Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Have Fun In The Kitchen With These Simple Tips

Don't think of cooking as a chore that must be done. Think of it as a fun, exciting hobby. If someone has the right information, they will be able to cook even the most complicated of dishes. Some quality information is available in this article. It is easy to keep your cooked pancakes and waffles warm while you finish cooking the batch. Warm the oven so that it reaches 300 degrees. As you make your batches of pancakes, put the finished ones in the oven so that they stay warm. When you are having an important person over for dinner, prepare a meal that you are experienced with. Don't try to create a new dish when you're not experienced in cooking it already. Making a meal you are confident will taste good can make the night more enjoyable. Fruit tastes great when cooked on a grill. Try grilling melons, peaches or even apple chunks. Use a skewer to thread them. Grill on a clean grill until grill marks appear. There are a lot of different ways to serve grilled fruit. For example, try ice cream and pound cake. Always follow the recipe, even going so far as to select the potatoes specified. Types of potatoes include waxy, mealy and all-purpose. Mealy potatoes have a dry, crumbly texture and are perfect for mashing. Russet potatoes are common mealy potatoes. For a popular all-purpose potato, there is Yukon gold. Waxy potatoes hold their shape very well and are suitable for boiling or steaming. The most prevelant waxy potato varieties are red or regular white potatoes. To avoid missing the sound, use another timer, such as a watch. Watches have timers, so do today's cell phones, televisions, etc. There are plenty of timely options here, pun intended. If you are including raw onions in a salsa that you aren't going to be serving right away, use cold water and a paper towel to rinse and blot the onions. Sulfurous gas is a property of fresh onions. Sulfurous gas is not good for salsa. Rinsing the onions allows the gas to be removed. In your journey to cook more meals yourself, utilize the library or local bookstore in acquiring cookbooks. Target simple books with simple recipes that make you comfortable. Work your way through a few different recipes, but do not allow yourself to become discouraged during the learning process. You should discard your spices biannually and buy new ones. Often, spices that have sat upon the shelf for a long period of time lose their pungency. If you buy a certain spice and you know that you are not going to use it all before it goes bad, give half to a friend or family member. Try adding cauliflower to your mashed potatoes to lower the fat content. Cauliflower's neutral taste means that it blends easily with the flavor of the potatoes, butter and milk. When they're mashed, cauliflowers have the same appearance and consistency as potatoes, too. Adding a little cauliflower can take calories out of your favorite mashed potato recipes and add in a little vegetable goodness, too. There is more to cooking than just laying out the food on your table. It can also be very fun. You might make a few mistakes, but if you apply the information laid out here, mistakes won't happen as often. These tips, used in a kitchen, can help you become successful in cooking.