to keep protein bars or concentrated foods ready in your bag when you are on the go. You might already know that actual meals at airports are becoming harder to find. Either you’re rushing through security, waiting for a flight, you might have noticed that there is no food. Having a meal bar on hand can help you with something to eat until you

Disposing of Cooking Oil Properly tips

Lets say you just made a great batch of hot and greasy bacon. The bacon is of course delicious but you find you are left with a pan filled of bacon fat and grease. You figure that you can just pour it down the sink, at first all goes well but in a couple hours you notice that your sink is backed up and the water is not draining down the drain properly. This is the first clue that you failed to dispose of your cooking oil properly. The reason you can not dispose of cooking oil down the drain is because of the chemical make up of the oil. oil is classified as a lipid which is water insoluble. Since water is insoluble disposing of cooking oil properly means more than just pouring it down the sink. The insoluble nature of the cooking oil will mean water is unable to rinse it down the drain because the oil and water will not mix. Lipids have another interesting characteristic that makes disposing of oil properly very important. When a lipid is heated up the hydrogen bonds will break apart causing it to turn into a liquid. Unfortunately for your water

How To Add Natural Flavor To Your Water

With the many high end gadgets around you today, it should no longer be new and surprising to you to find one innovation after another. Well, from classroom instruction materials and office technology to your own household items, you can find several advancements that have made your life way easier than before. After all, that is basically what Science is for: to enhance the quality of life.

The most common ones are normally found at home. Imagine how your living room would be without a TV to entertain you. Imagine how a bedroom would be without an air conditioner to make you feel comfortable.

Or perhaps, imagine a kitchen without an oven, a heater, or even just a water bottle to make cooking and dining a pleasurable experience. Yes, you can now find water bottles that are creatively and intelligently designed to innovate the way you quench your thirst.

One really good example is a flavor infuser water bottle.

As simple as it sounds, but having this type of water bottle can make a lot of difference to how you hydrate yourself every day. Surely, you can go on with water alone but that would get boring eventually to the point that you may

Practical Ways to Speed Up Kitchen Cooking

Time is our most valuable resource so it is only natural that we maximize each moment. Have you ever thought about the amount of time it takes to fix breakfast or dinner? Everyone enjoys home cooked goodies and healthy dishes, but surely there must be a few shortcuts that make perfect sense to home chefs. Instead of spending long hours in a kitchen preparing meals you can use these 10 practical tips to cook faster.

Save time when you need to peel those garlic cloves. You can just smash the cloves as normal and add them to a clean jar. Then shake the jar vigorously and in seconds the peels will be separated and the garlic is ready to be added to your dish.
There are lots of tasty recipes that allow you to cook pasta in the same pan as the sauce. These 1 pot ideas shave a great deal of time compared to regular pasta preparation. As a bonus there are fewer pans to wash.

It may seem very obvious but you really need to have a plan in mind before you begin cooking. If you want to speed up the cooking process you should remember that organization plays an

How to Make Desserts Organic

Fresh fruit and veggies are organic sources of meals that you can enjoy without feeling guilty when you crave something light and refreshing as desserts. Depending upon age and gender, consuming 1 to 2.5 cups of fruits per day is highly recommended for us as stated by The U.S. Department of Agriculture. An adult male requires slightly higher portions of fruit and vegetables than a young girl does. In addition, The National Cancer Society advised that everyone should consume five parts of vegetable and three parts of fruit to stay away from cancer.

Probably there is not any better dessert for organic meal lovers than natural ice cream to charm their summer time. Variation of toppings could be limitless to pour on the ice cream including frozen fruit, chocolate flakes, nuts, dried fruits, and more to enhance your summer menu. If you do not wish to spend too much time in the kitchen to make your organic desserts, then all you need to have is a special ice cream maker.

A Frost Food machine has a cold plate as its main components. It is an efficient catering equipment which bars and restaurants should have to get the competitive advantage among organic food

Simple Ways To Perfect Your Cooking Skills

You must not go to a cooking school to perfect your culinary skills. There are numerous small and easy things you can perform anytime you cook to acquire more professional results, and cook much better. Below are some tips which will improve your cooking.

Begin with excellent ingredients.

Use imported Parmigiano-Reggiano contrary to domestic parmesan as it is much better. There is no comparison between the two ingredients. Additionally, packaged crumbs and fresh homemade crumbs differ greatly from each other and using chocolate makes a big difference in a cake.

Make use of your hands.

Hands are usually very sophisticated and sensitive cooking tools. You can enhance this sense of touch by being keen on how various foods feel at varying levels of doneness. This should be so even when you check them using a knife, toothpick, or a thermometer. For instance, meat changes from being soft when raw to somewhat firm when properly done. Additionally, touch can also be used to know when a cake is well baked, a pear is ripe, and if a dough is kneaded to the right consistency.

Start using sea or kosher salt and avoid being stingy while using it.

Sea salt and kosher salt have a better flavor compared

How To Chop Ingredients

One thing that I have gotten better at since I’ve started cooking is chopping my vegetables, and cutting meat. By no means am I the best at it yet but I have improved my skills. I want to show you how to hone your knife skills and get on the road to better chopping. Like any skill cutting ingredients takes time to learn and master. Start slow so you learn at an upward curve, and so you do not harm yourself. I see professional cut themselves all the time on TV, so even the pros do it. This is why you must be very careful. With that being said, let’s get into it!

Why is this important?

Chopping food quickly is important to, pardon my pun, cut down on recipe time. Cooking can take a long time, patience, and attention. So being able to chop your vegetables quicker means more time to do other tasks and complete your recipes faster. Plus it looks really cool when you can chop up some vegetables very quickly.

Another reason you want to improve your chopping skills is to improve your dishes. Being able to cut vegetables and meat evenly means that everything will be cooked evenly.

Cooking Basics

One thing I love to do is cook. I love cooking indoors and outdoors. Around my house I am called ‘The King of Sling’. You know why because I can work with anything we have in the cabinets and refrigerator and make a tasty meal out of it. I very rarely work with a recipe. I guess I just have a feel for what it takes to make something tasty. And it rarely doesn’t come out right. So, I’m going to reveal some of my EPIC ‘secrets’.

STAPLES

First of all always keep around some basics like

Self Rising Flour
Self Rising Corn Meal
Sugar
Vegetable Oil
Olive Oil
No Stick Spray
Butter
Cheese (Get the block kind and grate it yourself. It isn’t that hard and it is so much tastier. Besides I hear that grated stuff you buy is coated with wax and sometimes wood shavings to keep it from sticking together in the bag, yuck!)
Spices (salt, black pepper, lemon pepper, granulated garlic, smoked paprika, crushed red pepper, thyme, basil, oregano. There are some great healthy blends I love also that I get from Crave Super.)
Frozen Mixed Vegetables
Sweet Potatoes
White Potatoes
Onion
Bell Pepper
Broth (Vegetable, chicken, beef.

Four Ways to Keep Your Food Safe

There is an old English saying “Food cooked with passion and served with love tastes divine.” Trust me, it is true even today! Every food enthusiast (like you and me) is well aware that the soul of any good recipe resides in the right blend of spices and fresh natural ingredients. But we might sometimes miss upon an even more important ingredient while cooking food, and which more often than not tampers with the soul of our recipe. Yes, I am talking about food safety & hygiene. One has to be very careful while handling food and maintain the highest level of hygiene and food safety in our kitchen and home.

Food contamination can occur at any stage, be it harvesting, processing, preparation, storage or transportation. Foodborne diseases are often common where low standards of hygiene are used. According to data released by World Health Organization, every year foodborne disease causes almost one in ten people to fall ill. These diseases can be deadly especially in children.

There are a few basic rules to be followed while handling food:

Clean: Wash hands and surfaces often.
Separate: Don’t cross-contaminate.
Cook: Cook to the right temperature.
Chill: Refrigerate promptly.

Clean: Wash hands and surfaces often.

One must

Eating Veggies Can Be Fun

Add veggies to main dishes and casseroles

The easy way to do this is to add ½ cup to 1 cup of chopped frozen or steamed leafy veggies like spinach to the sauce of your meatloaf, spaghetti or lasagna. No one will notice because it will look like you just added a season like parsley.

Add veggies to smoothies

A great way to get that extra boost of energy you need is to turn your fruit smoothie into a high energy vitamin pack drink. Add ½ cup to 1 cup of any chopped frozen leafy vegetable, puree avocado or vegetable juice to your smoothie. You’ll be amazed how great it still tastes with the vegetables in it.

Add veggies to side dishes

Finely chopped or grated vegetables such as broccoli or cauliflower into your mac n’ cheese so you want feel guilty eating the favorite comfort dish. Sprinkle a mixture of grated broccoli and cauliflower on a combination of seasoned roasted or mashed sweet and regular potatoes. You want believe how tasty they’ll be and that you’re enjoying eating vegetables.

Add veggies to eggs or omelets

Mixed your favorite veggies such as tomatoes, spinach, onions and mushrooms in your eggs or make an egg white veggie omelet.

3 Essential Cake Baking Tips for Amateurs

Cakes are one of the most common desserts consumed by people on most special occasions like birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, baby showers, etc. These are baked goodies that require a lot of effort along with putting in the right ingredients and following the correct procedure to finally gain the perfectly baked cake. Baking cakes at home have been an age-old tradition with recipes coming down through generations but with recent trends, people have started to opt for cakes from professionals who bake them professionally without any glitches.

While the professionals excel in baking the perfect looking cakes, they are trained in various aspects of baking and, therefore, are capable of coming up with the choicest cakes. While new and amateur bakers learn the ways to bake, here are a few tips, dos and don’ts that professionals have to pass down to them to help them attain the best quality baked goodies.

• If you have thick and tight textured cake, it is not the perfect one – Cakes are often light and fluffy after it is baked and therefore if you find the finished product to be heavy and densely packed, there are several reasons behind it. The butter and sugar weren’t mixed

A Guide of Creative Cooking

Benefits of Cooking

Just as creative writing can give you that rush, and provide you with that relief from ecstatic joy or lingering sorrow, creative cooking has its own benefits, too. Other than the obvious need to place food on the table that satiates your stomach, cooking can also be healing and therapeutic to some. Here are some of the reasons why you may want to think about creative cooking.

Mood uplifting

When threatened by looming agony, we often try to find a vent that would enable our emotions to subside, and get back to our daily chores. One such vent may be creative cooking. When trying a new dish, either purely out of your whim or by modifying a known recipe, your mind concentrates on the details. The mind, thus, for a certain amount of time is distracted from the grief or anger that it may have been holding. For as long as the dish is being prepared, your mind is so focused on its subtleties that it is given the time required for it to heal from its wounds. Often, by the time you are done with the dish, your temper cools down along with your stove.

A healthy change

No matter which

3 Things to Remember When Cooking Yourself Thin

Are you trying to slim down and get healthier? Cooking your meals puts you back in control with what you eat that will help your body lose the extra fat. But how do you know you’re cooking the right way? The more you eat from real food, the less you have to worry about portions. There are three tricks that can help make it easier. For example, do you know what you should have in every meal?

Keep a Little Fat

Our bodies need some fat to absorb the nutrients in vegetables. Choose healthy fats like olive oil and coconut oil. You don’t need a lot. A little makes vegetables taste better, and they allow the seasonings to stick to the veggies.

If you don’t want to use oil, you could consider using salad dressing that has some fat in it as well as lower fat cheese. Researchers say this study indicates that the minimum amount of fat required for optimal absorption of nutrients from vegetables is more than 6 grams of added fat. You do need to keep in mind that you are eating your veggies with other fat containing items. So when you’re calculating it out, do some research to approximate

How to Choose the Best Induction Cooktop

An induction cooktop can provide rapid heat and perfect simmering. This is because they have an electromagnetic field below the glass surface that rapidly transmits heat to the pan so that heat is well controlled. However an induction cooktop is not cheap, so you should know how to recognize the best ones. Induction elements conduct heat the fastest way possible and can require just 2 to 4 minutes to heart a pan of water. However, not all of them are built the same way and has the same features.

You have to consider certain factors when buying an induction cooktop. First of all, you should consider the number of power settings. Extra settings provide easy manipulation and the capacity to do things like simmering soup instead of increasing heat with it with thousands of watts of power and then do nothing for just a few seconds again and again.

You should also consider the coil diameter. The larger the diameter is, the better, so that it would be able to match the burner size with the back diameters of most pans. You should bear in mind that the circular hotspot will probably be about 1/2 the diameter of the coil diameter.

The induction

3 Additions to Lentil Soups to Beat the Heat

The season of the strong, hot, scorching sun is upon us again, and while in some parts of the world it might be a relief, for others it is a season of health issues due to high dehydrating factors in the environment. Luckily, in the Indian subcontinent, our ancestors had discovered important uses of certain vegetables that can help our body fight the long and hard summer.

A staple food item on the Indian palate is the age-old lentil soup. Easy to prepare, needs very less ingredients, and easier to digest when compared to other protein-based dishes, this dish has always been a hit in any kind of Indian household. But what makes a common lentil soup ready to fight the sultry summer? Here are a few quick tips that would make this soup a hit at a summer lunch table, and also provide a welcome change to your taste buds.

Addition I: Bottle Gourd

Also called lauki in Hindi, this vegetable is an excellent coolant, and is known to significantly lower the body temperature. Of course, you can make a standard stir-fry vegetable dish out of this item, but to make your life simpler in a hot day’s cooking, you may simply

Food Safety in the Home Kitchen

Understanding and properly following food safety guidelines is an important part of cooking. No one wants to make their guests or customers sick, and it can almost always be avoided in the first place if you follow a few guidelines. But what exactly is a food borne illness?

Food borne illness is what occurs when food becomes contaminated. There are three different types of food contamination. Biological contamination (such as bacteria,viruses,and mold), Physical contamination, (such as hair, bits of plastic from packaging etc.) and Chemical contamination (such as from cleaning products, or toxins leached from metals.)

The most common type of food contamination that makes people sick is biological food contamination, which happens when bacteria etc, grow to a point where it is dangerous to ingest. This type of contamination can also come from dirty hands, improperly cleaned cooking surfaces and dirty tools and utensils. Bacteria, viruses, molds etc, all thrive especially well on certain perishable foods such as,raw meats and seafood, dairy products, cooked vegetables and tofu. Which is why it is so important to properly store and cook foods, to limit the amount of bacteria etc, that can grow on them.

So how do you avoid contaminating your food? Time and