Sonic Supper!

Archive for October, 2009

Here are some quick and easy cooking tips that may save your day.

1) If you are a beginner, start with a simple recipe. Do not be overzealous and choose some recipes that require way too much preparation. Choose a healthy cooking recipe that you can prepare easily. When you are better, you can opt for something more challenging.

2) It is recommended that you prepare all the ingredients that you need for your gourmet recipe before you start heating the pan or pot. Otherwise, you may get all excited if you forget something along the process thus spoiling or overcooking your food. It’s great to have everything freshly cut and prepared during your cooking but if you are an amateur, it is still better you get all your ingredients ready first before you start heating up your pan or pot.

3) It is wise to measure your ingredients rather than just estimate. Follow your given recipe as closely as possible. Of course, cooking is not set in stone. For example, if you don’t like your cake too sweet, you can reduce the amount of sugar stated in the recipe by a quarter. Likewise, you can substitute butter for margarine to suit your tastebuds.

Gourmet coffee beans are almost exclusively high-quality mild varieties of the bean Arabica. Arabica coffees are known for their full body flavors and low acidity. However, the term “gourmet coffee” has also come to embrace coffees that are enhanced with flavorings during the roasting process.

Where you get your gourmet coffee beans depends a lot on what you are considering gourmet. Are you looking for gourmet flavored beans or gourmet beans that are grown in a specific region such as the Kona beans of Hawaii?

You can purchase gourmet coffee beans at your local grocery retailer. However, you cannot be assured of their freshness or their authenticity. Any company can label a product as gourmet and you might not know the difference until you have already spent your money on an inferior product. Additionally, they most likely will not carry the higher end gourmet beans.

Local coffee shops are more likely to carry authentic gourmet beans that are fresh. They are staking their business’ reputation on any product they carry and sell. This alone is reason enough to trust their product. In addition, they are usually able to procure a larger variety of gourmet coffees than a typical retailer. They most likely will take special orders as well.

What a great theme for a party with not a lot of expense. Don’t be deterred by the fact that Chinese New Year is not always on a weekend. I know it is hard to believe but people actually socialize Sunday through Thursday nights too. A party doesn’t have to be on a weekend. Just keep it light and inviting.

What do you need?
Friends, Food & Drink, Chinese Dishes & Chopsticks, Laterns or Luminaries, Party Favors

How to execute? (Remember our basic entertaining rule – always plan and have a list):

Guests:
Make your guest list. We recommend that you keep the gathering small. 10 close friends who aren’t intimidated by a Wed night social event work well. However, when you have a small gathering it is important that every person attend so it doesn’t look like you have no shows. Make sure you get rsvps. If your friends are reliable email users, use www.evite.com and select the Chinese New Year themed invitation. If not, send out paper invitations 3 weeks in advance and follow up with a phone call.

If you are a coffee drinker you know that after a cup of coffee you feel reenergized. You might want to study all night for an exam or wake up and get ready for a work packed day. Coffee can be your ally if you drink it with moderation.

Many people associate coffee with a couple of minutes of relaxation, socializing and energizing. Coffee has many health benefits. Regardless of what type of coffee you enjoy the health benefits of coffee are the same.

Of course because it is a powerful stimulant coffee has to be drank with measure. A moderate consumption of coffee is of about 3 to 5 cups of coffee per day. Not extra strong coffee. I would recommend weaker coffee if you will go for 5 cups of coffee per day. A balanced moderate consumption has a beneficial effect over your mental and physical effect. Coffee helps reduce the sensation of tiredness, improves your short term memory and increases your intellectual performance.

Cooking for Pleasure

Are you someone who stresses when it comes to cooking?. Of course this isn?t limited to stovetop cooking. There are many men and women around the world who find baking to be an extremely pleasurable pastime in addition to traditional stovetop cooking or even barbecuing on a grill. The main distinction occurs in how you perceive your cooking projects.

How Do Your View Cooking?

While this question is asked somewhat rhetorically, it is a question you should ask yourself and answer. Do you view cooking as a chore or duty or do you view it as a project? There is something much more exciting about embarking on a new project than getting around to a loathsome chore. If you do view cooking as a chore the more important question might be why?

Some common reasons that people dislike cooking include the following: lack of skill, lack of confidence, boredom, or you could simply dislike the inevitable clean up far more than you enjoy the process of cooking. For each of these, there are solutions if you are willing to make the effort.

Many people know of Jamaica because of the music (including of course Bob Marley’s) that has come from that island nation. However, many non-Jamaicans are not aware of the wonderful and interesting cuisine that also comes from the country. This is a great pity as Jamaican food offers a variety of interesting recipes - especially if you enjoy eating spicy dishes.

Perhaps the best known Jamaican recipe style is “jerk”. This is meat that has been marinated in or dry-rubbed with, a mix of fiery spices known as “jerk pepper”. Historically this meat was then smoked over a small fire, but nowadays jerk dishes are usually cooked on a grill or barbecue, or can be cooked at home in a normal kitchen oven. Traditional meats used for jerk were goat or pork, but today other meats are often used as well - jerk chicken for example is particular popular. More adventurous types have been known to try jerk with seafood or tofu!

Jamaica’s national dish, which is often eaten for breakfast, is saltfish and ackee. This is salted cod, that is washed and rehydrated, and then sautéed with the other ingredients. The main other ingredient is ackee which is a type of fruit which is boiled (it must however be very carefully prepared or there is a risk of poisoning), but tomatoes, peppers, onions and herbs are also often added.

Maybe you do not have kids, but do not think that gets you off the hook. Cooking with kids can be a blast, but needs to be well supervised. It is a great way to fill in time when babysitting or just hanging out with family. The other week I made home made Italian sauce with my 12 year old niece using a family recipe. I had no idea she had such an interest in cooking! Here are a few things I did which helped the experience:

Let them be center stage. This means letting them do as much as they are able to do. I find this allowed her to be involved and not just standing around watching me do everything. That’s just boring and does not make cooking fun!

Choose a family tradition recipe. I chose Italian sauce because we are Italian. It was also an easy recipe which I knew my niece could handle. Cooking a cultural family dish instills a sense of belonging and importance to the child. Adding that small bit of heritage gives the recipe greater importance and meaning.

Healthy cooking for special diets do not need to be a chore. The key is to remember important issues for each diet, and to creatively change your recipes to meet those needs.

Vegetarian cooking is not difficult. The goal here is to remember that varying degrees of exclusion of animal products from your preferred diet sometimes makes it difficult to lay hands on certain proteins. Most plants, legumes, and grains contain at least some amino acids that make the complete proteins found in animal products. Mixing and matching foods is a great way to be sure that vegetarians get all amino acids. Your job is made easier by the fact that most vegetarians are not vegans, which means that many include some variant of animal products into their diets.

These proteins are excellent supplements to a vegetarian dish of their favor. Textured vegetable protein (TVP), and soy proteins such as those found in tofu and Boca also make vegetarian cooking much easier. Most of these proteins do not have much flavor of their own, so they will blend in nicely with whatever dish you are cooking. When it comes to vegetables and grains, just remember the basics: the more colorful the vegetable, the more nutrients it has, and whole grains make better nutrition than their bleached counterparts. Legumes are excellent resources, but be sure to cook them well as legumes are often difficult to digest for most people.

While some of the most popular dishes associated with the Italian culture include a tempting slice of pizza and a heaping plate of pasta, there is much more to the world of Italian cooking. Throughout the many regions in Italy, the distinctive cuisine of the Italians shines through in a wide-range of eating habits, styles of cooking, and selection of local ingredients. The changing of the times has also influenced Italian food, as the meals served in the pre-Roman era possess both similarities and differences in the cuisine of today.

The culinary history of Italy established a reputation more than 2,000 years ago, which includes an illustrious movement during the Roman Empire. Culturally, food preparation was quite important in the past where flashes of significance have been captured in the only surviving cookbook (Apicius), which dates back to the first century BC.

The spread of Italian food diversity began after the fall of the Roman Empire when individual city states began to uphold separate identities and traditions. Each region began to display its own unique way of cooking, right down to the formation of a meatball to the characteristic cheeses and wine produced in a locale. The north developed Tuscan beef, while black truffles were very popular in Marches. Provolone and mozzarella cheeses developed in the south, as well as a host of interesting citrus fruits.

I know that a lot of you have at least one of these efficient and time saving appliances hidden away somewhere in your kitchen collecting dust. You probably thought that the Crockpot was just for making soups or stews.

Well, below are some easy to prepare and delicious Crockpot recipes you can try at home:

1. 16 Bean Soup

Ingredients:

- 1 package 16 Bean Soup
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 tablespoon crushed oregano
- 2 cans no-fat chicken stock
- Additional water to cover
- 3 stalks celery chopped
- 3 carrots diced
- 1 large onion chopped
- 3 cloves garlic sliced
- 1 pound turkey Italian sausage sliced
- 2 cans stewed (or diced) tomatoes

Directions:

- Combine first 5 ingredients (liquid should cover mixture by 1″-2″) in Crock Pot Cook on high for 2hours.
- Add remaining ingredients and shift cooker to low and cook for additional 3 hours

- For more zing, add cayenne or crushed red pepper when adding second set of ingredients.

Serve as complete meal or over rice.

Freezes well.

2. All Day Crockpot Delight

Ingredients: