Cooking is a necessary skill whether you live alone or need to feed a large family. There are many rewards you receive from cooking, which include better health, improved social skills and saving money. These tips can give you cooking information from top to bottom.
If you are trying to measure a sticky substance, cooking oil can help. Before you even measure, add a little cooking oil to the spoon, such as canola, and the thing being measured will fall off the spoon easier, so that way you won't have any waste and cleaning up is easier. This works for honey and peanut butter too.
If you want your dishes to be more flavorful, try preparing your own stock. You can make this in large batches, and freeze some for later use in resealable freezer bags. By doing this, you'll always have homemade stock available whenever you are in the mood to cook soup. Preparing your own stock in advance will reduce your need to use cheap over-salted options instead.
Dark leafy greens can be considered a pain to prepare, but they are very healthy. The tough stems just don't want to come off. Make it easy by folding the leaf lengthwise in half and then break out the stem. You will otherwise need to cut out the stems of the folded leaves with a knife. Either way you do it, when the leaf is unfolded, you are left with a green with no stem.
Use air tight containers to store baking mixes, flour and sugar. Store spices, seasonings and ingredients in airtight containers to avoid exposure to light, heat and humidity. These are carried in many stores and make a wise investment.
Use a cooling rack that is stackable. It is possible for cooling cookies to take up a lot of space when you are making a big batch of these tasty treats. To make the most efficient use of space, use stackable cooling racks. Using vertical space will allow you to have open space in your kitchen while the cookies are cooling.
A meat thermometer should be used to ensure that meat is being cooked properly. Follow the recommended guidelines for the correct internal temperature for each kind of meat. There is a lot of bacteria that lives on meat, so cooking it to a high enough temperature to kill it off is important to avoid food borne illnesses.
People who enjoy cooking fish should attempt to catch fish on their own to cook if they have enough time to do so. If one catches and cooks their own fish the same day, it tastes fresh and it provides food for that person.
As you cook, try to wash your dishes along the way. Fill your sink with hot water and soap on one side and clean water to rinse your dishes on the other. Just after use is the best time to wash up bowls and utensils. So clean as you go and you will always be ready with your next part of food preparation.
If you have sauce left over after a meal, store the remainder in one or more ice cube trays and let it freeze. When you do this, making a quick meal can be accomplished by simply reheating by using a saute pan. The frozen sauce will keep extremely well until the next time you need it!
In recipes that call for milk or water, try substituting more flavorful liquids. For instance, you can use broth, stock, juice or a bit of wine to replace the water in a recipe. To replace milk, yogurt, sour cream and buttermilk can make good substitutes. Substituting the liquid in a dish can add nutrient content, flavor or both.
Try making your own dried tomatoes. Cut Romas tomatoes in lengthwise halves, or slice ripe regular tomatoes into half inch slices for drying. Put the tomatoes, cut-side up, onto a cooling rack and give them a light salting. Put a cookie sheet underneath the cooling rack and then set the pair in an oven heated to 190 degrees. Leave for as many as ten hours. The tomatoes can then be placed in plastic bags and stored in the freezer. Alternatively, dried tomatoes can be packed in a jar filled with olive oil and fresh herbs. The tomatoes will need to be refrigerated and should be consumed within a couple of weeks.
When you are making fresh salsa that will not be consumed within 20 minutes, be sure to wash the diced onions under cold water, followed by blotting to dry completely. Chopping raw onions releases sulfurous gases. This gas can ruin your fresh salsa. By running cold water over the raw onions, the gas is removed.
If you are baking crusts for a pie or tart, you will probably need to bake them for a while longer than you thought. They should be golden caramel in color instead of pale blonde. The crust changes to the caramel color only after the sugar has had time to caramelize. This will give the crust the sweet flavor you want.
After your Thanksgiving meal, don't throw away turkey leftovers. Instead, slice up the remaining meat, put it in a plastic freezer bag or airtight container, and store it in your freezer. Doing this will keep the meat fresh for longer, allowing you to use it in many different ways.
Cooling racks that stack can prove invaluable when you are baking. When baking a large batch of cookies or other baked goods, the cooling baked goods can take over your entire work area. Stacking cooling racks keep all of your finished batches confined to one small space. Using stacking cooling racks enable you to allow your baked goods to cool without sacrificing counter space.
Rubbing stainless steel on your hands before you wash them can get rid of odors such as onions, fish and other strong ingredients. It doesn't matter whether you use a spoon, one of your sink's corners, or a stainless-steel soap bar. Performing this particular action will eliminate the odor and freshen your hands.
Whenever possible, try to eliminate excess fat from your stews and soups. You can remove excess fat from soups and stews by skimming it off the top of cooled dishes. Place a cube of ice in a spoon and rub it across the liquid's surface. The fat will stick to the ice cube. You can also blot up the fat with a paper towel.
To circumvent a greasy mess when reheating a leftover meal that contains oil, place the meal in your oven it and bake it instead of reheating in the microwave. Microwaves use very high heat to cook food, which causes the faster-heating oil to detach from the rest of the dish. Baking will allow the entire dish to heat at the same time and keep all of the ingredients cohesive.
This way, your fruit will last for a longer period time. You'll also be able to enjoy fruits out of season when the mood strikes you.
Incorporate the preceding tips into your meal preparation. Once you try some of these tips, you will believe that perhaps cooking is not so difficult after all. Cooking may well become something that you enjoy and look forward to. Before long, you could be experimenting with all kinds of new recipes! Give cooking a shot!
