Some people are irritated by cooking, thinking of it as nothing more than a chore. In this article there are suggestions and tips that will help make cooking an enjoyable part of your day.
If you are cooking a meal for someone you want to impress, stick with something you are already familiar with. Don’t attempt a dish that is new or very far out of your experience level. This is a recipe for a stressful time in the kitchen.
Cooks need to keep cooking supplies organized. If you are disorganized, you won’t know where to find the cheese grater or the spatula when you need them. Put like items with other like items. For example, keep all of your spices in one cabinet. You can even organize them further by grouping them according to color, flavor, type or any other effective method.
Sometimes when someone’s grilling a hamburger, it will get stuck to the grill which makes it difficult to get off the grill. Try brushing the grill using vegetable oil prior to cooking so you can avoid sticking.
We all enjoy new ways to prepare oysters. Oysters, while typically eaten raw with lemon juice, have many other methods of preparation. Put opened oysters on the shell in your broiler pan and cover with some cream. Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese and grated pepper, then boil until bubbling. Another method is to saute oysters. Coat them with seasoned flour and saute them in warm butter for about two minutes, until the oysters are golden. Another way is to keep the oysters in their shell and bake. Place in a casserole dish, put a dab of butter and fresh breadcrumbs over each oyster, and bake at 425 degrees for four to five minutes. Whenever the butter begins to bubble, you are ready to serve them along side some toasted bread.
Prep work can be done way ahead of time. This is why it’s called prep work, because this is what you want to have done before you begin cooking. Sometimes even when the prep work is done, the deadline for when the meal must be completed can still loom large and become stressful. By doing all of your preparation in advance, you avoid the stress and just enjoy your meal.
It is extremely important that your knives are always sharp. Dull knives not only make it difficult to cut foods with, but dull knives are considered dangerous to use also. A cut is more likely when you push down hard on a dull knife that when you cut easily with a sharp one.
You can make dried tomatoes yourself. Start by slicing a ripe tomato one-half inch thick, or you can cut Roma tomatoes in half lengthwise. Put the tomato on a rack and rub them with salt. Put a cookie sheet under the rack and place in the oven for ten hours at 190 degrees. Keep the tomatoes fresh by storing them in freezer bags. You can also store them in jars packed with herbs and olive oil. This will be good for up to two weeks, and should be refrigerated during that time.
Freeze sauces by pouring leftovers into ice cube trays. This will make reheating the sauce easy, as you can pull out as many cubes that you need for the next meal. Freezing the sauce in this manner will keep it fresh and ready to be reheated.
As indicated by the above article, you can make cooking less objectionable and more appealing in a variety of ways. Following these tips will help you engage creatively in an activity that could otherwise be boring or unpleasant.