Cooking Tips

Julaine's Miscellany

Making Yogurt

I love making my own yogurt.

Here is one of the yogurt making recipes I used when learning how, as I found it very descriptive.

The key is understanding how to heat milk.

  • Rinse a saucepan quickly with cold water before pouring in milk to prevent it from sticking.
  • To stop milk from overflowing during heating, simply put a metal teaspoon or a saucer at the bottom of the pan.
  • Keep your eye on the milk, do not let it boil as it will quickly overfill the pot.

Tomato Paste

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Most recipes call for only a small portion of tomato paste -- you use a tablespoon or two, and the rest invariably goes to waste. To save the remainder: Carefully open both ends of the can with a can opener. Remove one metal end, and discard it. Leave the other in place. Wrap the entire can in plastic wrap, and freeze overnight. The next day, use the metal end to push the frozen paste out the open end. Discard can, tightly rewrap unused portion, and store in freezer up to 3 months, slicing off just as much as you need each time you cook.

Brownie Mix Tip

Add 3 or 4 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder to dry ingredients of packaged brownie mix. Helps to cut down on the super-sweet taste.

Peeling Eggs

Roll the hard-boiled egg on the countertop to make hairline cracks. Run the egg under cold water, and gently pull off the shell starting at the large end of the egg.

Best Way to Wash Vegetables

Use baking soda - it reacts with the two most common pesticides.
Soak for 8 minutes.

Nuts

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Here is some information on the nutritional value of nuts.

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Other Information

You can pickle pretty much anything with a 3:2:1 mix of vinegar-water-sugar. If it can’t be pickled, it can usually be frozen.

Why not use the leftover vegetables from your Sunday roast to make pakoras? Any vegetable you have is fine. Thinly slice, add chopped onion, ginger, garlic, whatever spices you like and chickpea flour (about one-fifth of the total), make into balls in your hand, then deep-fry until crispy.

Potato peelings can be dried out to make flavoured salt.

We dry vegetable peelings to make into flavoured salts which we use to season vegetables. It’s really easy: put the peelings on a rack in a really low-temperature oven – a lot of modern ovens have a 50C degree setting – leave for three hours, blend in a processor and mix through sea salt.

Mint

Make peppermint syrup by simmering a handful of leaves in equal parts sugar and water. Drizzle on fruit or in cocktails.

Chocolate mint works great showered over creamy desserts or as a topping for hot chocolate.

Ginger mint works well in grain salads.

Microwave Herb Drying

Rinse freshly picked leaves (remove the stems) and air dry.

Spread 2 cups of leaves in a single layer on a bed of paper towels in the microwave. Microwave on high for 4-6 minutes (drying time varies). Cool the leaves completely before storing in an air-tight container out of direct sunlight.

Healthy Mind Foods

The MIND diet has 15 dietary components, including 10 “brain-healthy food groups:”
  • Green leafy vegetables
  • Other vegetables
  • Nuts
  • Berries
  • Beans
  • Whole grains
  • Fish
  • Poultry
  • Olive oil
  • Wine 
The five unhealthy groups are:  
  • Red meats
  • Butter and stick margarine
  • Cheese
  • Pastries and sweets
  • Fried or fast food

Chuck Meats

Chunks of meat are used as an ingredient for a dish containing stewed meat and vegetables. Fresh stew meat is usually taken from the tougher cuts of beef, pork, or lamb because the stewing process tenderizes the meat. The chunks or cubes are usually bite-size, but they can be smaller or larger depending on the recipe or personal preference. The best beef stew meat is from the chuck because it is very flavorful (source).

Chuck meat is the shoulder area. Knowing this, I would like to find an alternative for my stew, "stew -beef".

Just to let you know, this page was last updated Thursday, Nov 21 24