Family Cooking Tips

Archive for June, 2009

When someone has the job of cooking for a crowd, whether by choice or by family election, there is often times a lot of stress that comes along with it. But cooking for a crowd does not always have to end up with the cook in tears and everything a mess. It is very simple to get this big job done with the right game plan and the proper follow through with the plan. The bigger the crowd, the bigger the dishes but that is nothing to worry about. Making large amounts of stuffing is no different then making a little bit of stuffing. Generally, there is not a lot of extra time that has to be given up.

Where a lot of the time gets wasted when cooking for a crowd is the confusion and break down of the cook, as they did not mentally prepare themselves for the occasion. If you are able to pass out things to do to friends and family, then do it. When someone asks you, is there something that they can do to help, do not be the overly polite hostess and say no, put them to work. Even if it is as simple as bringing the drinks to the dinner, let them help out. Even getting the smallest of items and chores to do off of your list will save you a lot of time.

Ask For Help

When cooking for a crowd, do not be afraid to ask for help whether it is actually preparing a few things, helping with setting arrangements, or planning the meal and the structured times for things to begin cooking. The more people who you have helping you, the better off that the meal will be a success and that you will still be in one piece after cooking for a crowd. You want someone who is reliable too as the last thing you want is to have someone designated to something extremely important and then they fail to follow through.

When you are all finished cooking for a crowd, you must take the time to sit back and relax so that you may enjoy all of the hard work you put into the meal. Sit back and enjoy the meal while looking through the eyes of your guests. Do not be too hard on yourself, as they will not so as critical of you as you are of yourself. Now that you are done cooking for a crowd, have a few people from that crowd help you pick up. There is nothing wrong in asking for a little bit of help. Even though you may not ask for them to wash your dishes, picking up their own plates and helping to clear the table is an excellent way to help end the day.

In this day of fast food, microwave meals and food fusion restaurants, why should the average person bother with actually cooking their own food? There are many arguments for learning how to cook, including personal empowerment, expressing your creativity, health issues and cost. Food also seems to taste better when you have put your own effort into it.

Personal Empowerment

Being able to feed yourself is a crucial survival skill. When you let other people do all of your cooking, you are depriving yourself of being able to take care of yourself. When you learn the basics of cooking, you learn not only learn how to feed yourself, but also increase your self-confidence. You are not subject to a restaurant’s opening hours, a large factory still making your favorite flavor or even on traffic patterns that might keep a delivery person from your door. You have the power to feed yourself without the cooperation of others.

Expressing Your Creativity

Everyone is artistic, whether they realize it or not. The human race seems to have a need in order to express itself in many ways through art. One of the best and most practical art forms in the world is cooking. Making a meal is a lot like making a painting ? blobs of different colors in different shapes and textures come together to make up an entire painting. Cooking uses different tools, but the effect is the same.

Health Issues

You can’t control what a company puts in their foods. You can add to it ? but you can’t subtract. Many processed and refrigerated foods are loaded with sugar, salt and fat that your body really doesn’t need. When you do your own cooking, you control the amount of salt, sugar and fat that you consume. Making this adjustment to your diet can help ease or prevent many health conditions.

Cost

The best reason for learning the basics of cooking is that you will save yourself so much money! Going out to eat is a luxury ? and a very expensive one. Not only do you have to factor in the cost of the meal, but the gratuity, the parking, the gas to get there and back and any applicable sales tax. You just pay for the food, cooking utensils and the stove when you do your own cooking. You can also pay for cook books, but you can also get free recipes off of the internet, from the newspaper, magazines and well-meaning relatives.

Anyone aware of the amount of chemicals included in highly processed food is aware of the importance and the benefits of organic foods in the first place. By the difference between conventional and organic food, we don’t necessarily imply that between an apple grown organically and another regular one. What needs to be insisted on consists in the real benefits of organic foods for health first and foremost.

Lots of consumers suffering from some form of chronic illness or even cancer, choose organic foods as safer and more health oriented than conventional products. Even if the nutritional value is not that different between the two trends, the use of chemicals, hormones and pesticides in the production of non-organic foods has an impact on the positive qualities of the product in the first place. Lots of consumer analyses do not insist on the difference in nutrients value, there are studies however that point out to the superiority and the benefits of organic foods in this sense.

It seems that among the benefits of organic foods we ought to include more vitamin C, higher levels of trace minerals and plenty of anti-oxidant nutrients. A report issued by the US Department of Agriculture indicates that there has been a significant decline in the minerals levels of meat, dairy and vegetables since 1940 in terms of regular non-organic crops. The present-day extensive storage and the intense processing of the crops further lowers the quality of conventional foods.

Surprising benefits of organic foods include the higher content of dry matter. To make this clear, we have to consider the fact that the use of the artificial fertilizers causes the fruits or vegetables to retain more water and thus swell. Thus, a non-organic apple gives less food than an organic one. Nevertheless, besides the different amounts of nutrients, there are other advantages to organic food.

First of all, there are almost no pesticide residues in organic products. Even if conventional food producers claim that pesticides are no threat to human health, one doesn’t have to be an expert to know that the ingestion of anything chemical cannot help or be 100% safe for the system. The benefits of organic foods are over-emphasized at present, with more and more people choosing them over conventional foods. In time this preference will definitely trigger a reorientation of the market and even a redefinition of the standards that characterize organic food in the first place.

Cooking light refers to making food that’s healthier for you, lower in fat, salt and calories. It does not refer to the electrical needs of your kitchen lighting. Cooking light is simple, affordable and delicious. You could study a lot of cooking books and websites, but it’s not necessary. Cooking light is mostly based on common sense.

Less Is More

Does a recipe call for four tablespoons of butter? That’s a lot of butter. Try three tablespoons and see if that makes any difference. You can also try substituting low cholesterol spreads instead. If a recipe calls for lard or shortening, try butter. All of these substitutions reduce fat, calories and cholesterol. They usually do not change the taste at all.

And that’s the basic principle of cooking light ? less is more. Substitute lower fat ingredients for high fat ones, serve less meat and more fruit and vegetables. Trim the fat off of the meat and avoid deep frying. Instead of drowning your salads with creamy dressings, just use extra virgin olive oil. You will really taste the great flavor combinations of the salad this way and cut back on calories and fat.

Only Eat Until Full

We were all trained as kids to clean our plates. However, this is not the healthiest thing to do as adults, because we have a tendency to overfill our plates and thus overeat. Even if your meal is low fat and low calorie, you won?t be doing yourself any good by eating twice as much of it as you should. Part of cooking light is only eating sensible food portions.

It takes a while to retrain yourself to only eat until you are full ? even if there is food left on the plate. Be patient with yourself. At first, use smaller plates and bowls in order to try and trick your mind into thinking you are having the same sized meal. Overeating meat has the worst health consequences. A serving of meat should never be larger than a deck of playing cards.

A Word About Artificial Sweeteners

Cooking light does not mean you have to use artificial sweeteners, which advertise themselves as low calorie. If you enjoy artificial sweeteners and they do not give you any adverse health affects, keep on using them. But artificial sweeteners can often trigger migraines, cramping or diarrhea in some people. Sometimes, sugar (brown or white or powdered) is still the best bet in cooking light.