Kitchen Hint of the Day!

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cooking tips, kitchen tips, Spicy, spicy food, too spicy

Most of us have made dishes that turned out a little “too” spicy, so this is a tip I will keep handy!

My Meals are on Wheels

Over spiced your dinner? Just add a bit of sugar, honey, or maple syrup. The sweet flavor allows your taste buds to handle more hot, saving your meal.

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Kitchen Hint of the Day!

Tags

cupcake, cupcakes, Muffin, muffins

Never thought about doing this, but it’s such a good idea for nice, evenly baked, moist cupcakes and muffins!

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• Yummy Blackberry muffins with a hint of lemon. (kouzounaskitchen.com)
• Magic of muffins (totallyaddictedtobake.wordpress.com)
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• Banana Espresso Chocolate Chip Muffins (fermentalot.wordpress.com)

My Meals are on Wheels

Making cupcakes or muffins and don’t have enough batter to fill the tin Before sticking them in the oven, fill the empty holes in the tin halfway with water. It will extend the life of the tin and make sure the other muffins bake evenly.

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Deluxe Oatmeal Raisinets Cookies

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baking cookies, chocolate covered raisons, Cookie, cookie recipe, cookie recipes, cookies, Nestlé, oatmeal, oatmeal cookie recipe, oatmeal cookie recipes, oatmeal cookies, oatmeal raison cookies, Raisinets

This recipe was taken off of the back of a Raisinets package, and I thought it might be a good batch of cookies to make for our church celebration commemorating our church’s founding and also giving our departing youth leaders a nice farewell party.

Raisinets, for those who aren’t aware or live in a place where they are not available, are put out by the Nestle company and are basically chocolate covered raisons.

I’m sure whatever brand of chocolate covered raisons you use in this would be fine.  These turned out really well, and were especially good right out of the oven.  City Boy and I took them to church and after the celebration only a few cookies were left, so they must have tasted good to everyone else.

Here is the recipe for these tasty cookies.

DELUXE OATMEAL RAISINETS COOKIES

Ingredients:

1-1/4 cups all purpose flour (160 g)

1 teaspoon baking soda (2.7 g)

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (2 g)

1/2 teaspoon salt (2.1 g)

1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened (227 g)

3/4 cups granulated sugar (150 g)

3/4 cups packed brown sugar (165 g)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (1.5 g)

2 large eggs

3 cups quick or old-fashioned oats (255 g)

1 package (11 oz) Raisinets (311.8 g)

1 cup chopped nuts (140 g)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in small bowl.

Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy.

Beat in eggs; gradually beat in flour mixture.

Stir in oats, Raisinets, and nuts.

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 9-11 minutes.  Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes about 4-1/2 dozen cookies.

The package says it will make that many, but I don’t think we got quite that many.  This recipe will make enough to satisfy a group anyway.  Most people like oatmeal cookies, so these cookies will be a crowd-pleaser.

I lined my cookie sheets with foil to avoid having to wash them, and the cookies did not stick, even though I used each cookie sheet more than once without changing the foil.  Great timesaver!

I have never been great at getting cookies a uniform size, but it is fairly easy to eyeball these as you are putting them on the cookie sheets.  They seem to do well even if  they are not exactly uniform in size, within reason.

Have fun making these twists on regular oatmeal cookies, and enjoy!

Related articles

• Soft and Chewy Molasses Cookies (whatchamakinnow.blogspot.com)
• Perfect Cookie Recipe (livinginzinn.com)
• White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies (saraheatsaustin.com)
• Crispy Oatmeal Pecan Butterscotch Chip Cookies. (cakeybakes.wordpress.com)

Apricots: did you know that…

Tags

anti-cancer food, Apricot, Apricot pit, apricot seed, Seed, Vitamin B17

For years I have thought that the seeds of apricots were bad for a person — nice to know they can actually prolong life!

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• Apricot Seed (koruhang.wordpress.com)
• Apricot Trifle Cake (rkiernan.wordpress.com)

X-ways series

• the seeds inside the kernels of apricots can protect you from cancer?
• they contain high levels of vitamin B17 which is described as an immune system booster.
• vitaminB17orLeatrili was discovered byErnst Krebsand is probably thestrongestanti-cancersubstance.
• toChounza, thelongest livingpeoplein the worldwho livein Pakistanandcall themselvesdescendantsof the soldiersof Alexander the Great, cancer iscompletelyunknown.
• Scientists fromMemorialstudied thenutritionof Chounza. They foundthat theChounza peopleeat lots ofapricots and also the inside of the kernelsof apricots.
• Whena WesterndoctorvisitedChounza, apricots were offered to him. TheChounzamade​​agrimaceof disgustwhen they saw him spitthe best part: the kernels.

Caution: Try eating 1-2 of them daily to keep yourself healthy. Avoid to consume more than…

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Kitchen Hint of the Day!

Tags

grilled hamburgers, grilling, hamburgers

Even without a huge crowd, getting the meat done fast is sometimes just a preference!

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• Growing Up Grilling: Father’s Day (ireport.cnn.com)

My Meals are on Wheels

When you cook for a crowd, and your grill isn’t big enough, you can save time by utilizing your oven, too. Place a few layers of hamburgers between sheets of foil on a cookie sheet and bake them in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. Then throw them on the grill for 5-10 minutes more, and they’ll be fully cooked but still have that grilled taste. Hot dogs may be done the same way, but only bake them for 10 minutes.

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Garlic: How to buy, store and use it

Tags

care of garlic, cooking with garlic, Garlic, processing garlic, storing garlic

My Meals are on Wheels

I read this article yesterday in our local newspaper about one of my favorite ingredients, Garlic, and just thought I would pass it along.

 

Garlic: How to buy, store and use it
We have advice from a local expert.
Folklore says it can bring good luck, protect against evil and ward off vampires; but for most of us, we use garlic to give an aromatic, flavorful kick to an otherwise mundane meal. A member of the onion family and affectionately referred to as “the stinking rose,” garlic is truly a powerhouse of pungency and nutritional benefits, as well.
We asked Cooks’Wares, Inc. (located in Cincinnati and Springboro) culinary school director, Joe Westfall, to provide his tips on all things garlic:

Selecting garlic

Though garlic can be bought in minced, powered or paste form, the way to max out the flavor and nutritional benefits is to buy it…

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Kitchen Hints of the Day!

I couldn’t believe I’ve had a cooling rack all along (Hint #2)! Neat ideas!

My Meals are on Wheels

Hint #1 – Cookies can go from beautiful to burned in no time. To lessen the chance of this happening, take the cookies out of the oven when they are not quite done, but don’t transfer them to the cooling rack right away – let them sit on the hot pan for a minute or two to finish baking. Then transfer to the rack to cool fully.

 

 

Hint #2 – If your baking cookies or pies and don’t have a cooling rack, simply line up a bunch of butter knives in alternating directions (first with the blade towards you, then with the blades away from you), and put the baking sheet down on top of them. You can also use old egg cartons.

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playin with my food

Tags

decorative food, Fruit

Homemade Greek and Regular Yogurt

Tags

greek yogurt, homemade greek yogurt, homemade yogurt, Strained yogurt, whey, Yogurt

Why would anyone want to make yogurt when it’s so much easier to buy?  Well, the cost difference for one.

For greek yogurt, a 6-ounce container was over $1 last time I took a peek in the store, verses $.40 for the kind I make at home.  Even less for the same amount of regular yogurt that is made at home.

And, since you make it in bulk, you always have yogurt on hand.  Depending on how you flavor it, you can use it in a variety of different ways.

Is it hard to make yogurt?  Is it messy?  Is it complicated?  Does it involve a bunch of different and/or special ingredients?

No, no, no and no.

The only supplies that you may have to acquire if you don’t have them already for this method is a crock pot with a “warm” setting on it and a thermometer that measures temperatures below 120 degrees.  If you already have these things, you will find that making yogurt is pretty simple.  My candy thermometer does not register below 120 degrees, so I had to improvise.

This is a barbeque meat fork that also has a built-in thermometer for testing the doneness of meat on the grill.  Hey, it beats going out and buying a thermometer!

Here is a picture of the long list of ingredients you will need to make the yogurt:

Supplies are:

• large size colander
• coffee filters or cheesecloth
• wooden spoon
• big cooking pot
• thermometer or sensor that will register under 120 degrees
• blanket
• crock pot with “warm” setting

You need the live culture in the container of yogurt to start the yogurt making process.  Once you get your first batch of yogurt made, you can use a little of that to make the next batch, and so on.

I am showing 2% milk here, but I used skim in the yogurt in the picture, and I have used 1% and whole as well.  The consistency of the yogurt will still be great whatever you decide to use.

To get started:

Measure out your milk.  For greek yogurt you will need twice as much milk as you want yogurt — I usually use 10-12 cups for 5 cups of yogurt.  For regular yogurt measure the same amount of milk or more as you want yogurt, depending on how much you want to strain it — I usually use 5-6 cups.

Put the milk in the pot and heat until it reaches around 170 degrees.    

Remove milk from heat and allow to cool to around 110-115 degrees, but not above 117 degrees.  Take about a cup of the heated milk and stir 1 tablespoon of plain or vanilla yogurt for every two cups of milk you have heated (when I use 8-12 cups of milk, I just dump the whole 6oz carton of yogurt in).  Mix in with the rest of the milk and pour all in the crock pot without scraping the sides of the pan.   

Put the lid on the crock pot turned to “off” and wrap the crock pot in the blanket to keep it all warm and snuggly. 

Let the milk sit for about 8 hours, switching it on to “warm” if the temperature of the milk gets below 100 degrees.  Watch the temperature when the crock pot is on!  The milk can’t get over 117 degrees or you’ll kill the yogurt cultures!   If this happens, you’ll have to cool the milk back down to below 117 degrees, add more yogurt, and start the 8-hour waiting process again.

After yogurt is done, put the whole thing in the fridge to cool.

Line a colander that will hold all the yogurt at once with coffee filters and place the colander over a large bowl.

Dump your yogurt in and allow to drain.

For greek yogurt I usually cover the whole thing and put it in the refrigerator overnight to allow all of the whey to drain off.

For regular yogurt I allow it to drain anywhere from not at all to just a few hours, depending on how thick or thin I want it.  The less whey you drain off, the more yogurt you will have.

My son likes me to freeze the whey and save it for him so he doesn’t have to keep buying the expensive protein whey powder that he uses to help him bulk up a little.  Our dog also loves the stuff — it’s chock full of protein.

To flavor the yogurt, I have tried many things.  I used to flavor the whole batch at once, but then I realized that I can use the plain yogurt to cook with.  So, lately I have been flavoring some batches by the serving.  Either method you use, there are many ways of adding flavor to yogurt.

The first couple of batches I made I stirred in a jar of preserves, and I have also used pie filling.  This makes your yogurt oh-so-good, but not very diet-friendly.  I have also chunked up some frozen fruit and mixed in artificial sweetener with good results.  Other recipes for yogurt use honey, fresh fruit, and canned fruit, among other things.  

For the yogurt I have pictured in this post, I used a can of chopped-up mandarin oranges and a box of orange gelatin.  While the flavor is good (I love orange yogurt!), I wouldn’t recommend using gelatin to flavor yogurt because it does something a little wacky to the consistency.  I think the gelatin must have set up separately from the yogurt.  Although the yogurt isn’t grainy, it seems slightly tiny curd cottage cheese-ish in consistency.

I do hope you’ll give this a try!  The first time I made yogurt I was nervous the whole time, from start to finish!  I have learned since then to keep a few spare containers of yogurt on hand in case I mess up and let the mixture get too hot.  Now I hardly even think about it when I make yogurt.  

In the summer, as a matter of fact, on really hot 95+ degree days, I don’t even use the “warm” setting on my crock pot.  I just set the whole crock-pot-in-a-blanket outside in the sun and it stays at just the right temperature.

Above all, have fun!

Related articles

• Easy and Nutritious Homemade Yogurt (goodcooks.wordpress.com)
• How to Make Your Own Yogurt (lifehacker.com)
• Greek Yogurt Without the Straining (ekliecheese.wordpress.com)
• Make Your Own Yogurt: a cheap, easy, delicious party in your mouth (rawoncemore.com)
• Making Your Own Greek-Style Yogurt (tradsnotfads.wordpress.com)

Recipe for my Spaghetti Sauce

Tags

homemade spaghetti sauce, spaghetti sauce

Sweet Child of Mine

Here is my recipe for spaghetti sauce:

one large onion finely chopped

10 white mushrooms chopped

one green zucchini finally chopped

three large cloves of garlic chopped

1/4 cup of fresh parsley (Italian)

two large jars 48 ounce, Prego traditional spaghetti sauce!

 

Sauté first four ingredients until lightly brown in olive oil.

Add the sauce to vegetable mixture and add the parsley

bring to a boil and then simmer for two hours covered.

Stir occasionally

so easy to prepare and delicious!

Your family would think you were cooking over a hot stove all day! I freeze part of the sauce for future meals. Enjoy!

 

 

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