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Posts Tagged ‘crock pots’

There can not be many people who do not like food, but the human race, being what it is, I suppose there are a few. For the rest of us, food is a source of daily pleasure and, like drink, it is often used to mark a celebration. not only that, but different foodstuffs are used for the different meals or distinct occasions.

Celebratory meals were unquestionably planned around the seasonal foods available, but some foods were transported great distances for the benefit of those who could afford them. For instance, my Dad thought it was a great treat to get an orange in his stocking on Christmas Day 60 years ago. How times have altered, very few children would think an orange a present, special or otherwise, any day of the year nowadays.

Nevertheless, the storage of food is still a daily job and so, I have listed a few top tips on storing food below, so that you will get the best from what you have bought or grown long afterward.

The Smells Of Summer: the smell of fresh garden herbs are one of the joys of Summer. You can preserve many of these herbs in the following way. Take a suitably sized glass bottle and cram your favourite herb into it until you can get not get even one more leaf in. Then fill it to the top with your favourite oil olive oil (salad oil, not cooking oil). Leave it in the strong sunlight for two days if you are using basil or two weeks for tarragon. Allow the water to separate from the oil and pour the oil off into another bottle. Just one or two drops of this oil on a salad or spaghetti will bring back Summer memoirs.

Bin Ends: sometimes, after a party for example, you may wake up to several small quantities of wine in different bottles. Of course, you can pour like wines into each other. When you are done, pour a teaspoon of olive oil into each bottle. This will create an air proof barrier over the wine thereby preserving the wine for another week or two to accompany your favourite dinners – in the cooking process naturally.

Storing Garlic: cloves of peeled garlic will keep for months if you stuff them into a screw-topped jar and cover them with olive oil. As you use the garlic, top up with more olive oil. The oil will absorb some of the flavour of the garlic and make a fabulous (basis for a) salad dressing. If you have used tinned garlic, the rest can be preserved in the same way, but you should rinse and dry them first.

Saving Tomato Paste: if you think that you will not be able to use up the left over half a tin or tube of tomato paste quickly, you can put it into the ice cube tray and freeze it into blocks until you are ready to use it.

Parsley Crumble: keep bunches of parsley in the deep freeze. Then, when you require it, you can just crumple the head of the bunch in your hand directly over the pot or plate where you require it and put it back in the freezer. The stalks can be used in the stock pot. in fact, this technique works for all herbs.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching the crock pots by Rival. If you have an interest in cooking or crock pots, please go over to our website now at Large Crock Pots

When the weather outside heats up, the kitchen can be a terrible place to be. There are many things you can do however, when it comes to cooking a nice home made meal that does not necessitate traditional stove top or oven cooking.

Learn to utilize some of the less heat-creating equipment in your kitchen, such as the crock pot, in order to truly overcome the summer heat and keep your cool while cooking a nice hot meal for friends and family.

So, how does crock pot cooking actually help beat the heat? Simply put, the crock pot in and of itself gives off far less heat when cooking than an oven or stove top. This is the first and possibly the best reason to utilize the crock pot in your summer meal planning.

You should also consider the fact that by not heating the house by using your stove top or oven you are also lessening the load on your air conditioning (or other cooling methods) so you are not obligating it to work overtime in order to compensate for the extra heat that other cooking methods introduce.

This makes crock pot cooking a win-win situation as the costs involved in operating a crock pot are far less than the expenditure involved in operating a stove or oven. Whether electric or gas, your stove and oven are serious energy users. Add to that the fact that you are not increasing the temperature in your home by traditional means of cooking and you are using even less electricity.

Regrettably, the general consensus has been that crock pots are meant for comfort foods and hearty winter meals. The truth is that the crock pot should be one of your best loved and most often utilized cooking techniques. When it comes to cooking with a crock pot, the options are almost limitless. Almost anything that can be baked can be made in the crock pot and many, many more wonderful and tempting meals and treats as well.

Benefits of Crock Pot Cooking

In addition to the cost advantages written above, when it comes to crock pot cooking there are many other advantages that are worth mentioning. First of all, the bulk of the work involved in crock pot cooking takes place early in the day when you are fresh rather than at the end of a hectic work or play day.

This means that you are less likely to forget an ingredient or make some other slip-up, which can undoubtedly happen when trying to cook after a hectic day.

Second, many great crock pot recipes include the vegetables that ensure that we get the nutrients we require. So often, when preparing a meal at the last minute, vegetables and other side dishes are left out for the sake of expedience. Crock pot cooking, on the other hand, is a meal in one pot.

Another good reason to use a crock pot for your summertime cooking is the simplicity of washing up. Unlike conventional cooking with several pots and pans, most crock pot meals are completed in one pot. This clearly reduces the hardware needed to be washed up or loaded into the dishwasher (or if you are the same as me – both) afterwards.

So, you spend less time cleaning up, just as you spent less time slaving over a hot stove. Well, make that no time slaving over a hot stove and once the washing up is done, you can get back to enjoying the sun set, mucking about with with the dog or kids, or just waiting for the first stars.

While there will never be a method of cooking that suits everyone, crock pot cooking comes pretty close. So, if you have a crock pot collecting dust somewhere in the back of your cupboard it is time to get it out, dust if off, and dig up some great summertime crock pot cooking recipes.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with the 2 quart crock pot. If you have an interest in cooking or crock pots, please go over to our website now at Large Crock Pots

Whether you are sincerely looking for chances to explore new cultures or you are Jewish seeking interesting recipes and cooking tips, you have come to the right place to get some of the essentials. For as long as there have been family traditions, eating good food at special events and during festive times has been a part of the merriment.

Regrettably, that appetizing food cannot be eaten unless someone goes to the trouble of actually preparing it. If you are looking for some delicious treats to do with the Hanukkah celebrations or just want to get a taste of what other cultures do during their religious or cultural celebrations there are a lot of great foods you could be cooking for this particular holiday.

Oil is important in the celebration of Hanukkah and, as a consequence, many of the foods that are to do with Hanukkah traditions are cooked in oil. One well-liked favorite is Latkes, which are a type of potato pancake that is deep-fried. Another general favorite is fried lamb chops. The lamb is breaded and then fried much the same as many Americans fry chicken. Once again oil is used in the preparation of the meal.

If you are looking for something more like finger food or a snack, you might consider deep-fried ricotta balls, fried zucchini, fried onion rings and fried mozzarella are appetizing savory fried tid-bits for the season of light. Of course, fried food is not the only thing that is eaten during this 8-day celebration, but it does play a vital part in the menu and in the celebrations.

Even the sweet treats for this festival include a few fried bits and pieces. There are apple fritters and raspberry dough nuts and lots of other luscious fried foods for you to snack on. If you like something a little wicked to enjoy during this enjoyable celebration you might like to try blintzes in your favorite flavor. There are many to pick from and their recipes can be found easily online.

If you would like to include something a little healthier in your cuisine, then you might like to include an Israeli salad, stewed white beans, and baked eggplant and peppers. These dishes provide the opportunity to have something that is not either fried or sweet to help weight watchers, who always have a problem during festive seasons no matter which religion they observe.

Other Hanukkah favorites include delectable dishes such as cheese gelt coins, loukoumades, vegetable kugel, and brisket. Once again the recipes for these dishes are fairly widely available online and in books on Jewish cooking and traditions.

To make things go a little more efficiently prepare as much food as possible well ahead and store items away quickly in order to stop them going stale. Enlist the help of children and other family members when required to move things along by taking turns preparing food.

You should also make an effort to keep the preparations as straightforward as possible to avoid delays and stress. This is a time of the year that is meant to be committed to celebration not to trying to cook tons of food. The good news is that with all that deep fried food, it is unlikely that you will find these dishes too difficult to prepare. Good luck and have fun exploring the world of cooking for Hanukkah.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with the 2 quart crock pot. If you have an interest in cooking or crock pots, please go over to our website now at Large Crock Pots

In these times of superior alertness of the shortages in the world and the recent economic problems in the whole world, but especially in the wealthy Western countries, which are the powerhouses of most Third World countries’ expansion, people are more aware of waste. It is a sin again to waste food, like it was 50 years ago.

This can only be a good thing although it is a disgrace that it took an international financial crisis to make us recall the lesson. These days, waste of any kind is greeted with public censure and so it is at home too. Most people spend a very high proportion of their outgoings on food and so anyone who wants to cut back, has to first look to this quarter to make a saving.

However, saving does not inevitably mean ‘not buying’, it can and should mean ‘not throwing away’. In other words, prepare your food and do not let your food go off. Preparation and storage are the key words. With that thought in mind, here are a few of my tips for preparing and storing food correctly.

Bread – tons of bread is thrown away every day, because it has gone stale or mouldy and yet it is totally needless. Store your bread in the deep freezer and not in the bread bin. A whole loaf will slice frozen with the proper knife and sliced bread will come away slice by slice. There is no need to defrost as it only takes a minute or two at room temperature.

Bananas – most people understand that banana skins go black if kept in the fridge, but most people do not know that bananas can be frozen solid. Yes, the skins will still turn black, but the fruit will be undamaged.

Cake – to stop cake from going stale, store it in a tin with an apple. The moisture in the apple will stop the cake from going hard.

Watercress – to prevent watercress from wilting, store it upside down in water, that is stalks up.

Salt – salt often gets damp, especially if stored in a steamy kitchen without sufficient ventilation, but you do not have to worry about that if you put two or three grains of rice in the salt cellar. They will soak up the moisture before the salt.

Cereal – prevent cereal from going soft by resealing the bag with a few clothes pegs. Your cereal will last weeks more.

Jam – boiling jam makes a scum which has to be skimmed off and thrown away. This wastes jam, goodness and flavour. However, if you whisk a knob of butter into the mixture at the last moment the scum will not appear, saving time and goodness.

Funnel – you always seem to need a funnel when you do not have one. Then you promise to get a funnel for the next time. Do not bother. Just cut the top nine inches off a plastic bottle of cola. It makes an excellent throw-away funnel. Some of the larger bottles even have a handle on them which is even better.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with researching the programmable crock pot. If you have an interest in cooking or crock pots, please go over to our website now at Large Crock Pots

There are few festivities celebrated around the world on the same fantastic scale that the Chinese New Year is enjoyed. This is an event that affects people all around the world. The celebrations are quite exotic and a lot of fun for everyone involved. One thing that many outsiders may not realize is that the majority of the aspects of the Chinese New Year celebrations have a very specific purpose and meaning. Even the food.

Whether you are Chinese are not, I ‘m certain that you could use a degree of good luck to make things run a little more smoothly in your life.

When it comes to cooking for a Chinese New Year celebration there are a few things you should bear in mind. The foodstuffs that are cooked each have their very own significance and a definite reason for being cooked.

Dumplings are believed to bring wealth in the New Year to those who eat them on this particular day. Of course, wealth is something that most people want to have and there are many means of doing so. Other foods that symbolize the attainment of wealth on the Chinese New Year are bamboo shoots, black moss seaweed, egg rolls, and oranges. This is just the start of the lesson in the symbolic nature of food for the Chinese New Year.

Longevity or long life is something else that the Chinese famously long for. Eternal youth some may term it. The secret, they say, to a long life is the consumption of the right food as part of the New Year celebrations. Those foodstuffs include: noodles, Chinese garlic, chives, and peanuts.

Success is attributed to foods such as lettuce, whole fish, and pomelo. In addition to success whole fish and pomelo are believed to bring abundance and togetherness (as in marriage or romance) during the coming year.

Chicken is the main course if happiness is the goal. In addition, chicken is associated with marriage, particularly when served with foods, which are considered to be dragon foods, such as lobster.

Those wanting children in the near future should add eggs, seeds (such as watermelon seeds) and pomelo – above all the last two, if you want a couple of children.

To end with, if good luck is what you most require, try to add a tangerine or some seaweed to your plate on this special day. If your run of luck has been really very bad recently, you may want to double up on your serving of both.

The Internet contains loads of delicious recipes to help you commemorate the Chinese New Year as traditionally as you can. Recipes for foods such as Jiaozi (Chinese noodles) and egg rolls are to be found online and they will go some way towards creating the right atmosphere. Add a few lettuce wraps and longevity noodles and you will have a good starting point for a Chinese New Year meal.

The only other thing you require then to make your Chinese New Year celebrations go with a bang (quite literally) is fireworks. The Chinese New Year would not be the same without them, so choose your food well, either buy it or cook it (or both) and then let off your fireworks safely for a great winters evening’s entertainment.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with the programmable crock pot. If you have an interest in cooking or crock pots, please go over to our website now at Large Crock Pots