Is preparing food for the rest of your family a pain? Don’t let cooking exasperate you! Here you will find some excellent cooking ideas that will help you remove the stresses of not knowing where to begin. Make mealtime a source of enjoyment, not exasperation.
If your hands start to smell like the fish or onions that you are cooking, take a moment to rub them against a stainless steel surface before you wash them. You can use your stainless steel sink or a spoon to quickly remove the odor from your hands.
If you are cooking and you need to add some oil to the pan, drip it down the inside so that it will be a little warm when it hits the food. This will enhance the flavors of the food when you’re done cooking.
Do you often throw away moldy fruits and feel bad about it? Have you ever wondered if you could simply cut away the part with mold and keep the rest? It is unfortunate, but it is not safe to save fruit that is partly rotted. In fact it is best to throw away the fruit. Mold can grow much deeper than the eye can see, and eating it could potentially make you very ill.
Have you ever experienced difficulty judging the time your meat should be grilled? Make sure you use quality meat thermometers to ascertain the internal temperature. For meat that is more than 1.5 inches thick, close the lid of the grill to decrease the amount of time that the meat takes to cook.
Use airtight containers to store all of your spices, seasonings and fresh ingredients. Keeping food fresh and bug-free is simple with these containers. Thankfully, you can grab some affordable, quality airtight containers practically anywhere.
For a delicious take on pie crusts, bake them for longer than the recipe calls for. Judge their color, not the time in the oven to determine if they are done. They will be golden brown when cooked. This golden color means that the sugar used in the crust has caramelized, giving the crust a crisp and sweet flavor.
To add another dimension to homemade pasta sauce, use a little leftover pasta water. Reserve a small quarter cup portion of the water you cook the pasta in after you cook it. When you are getting ready to mix the pasta and sauce together, pour in some of the water. The pasta water’s starch adds a “creaminess” to the sauce via amalgamation.
If you are preparing a salad which will not be served until later, exercise good judgment as you layer the ingredients. Place the juiciest ingredients, such as tomatoes, on the bottom of the bowl, and settle the lettuce or other ingredients that are prone to wilting or sogginess on the top.
If you are cooking with a certain type of fruit or vegetable for the first time, do some research before using it. You may find that your research leads to many great new ways to use the food. Becoming knowledgeable should precede any work you do in the kitchen, and it will also help in giving you a more enjoyable cooking experience.
Every six months to one year, replace spices that have grown dull. If spices are kept open for too long a time, they will eventually lose their flavor. So, make sure that when you buy new spices go ahead and give half to either a friend or family member if you feel you aren’t going to use all of it soon.
Cooking for an entire family can be overwhelming. Thankfully, there are plenty of things you can do to help simplify the meal making process. Don’t worry about cooking your next meal.