Cooking

Cooking Tips

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Have you been frustrated by cracks in the top of your cheesecakes? Would you like tips to make flaky biscuits? Or would you just like to know a bit more about sweet potatoes? Try these cooking tips from the Good Cooking Central website today for better results in your kitchen endeavors:

BISCUIT TIPS:

If you want biscuits that are crispy on the outside and flaky on the inside, you roll the dough thinly and fold it over once before cutting out the biscuits. They will then split open easily when you’re ready to butter them.

To re- heat biscuits, put them in a well-dampened paper bag. Twist the bag closed and put in a 300 oven for several minutes or until warm.

For soft-sided biscuits, bake them in a pan with sides and put the biscuits close together. For crusty biscuits, bake them on a cookie sheet and separate them from each other.

PREVENTING CHEESECAKE CRACKS:

Grease the sides of the pan before adding batter. The surface will not stick to the sides of the pan and crack when the cheesecake starts shrinking as it cools.

Run a knife or a metal spatula around the edges of the pan immediately after removing the cheesecake from the oven.

Drastic temperature changes can also cause a cheesecake to crack. Avoid putting a warm cheesecake from the oven into the refrigerator.

To disguise cracks, top the cheesecake with fruit or some other topping.

SOUR MILK:

Since sour milk is not really sold in the grocery stores, when a recipe calls for sour milk, simply add 1 TBSP. of vinegar or lemon juice to regular milk. You can also use buttermilk to replace the sour milk called for in a recipes.

BAKING POWDER:

If you use too much baking powder in a recipe it will produce a product with a coarse grain, and will cause the product to eventually fall. If you use too little baking powder, the product will not rise enough and be heavy.

Baking powder tends to lose its strength over time and should be kept in a tightly covered container. Moisture will cause the baking powder to deteriorate faster.

When increasing the amount of eggs in a recipe, decrease the baking powder by 1/2 teaspoon for each extra egg added.

CUTTING FAT WITH APPLESAUCE:

To reduce the fat content in your baking recipes, substitute applesauce for half of the amount of vegetable oil called for in the recipe. Using all applesauce produces a low-calorie, moist product.

ADJUST TEMPERATURE FOR DIFFERENT PANS:

Keep in mind that the type of pan you use when baking can determine the outcome of your finished product. For glass pans, turn down baking temperature by 25?. If you substitute a shallow pan, reduce the overall baking time by one quarter. If you use a deeper pan than suggested in the recipe, increase the overall baking time by one quarter.

ALTERNATIVES TO COOKING WITH BUTTER:

When browning or sauting onions, hamburger, etc., replace the butter by spraying your skillet with non-stick spray or use chicken or beef broth instead.

How to Cook a Sweet Potato with Complete Ease

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If you are in the market to find out how you can cook a sweet potato, then you will be glad to know that you can now find the best of ways via which you can become the ultimate chef. Thankfully, there are a host of options available that are able to focus on knowing which are the best of ways via which you can cook a sweet potato for those that want it.

One of the characteristic features of a sweet potato is that it can become remotely easy to find out which are the best of ways these delicacies can be cooked with complete ease. There are a host of these available in the market, each recipe being designed to help you find out how to cook a sweet potato in the easiest fashion.

There are a number of variations via which you can find out how to cook a sweet potato and then figure out which are the right ways via which you can give your recipe the ultimate advantage. Most chefs today believe that finding out how to cook a sweet potato is one of the key advantages and features via which you can get the best results in the kitchen.

The first step that you need to do in finding out how you can cook a sweet potato is by ensuring a means via which you can get the recipe to work according to your flavors. Once you are able to do so, you will be able to ensure a means that only you will be able to ensure.

What needs to be remembered in this fashion is that when it comes to knowing how to cook a sweet potato, there are a number of recipe books around that will know which are the best ones to work to your advantage. If you are keen about learning which are the best in the series to ensure you have the upper advantage on sweet potato recipes, you will then finally be able to master the art of preparation in the kitchen for any sweet potato recipe on the planet.

While it may not be applicable to know which are the best ones around, it has become imperative that you find out which are the best ones that will work perfectly to your advantage. There are a host of potato and sweet potato preparations available to choose from and once you have mastered the art of cooking a sweet potato, you will be glad to know that you shall also become the ultimate chef of your domain. If you have any questions on cooking a sweet potato, you will be glad to know that you can now find the best of ways to get all your answers on the web at the best recipe sites online.

How to Cook Pork Shoulder Its All In The Rub

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Fall, Football and BBQ at the tail gate or on the patio; how can it get better than this?

Pork Shoulder is a great choice for a main fare feature at your next gathering and it has two great advantages. First, it is easy to prepare and second, you can feed a group for somewhere south of three dollars a pound. The pork shoulder is the front leg of the pig and comes in two different cuts. I like the butt cut, which is the top side of the leg and has less bone in it than what is called the picnic cut. The one we recently prepared was a six and a half pound roast, which served twelve people, with some left over.

Most pork shoulder recipes call for using a smoker, which is the key to cooking a pork shoulder, mainly because it is an indirect heat source and allows for a long slow cooking process. Dont have a smoker? No problem, neither do we. Just remember that the process requires indirect heat. Here are the keys to grilling a pork shoulder, using a three burner gas grill.

It starts with the rub. In a small bowl mix the following ingredients:
cup organic paprika
2 Tbs Salt
2 Tbs Pepper
2 Tbs organic cumin
2 Tbs organic garlic powder
2 Tbs. chile powder
3 Tbs brown sugar

Coat the pork shoulder with the rub. Be liberal. A 6 8 lb. roast should use the entire rub mix. By the way, dont cut off any of the fat on the roast. The butt cut usually has one side with a layer of fat and you want it. Once you have the roast well coated with the rub, put it in the refrigerator and let it set. Overnight works best, but if time does not permit, at least give it a couple of hours.

Using a three burner grill works great. You will need an aluminum pan, a raised rack and some foil. Follow these steps:
Turn the two outside burners on at low heat.
Place the pan, with the rack directly over it, on the middle burner.
Put your pork shoulder on the rack, fat side up.
Close the lid.

Dont open the lid for three hours. No peeking! At the end of three hours check the internal temperature of the roast. If its in the 130 140 range you are right on track and your roast should look like its done, but its not. Next, cover the roast with a tent of foil, reduce the heat to one burner and close the lib. In about 2 -3 more hours you should have a pork shoulder ready to serve at an internal temp of 185 degrees.

Enjoy!

How to Prepare Kenya Bagia za Dengu Recipe

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Home style Bagia za dengu recipe is wonderful as a main dish, and perfect as a side dish for your favorite vegetable, meat, poultry, or seafood entre. Bagia za dengu is plentiful throughout the year, Have you ever tasted Bagia za Dengu? This site will teach you how to prepare dengu bagias and make money out of this recipe. INGREDIENTS TO MAKE BAGIA WA DENGU

1 cup Chick pea flour ( Unga wa dengu)

tsp curry powder

cup onions (finely chopped)

tsp garlic (crushed in a pistol)

1 tsp hot pepper (Chopped)

cup red pepper or sweet pepper or bell pepper

1 tbsp parsley

tsp Caraway

tsp yeast or 1 tsp baking powder

cup water

tsp salt or more

oil for deep frying

DIRECTIONS TO MAKE BAGIA WA DENGU

1. A mixing bowl, mix chick pea flour and onions.

2. Add garlic, then parsley and curry powder, mix well.

3. Add caraway, red pepper, and hot pepper, mix well.

4. Then add baking powder, mix well again.

5. Add water a teaspoon at a time, until it becomes a heavy mixture. Almost like a heavy cake mixture.

6. Leave it to rise for a few minutes.

7. In medium-high heat; Heat the oil in a pan, for deep frying.

8. Drop a teaspoon full of the butter mixture in hot oil to deep fry until it turns golden brown color.

9. Remove from pan, put on paper towel or (chujio la nazi if you are in Tanzania) until it cools down.

Call you guest to enjoy our African Bagia Wa Dengu

Who said that you dont know how to cook? Having been born from a family of many girls, I was not supposed to cook when all my sisters are present but when I joined work and start to live on my own, thats when cooking lessons became a reality.

Of course not every person like cooking but for those who enjoy to explore new foods and have the taste for delicious yummy yummy, this recipe in a must not miss

Really Useful Time Management Tips from a Cooking Show

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In life, there are lessons available to use everywhere. We just have to have our eyes open to spot them. I have picked up some really useful time-management tips from watching a cooking show. Suspend your disbelief and let me explain further.

I dont watch a lot of television because it can be a huge time drain. But I enjoy experimenting and cooking, so I do watch a few cooking shows now and then. One of my favorites is 30 Minute Meals hosted by the ever perky Rachel Ray. Her claim to fame is that she can show you how to prepare healthy, great-tasting home-cooked meals in 30 minutes. Who can resist that?

After experiencing more than a few episodes of her program, Ive come to realize that she is a master at using time. Thats how she can get so much accomplished in 30 minutes. And here are her secrets that you can easily adopt.

Spend time in Planning

Most cooking shows lasting 30 minutes will feature maybe one item. In 30 Minute Meals, Rachel Ray generally prepares three to five items working alone in her kitchen. She doesnt have helpers and the ingredients havent been pre-chopped or diced or julienned ahead of time. She doesnt have another perfect souffl sitting in the oven waiting for her to whip out at the end to show you how it should turn out. She really does the cooking in real time. So how does she do it?

Before Rachel Ray even steps foot into her kitchen, she has the entire process for preparing the meal planned out. Does the dessert take longer to cook than the entree? If so, then it makes perfect sense to start the preparation of the dessert first. She knows which sequence of steps is the most efficient based on the planning. She knows exactly which ingredients she needs from the refrigerator so that she only needs to make one trip, which saves her time.

So, heres our real life application. When you look at your list of things to do, or errands to run, how can you use planning to become more efficient? How many trips to the refrigerator can you save by improving your planning?

Utilize Every Minute

This may sound like a no-brainer, but how many of us are really experts at this like Rachel Ray. She constantly talks about her pockets of time. When the water is heating up for pasta, she uses her pocket of time to chop onions, butter bread, cut up chicken, and anything else she can fit in. By using these little pockets of time, she whips up a meal in 30 minutes.

Now for our real life application: how many times have you put off doing something because you only had 15 minutes and the task takes an hour? What if you cant find a whole hour to work on that task for another week, but you can actually squeeze in 15 minutes everyday for the next 4 days? By using your little pockets of time, you are able to complete the task this week instead of next week. Thats the secret to getting more done.

Become a master at this like Rachel Ray. If you only have 10 minutes before you have to go to a meeting, return one phone call. This gives you the perfect incentive to be efficient about concluding the call. Pick up pockets of time everywhere and see how much more you can accomplish during your day.