Healthy Cooking can be both enjoyable and rewarding, as long as you know what you’re doing. You can gain a lot of confidence in your skills and learn how to be a better cook with this article. After you have those, the real enjoyment can start!
As with many other things in life, one of the keys to making great meals for your family is preparation. Gather all of your ingredients well in advance. Along with the ingredients, you need to make sure you have the correct utensils for healthy cooking the next day. This can help relax everything so that you can make something great.
Boiling your vegetables can drain the vitamins and nutrients out of your vegetables and leave them in the water that you’ll drain from the vegetables after boiling. Use quick healthy cooking methods instead to maintain their healthy quality. Examples of these methods are steaming, sauteing, or the best one is to eat them raw.
Vegetables that are cooked more quickly will be of higher quality. Vegetables that have been slow-cooked are not as nutritional or tasty as vegetables that are cooked in other ways. The quick cook methods generally make the vegetables tastier and more nutritional. Only cook vegetables as much as you have to, in order to preserve their taste and nutritional value.
Fresh Ingredients
When you are healthy cooking, it is important to remember that a fresh ingredient is always better than a frozen or dried ingredient. The more fresh ingredients you use in your healthy cooking, the better your dishes will be. Fresh ingredients have more flavor, and are less costly than frozen and canned ingredients.
When you need to store dry ingredients such as flour, or sugar in your kitchen, use airtight containers. When you store food in airtight containers, it will not spoil so readily, and bugs won’t be able to get into it. You can get them at a number of places and are well worth the small amount of money.
Think big if you plan to make chicken stock. Make a giant pot and store what you don’t use in your freezer. You can use that delicious chicken stock in stews, casseroles, and soups. After the liquid has cooled you can store it in heavy-duty freezer bags.
Read nutrition labels when you buy foods. Potentially unhealthy ingredients lurk in typical healthy cooking supplies. Make sure anything you buy does not have too much sugar or salt or it can hurt you.
This will help to keep your fruits fresh for much longer. This is also a good way to have access to fruits that are out of season.
When you are planning to make a meal that needs garlic, buy garlic that is fresh. When garlic is fresher, it will not taste as bitter. As garlic ages it becomes bruised, shriveled and less firm.
It is fairly easy to dry tomatoes yourself. Drying them is easy – simply cut Roma tomatoes in half, or cut larger tomatoes into 1/2 inch slices. Put them facing upwards onto a cooling rack and add a little salt. Next, position a full rack on a baking sheet in an oven preheated to 190 degrees. Dry for approximately 10 hours. The tomatoes can then be placed in plastic bags and stored in the freezer. Alternatively, dried tomatoes can be packed in a jar filled with olive oil and fresh herbs. When refrigerated, they will last a minimum of two weeks.
Get your healthy cooking utensils squeaky clean before starting a new dish. If there is food leftover after washing, this could ruin whatever you are going to cook. This can also cause bacteria to spread.
An excellent suggestion is to purchase solid cutting utensils for use in your kitchen. It’s safer to cut with a sharp instrument than it is to with a dull one, and you will also save some time. Dull blades are the cause of more accidents than sharp blades.
There are various ways to heat up tortillas properly. One option is to turn the oven to 350, and place the tortilla right on the rack, allowing it to get crispy. Grill tortillas by putting them on the grill plates right above the flames. You will have a better tasting tortilla if you use these suggestions.
There is not just one kind of potato, and each kind works best in different recipes. There are potatoes that are good for mashing, and there are others that are good when used in potato salad; it really does matter what variety they are. Russet potatoes will produce the fluffiest results.
While it may be tempting to try something new, always cook something you know. No matter if it is family or friends, it is in your best interest to show off your healthy cooking skills with a great meal. Guarantee success by preparing something you could cook with your eyes closed.
Try some new ideas for oysters. The most common way to eat oysters is to pop them into your mouth raw with a dash of lemon juice. However, there are many other ways to prepare and enjoy these seafood delicacies. Place oysters that have been opened in a broiler pan. You place a dollop of cream on top to cover them. Add some Parmesan cheese along with some fresh pepper, then broil until it bubbles. Sauteing your oysters is another great idea. Mix some seasonings with flour and coat the oysters. Fry them in very hot butter for about two minutes or until they are golden brown. Bake the oysters while they are still in their shells. If you bake oysters put butter and breadcrumbs on each oyster and bake them in the oven at about 425 degrees for about five minutes. Whenever the juices and butter are bubbling hot, you can then serve it alongside a toasted baguette.
As this article has demonstrated, culinary skills are easy to improve and expand. You just have to spend some time in the kitchen and have a desire to learn. By applying what you’ve learned from this article, you’ll be on your way to being a great cook. If you approach healthy cooking as a fun activity, it will become one.