Cooking Blog

We have one member of our family that LOVES to make homemade pies. More power to him, I say. So when it comes time to plan the Thanksgiving pies, he’s all about a buttery homemade pie crust. He says that a pie is not a pie if it’s made with a prepackaged crust. Although I use the prepackaged, ready-made pie crusts on most occasions, I must admit he’s right. At Thanksgiving time, the pies have to be special, and any pie made with his homemade butter pie crust is a little bit more festive, and delicious! You can’t mistake a pie crust made by hand; the texture is flakier and the buttery taste really stands out. Show your pies, and your family, some love… give them a homemade crust this year at your Thanksgiving Dinner.

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There is no getting around the fact that when you make chicken or pork chops with Shake ‘n Bake mix, it’s mighty tasty. But, like most prepackaged food, the ingredients can be a little scary, or, at the very least, unwanted. And, like most prepackaged food, there is an alternative. Using a homemade shake and bake mix gives you control over the ingredients you want your family to ingest, as well as saving a little on your grocery budget. Making your very own chicken and pork chop coating is easy and convenient. You can make a large batch and keep it on hand for all those last minute dinner decisions when you just can’t think beyond meat and potatoes. This homemade shake and bake mixture is so yummy, you’ll be wanting to serve shake and bake chicken or pork chops at least once a week.

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Certain materials are more inert than others. This means the pots you use to cook with can interact with the food you make. Traces of metals can make their way into your food.

This is not so important for adults. For babies and small children it can be a risk to health. Experts are divided on exactly what the effects are. The biggest risks are attached to those who are allergic to certain metals. And babies can’t always tell you what has given them a stomachache or that unsightly rash.

When your cooking pots are shiny and new, there is no risk. As soon as they begin to get chipped, the metals they are made of can get into your food. Here are some tips from the experts to help you avoid any health risks:

- Avoid using copper pots that are not lined or insulated to prepare your baby’s food. When it’s hot, copper breaks down vitamins C and E and folic acid in food. Any food that contains vinegar is likely to be quite acidic. Acidic foods break down the copper in your pots - and this is deposited in your food.

- Pots made of aluminium react with acidic food, releasing traces of aluminium that may get into your baby’s food. A safer alternative is anodized aluminium cookware which prevents any aluminium getting into your food.

- Pots made of stainless steel are much safer because they don’t react with food despite being made of a mixture of different metals. But you’d be better off not using them to prepare baby food if the pots are old - especially if they are dented or chipped.

- You should avoid cooking your baby’s food in non-stick pans because the non-stick coating may chip off and end up in the food. It is also believed that toxic fumes can be released by heating a non-stick pan to a very high temperature.

In general, scrubbing your stainless steel cookware with an abrasive substance such as wire wool is not a great idea. As well as scratching your pots, it releases small quantities of of nickel and chromium into your food.

The news is not all bad, though. Cooking with iron cooking pots can benefit your health. When you cook acidic foods such as tomatoes in iron, the foods actually “pull” the iron from the pot. This boosts the important dietary iron in your food.

The FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition say that ceramic, glass and enameled cookware is safe. They recommend not using older enameled cookware because it may contain cadmium. Cadmium is toxic and is no longer used in the manufacture of cookware in the US.

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The cost of starting your own cake decorating business is a lot less than you might think, especially when compared to the more traditional brick and mortar business. Since your first step should be to create a service from your home you can save on overhead costs, such as rental space, larger equipment and of course, staff.

To start your cake decorating business from home you will just need the essentials including basic equipment, baking supplies and of course elbow room! You should also designate an area that can be used for baking supplies. Extra storage space goes a long way in this business.

It is helpful for some people to take baking classes prior to starting a cake business. Or they may feel comfortable enough just from their previous experience of baking cakes and so can get started immediately.

Keep in mind that working from home does take self discipline and ongoing motivation. If you are passionate about baking cakes and decorating them, this should not be a problem. Here are some great features and positive aspects of having your own home business.

Set your own schedule

When you first begin working from home take things one baby step at a time. Set up a schedule where you work and try not to go outside of this time frame. The last thing you want is to get burn out early on. You need to balance things well in order to be successful and be able to stay committed.

Low Expenses

The costs are a lot lower since you do not have to rent a shop, hire employees, renovate the building, deal with inspectors and so much more that goes into running an ‘out of house’ store. Still once your business takes off you just might wish to upgrade to a larger area, or a walk-in store.

Home with the Children

If you have kids being a work at home mom is a success in itself. Your kids will not have to go into daycare and you will be at home when they need you.

You set the Times

You can see potential customers at your home on your schedule. Allowing for walk-ins is really not a good idea since this is your home and not just a place of business. However, develop a good scheduling system where you allow clients to come over, look at your samples and discuss what it is that they have in mind.

There are many more advantages to working from home that you will quickly discover. It truly is an incredible experience, and one that you will be proud of.

Minimal Risk

Since it doesn’t cost much to get started if you decide that it isn’t for you, you lose nothing but time. There are very few businesses where this is the case.

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Would you expect the top chefs to use low or high quality cooking equipment? I would expect you to answer ‘high’ quality. And you wouldn’t be far off the mark. Many TV chefs use their familiar faces to market and sell their own brand of cooking equipment. Jamie Oliver springs to mind straight away. And you wouldn’t be far off the mark in thinking that Jamie’s own brand of cooking equipment is top quality.

His cooking equipment has to be of the highest quality. He has his own brand identity. He sells his shows, his recipes, his cooking style through the quality of what he produces. So the quality of his cooking equipment has to match the quality of the rest of his brand. Chances are, you wouldn’t think much of your Jamie Oliver deep frying pan if the handle came off while you were following Jamie’s show, frying up the perfect English breakfast.

OK, so much for celebrity chefs. They make their living from chopping up, mixing and cooking food, so they are only going to use the best cooking equipment. How about the rest of us? Is it possible to detect a real difference between the cheap cooking equipment and the premium brands? Does the law of diminishing returns apply to kitchenware?

The short answer is: cook a lot? Then buy the best. Good cooking equipment lasts a lifetime. It’s something you forge a relationship with. Your tools are your cooking pots. They can become an extension of your body, even of your self. you. It is a heavy piece of equipment. It’s solid. Its power can be felt evey time it’s used. And there’s research to suggest that cooking slightly acidic foods such as tomatoes in ironware will have a beneficial effect on your health. Traces of iron are released into your food, contributing to your daily iron intake.

Cheap cooking equipment, on the other hand, can only let you down.

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You’re a single guy. You have time on your hands. And you’re a rotten cook. Why not kill three birds with one stone and take some cooking classes?

Attending cooking classes might not sound like the most masculine way to spend one or two evenings a week. But think about it. Who are the other students most likely to be? Right. Ladies. In fact, statistics suggest that you can expect a ratio of around twenty women to one man. And there’s a good chance that a good deal of them are going to be single. Mothers don’t have time to go to cooking classes.

Those are very good odds, even if you're no Don Juan.

And the advantages of cooking classes don’t stop there. As (probably) the only man in a room full of women, you’ll be on their territory: the perfect place to act helpless, milk the situatioin for comedy and get plenty of sympathetic attention.

Cooking classes last for weeks. That’s plenty of time to forge meaningful friendships. This is not like trying to meet single women at parties or bars. This is not like going out on blind dates arranged by friends. And it’s not Internet dating. This is a much more civilised way of meeting people and enjoying their company.

The final advantage is the cooking classes themselves. You're more than likely to discover some latent talent for cooking. And you will probably learn to enjoy it too. That’s going to raise your self-esteem. And the ability to cook is always going to make you stand out from the crowd in the eyes of most women.

So instead of music, let cooking be the food of love. And perhaps on your first real date, you’ll be able to try out one of the recipes you picked up in one of your cooking classes.

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Children love doing what adults do. Cook a lot at home? Then your kids will want to cook too. Or at least do their version of Cooking. It’s the ideal situation for setting up some cooking lessons at home. And your kids won’t even know they’re learning. For them, it will be more like a game.

Young children love getting their hands into sticky mixtures. Making muffins? Let your children pour in the ingredients. Let them do the stirring - with their hands, if you can stand it. You’ll be giving them valuable cooking lessons in how different textures feel, how different smells relate to the food we eat. You’ll be stimulating their senses and arousing their curiosity. And you’ll even be helping them develop their fine motor skills. That amounts to quite a lot more than a cooking lesson!

When your children are a bit older, let them measure out the different ingredients. Their cooking lessons could include counting out the number of teaspoonsful of sugar you add to the cake mixture. They can learn about units of weight and volume by actually weighing flour and pouring milk into a measuring jug. They’ll see how the number relate to the quantities they can see. And they’ll be able to taste the effect of different quantities of the ingredients they add. This might prove to be a valuable cooking lesson when they’re older.

Finally, when your children are learning to read and write, they can read through simple recipes themselves. Again, this is more than just a cooking lesson. They’ll be able to see how the nouns relate to objects, and actions to the processes of cooking food.

Along the way, they’ll be learning how to manage their workspace and their time. Cooking can be quite managment intensive. Many cooking lessons focus on managing a kitchen - how to manage your time by doing everything in the most logical order; your space by cleaning up as you go along. And they’ll also be learning the basics of food storage and kitchen hygiene.

Children learn all these cooking lessons at home while they’re having fun. Not a lecture to be heard. All hands on. all with tangible results that everyone can enjoy. And who knows, maybe they’ll soon be making delicious food for you and the rest of the family. Now that has to be worth a few cooking lessons.

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You want to control your weight. This means controling what you eat and drink. That’s difficult to do if you eat out a lot or exist from take out to take out. Or you make do with processed food that you can toss into the microwave oven and eat two minutes later without even soiling a plate. Your weight will soon balloon, and your complexion will erupt  like a volcanic landscape. That’s why many top celebrities - people who earn their wages by looking good - are fans of home cooking.

That’s not the only reason that home cooking is the choice of the the stars. Cooking at home gives you more control over other health issues than just weight control. Ever had stomach pains after a take out, or a visit to the local restaurant? The restaurant or take away bar might practise the highest standards of hygiene. It doesn’t make any difference if you are allergiv to certain foodstuffs. And these allergies might not provoke violent reactions.

At Home Cooking, we believe there’s an even better reason for cooking at home. Fun. We are naturally curious animals. We like to be in control of our destinies - even if it’s in a very small way. And we like to be creative. Healthy home cooking helps you try out different foodstuffs, recipes, cultural experiences - all from the comfort of your own home.

People who love to cook soon develop their own ways of doing things. We do too. Almost every recipe we come across, we tweak after we’ve tried it a couple of times. It keeps the food we cook interesting. It keeps the food we make fresh. And it keeps the people we feed happy.

So, when we say ‘healthy’ home cooking, we mean healthy in body, mind and spirit. Try it. You’ll see what we mean.

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Milk chocolate, as it is called, is simply chocolate from the cacoa bean that has been mixed with sugar, and cacoa butter, and then mixed with condensed milk or milk powder.  There are other additives that a manufacturer may add to give it their signature, but that is the basics of it.

Everyone in the world has been effected by milk chocolate in one way or another since its invention centuries ago. Being taken form South America, constantly perfected in Europe, until it has become a world phenomena. But I have no problem with that, do you? We use it for everything we can use it for. Cookies, cakes, cereals, beverages, toppings, flavorings, decorations, etc., chocolate has its place in history for good.

Is Milk Chocolate Healthy?

It is said in a study that the average American eats 10-12 pounds of chocolate every single year. They have never met me. It is also known that eating chocolate is rich in Phenols(antioxidants) which is good for the heart. Millions of pounds of milk is used every year in the production of milk chocolate.

Yes, to a degree. Ok, so the health benefits of milk chocolate are not as many as dark chocolate, however, there still some to be considered. It is a stimulator, to the brain, to the emotions, thus, increasing your stamina. Of course, moderation, because it is high in fat content and sugar. Point to be taken here is we need fat in our diet, seriously, and milk chocolate can be a great source for that fat percentage, just not all of it should come from eating milk chocolate. Be sure to read the nutritional section of each chocolate substance you obtain so you know what you have to eat or bake with - very important.

There are milk chocolate bars, milk chocolate fondue mixes and hardware, chocolate drinks, like hot chocolate and etc. There are many great recipe books that can teach you what to do with milk chocolate if you are fresh out of ideas and feel a bit overwhelmed. Just start reading and let the imagination roll. Some of the best milk chocolate recipes have come from the laboratory so to speak. Perhaps you will be the next Thomas Edison of milk chocolate.

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Shop for Milk Chocolate Fondue

Talk about a child’s dream dessert, milk chocolate fondue is just a kid’s bliss. Minus the alcohol that might go into some recipes of course. I feel like I am in Charlie’s Chocolate Factory looking at that stream of chocolate. Milk chocolate fondue can be made with any type of chocolate really, Belgian chocolate, milk chocolate, or dark chocolate. There are inexpensive ways of making it. You can buy it from a well known vendor or make it yourself with homemade ingredients. And, what’s a chocolate fondue without some fondue dippers, like strawberries, bananas, pineapple, pound cake, and pecan, almonds, and anything else I suppose you could spear with a fondue fork.

They rank number one in the search engine and make one mean milk chocolate fondue, that is, Betty Crocker. When you think of baking and dessert making you think, Betty Crocker right? Their products are top quality and also very affordable. You can take the quick route to getting milk chocolate fondue, by purchasing from Betty Crocker. They have a great recipe for Chocolate Sour Cream Fondue as well.

Another great option for fondue is Nestle. They have such recipes as chocolate peanut butter smores fondue, a spiced chocolate fondue. Many of these brands offer advice on how to prepare such chocolate fondues, especially if you do not have a recipe book for them. Milk chocolate fondue is always delicious and a great treat to serve to guests at a special occasion.

Also keep in mind that by going with dark chocolate fondue over the milk chocolate versions, you will be receiving many health benefits. Dark chocolate is rich in antioxidants, which are able to fight off free radicals in the body. There is also the absence of milk in pure dark chocolate, which is beneficial to many lactose free individuals.

Remember, if you are making your own milk chocolate fondue, there needs to be a liquid mixed with the morsels or else they will stick to the pan and scortch. Some use half and half, others evaporated milk with other substances, spices, etc. This is key to creating a rich, creamy, chocolate fondue for all your family and guests to enjoy. Make a few weekend tryouts before serving for a special event in order to get the process right and perfected.

Many places have incredible recipes for making chocolate fondue, such as local stores, online stores, and personal websites posting some old-fashioned recipes. If you are in the market for something specific, then do some searching, if elogance is your goal. Remember, chocolate is chocolate, it is all about how it is prepared that elevates it above the norm. Presentation is also another factor. This is as important as preparation. Which you can use a good melting pot, or 2-quart household pot to prepare, add all the right ingredients. Then presentation takes it from there. But, when you are done, it is still chocolate, whatever type you chose. I worked in salad and desserts in an Italian restaurant some years ago, and I remember how big presentation was.

I will prove to you that is a big part of making chocolate fondue. How do you feel everytime you look at a website displaying it? It catches the eye, it has appeal, I want to make that, you say, right? Focus on preparation first, then presentation last. If it is made right, it will taste right, then it can be made to look right. Enjoy!

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