Tips For Buying A Great Espresso Maker
April 14, 2008
Tips For Buying A Great Espresso Maker
by: Clinton Maxwell
Most people who love specialty coffee drinks eventually purchase an espresso maker. With a good one, you can make all your favourite drinks in the comfort of your own kitchen and try out a new recipe or two. Since this is a large investment, you should spend some time learning about these machines before you buy. Learn about the features available and then read some reviews to find the best machine for your home.
Common Types of Espresso Maker
Manual Espresso Makers
Manual machines require you to do all the work. You measure and grind the beans, tamp the grounds and brew the coffee. These are the least expensive machines. Some avid espresso drinkers will only use a manual machine.
Semi Automatic Machines
Semi automatics do some of the work for you. You adjust the water temperature and pressure. Grind and tamp the beans and the machine will do the rest. They are more expensive than a manual machine, but much more affordable than a fully automatic model. These machines are a good first cappuccino maker.
Automatic Machines
Low Fat Pasta: Why and How to Make it.
April 13, 2008
Making your own pasta is not difficult. It’s actually very easy.
But you may wonder why would you make your own pasta, when you can buy it pre-packed, and ready to cook?
Well, one reason is that by making your own, you eat fresh pasta. There is a difference of taste and texture between fresh pasta and pre-packed pasta.
But there is another reason: if you make your own pasta, you may want to use nutritius ingredients, ensuring that your pasta not only tastes good, but it is also low in fat, and generally good for you.
For instance, you may want to make your own low fat pasta with unrefined flour, ensuring that your pasta is rich in fibre and B complex Vitamins.
Finally, learning to make your own basic pasta dough is the first skill towards preparing other (more advanced?) types of pasta dishes like lasagna, raviolli, tortellini, and that type of thing.
It’s not such a difficult thing to do, and it can be a fun process.
You see, normally you make pasta with refined wheat flour, eggs and salt.
Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies
April 12, 2008
Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies
by: Stephanie Foster
“There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love chocolate, and communists.” - Leslie Moak Murray
I can’t help but love that quote. When I was a kid, my grandpa always called any store bought cookies that somehow made it into the house “Commie cookies.” For him, it was Grandma’s homemade cookies or none at all.
There’s just something special about homemade cookies, especially chocolate chip cookies, so far as I’m concerned. It’s a great family activity, something even children can help with, and everyone loves eating the results.
Here’s an easy recipe for chocolate chip cookies I think you’ll enjoy:
Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 package butter pecan, chocolate chip, chocolate fudge, devil’s food, German, chocolate or yellow cake mix
1/2 cup butter or margarine — softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1 (6 ounce) package semisweet chocolate chips (1 cup)
Heat oven to 350º. Combine half of the dry cake mix , butter, vanilla and eggs in large bowl and mix until smooth. Stir in remaining cake mix, nuts and chocolate chips.
Unique Gifts - Send Food Gifts For Something Delicious And Different
April 11, 2008
Unique Gifts - Send Food Gifts For Something Delicious And Different
by: Nicole Martins
Whether it’s the Christmas holiday season or the middle of summer, the necessity of having to shop for a birthday or anniversary present is inevitable. While it’s always a thrill to find just the right gift for a friend or associate, sometimes issues such as lack of time or the difficulty of trying to find a unique gift: how many ties can you buy your brother in law, make the buying experience stressful and a hassle.
Unique gourmet gifts: salmon, lobster, crab and steak
There’s really no need to buy yet another tie because what your brother in law really wants is a unique food gift such as an assorted steak box featuring specialty cuts of premium beef. This is a gift that he can take outdoors and grill on a nice summer evening or enjoy dining indoors. If you have a seafood lover to please, you can send them anything from smoked salmon gift baskets to a crab bake, lobster bake, or lobster gram. The last two are really fun because your lobster gifts come with live lobster, a pot, lobster bib and other items for a delightful lobster dinner. Crab bakes are generally the same idea only with live crab.
Not Your Orthodox Way Of Learning About Wine
April 10, 2008
Not Your Orthodox Way Of Learning About Wine
by: Georges Meekers
Nowadays young people who have the foresight to actually plan a career in wine can choose from a plethora of study programmes that focus on different academic aspects of wine. Not so long ago, however, there was hardly any professional wine education available.
It is thanks to unorthodox devotees like Alan Robb Hickinbotham, for example, that there are now professional wine courses around as organised by universities, colleges and qualified independent lecturers.
You will be struggling to find mention of him in any of the oenology history books. And yet, in 1932 Australian Alan Robb Hickinbotham, or ‘Hick’ - as he was more affectionately known - established the very first oenology diploma course at Roseworthy Agricultural College (now Adelaide University).
Hick joined Roseworthy in 1929. At the time, viticulture and oenology were included in the agriculture curriculum but only as an optional subject taken in the third year. This was the time of the Depression and soon Hick’s viticulture and oenology scholars became headhunted by wineries who could no longer afford hiring French or German trained winemakers. Soon the 12 monthly ‘cadetship’ was further developed as a two-year ‘Diploma of Oenology’.
How to Make Sandwich Rolls with Your Bread Machine
April 9, 2008
For that next picnic or family outing, consider making sandwich rolls with your bread machine. They are quick and easy and so much better than what you buy from the stores.
Take any bread machine mix. Mix according to the package directions but set your machine on the "dough" setting so that the machine will mix your bread for you, let it rise and then beep when it is time to bake.
Remove the dough from the machine and divide with a knife into eight equal pieces. Form a round or oval roll with each. Place them on a greased baking sheet with room to expand. Using the heel of your hand, flatten each roll. The elasticity in the dough will tend to make the rolls spring back. Let the dough relax for a few minutes and repeat the process. Cover the rolls with plastic wrap and let the rolls rise until doubled-an hour or so depending on the mix and the room temperature.
If you care to put sesame seeds or poppy seeds on your rolls, mix one egg white with one tablespoon of water. Just before baking, brush the mixture onto the tops of the rolls and then sprinkle with seeds. The egg white will keep the seeds in place.
My Mothers Recipe Box
April 9, 2008
Remember the days when cookbooks weren’t so readily available, and you or your mother relied on only one or two different cookbooks for cooking all of your family’s meals? I still have my mother’s old cookbooks, as well as my grandmother’s. Each one is worn from age and use–if you flip through the tattered pages it is obvious which recipes were turned to time and time again. These cookbooks will always number among my most precious treasures.
When our mothers wanted to try new recipes, they most likely didn’t run out and buy new cookbooks. They often didn’t have the extra money to spend, and often there weren’t very many to choose from. So where did they get new recipes? From each other.
When I was a child I remember my mother exchanging recipe cards with friends and relatives and bringing them home and filing them away in her recipe box. I always loved going through her recipes (although she often got mad at me for getting them all out of order!)
All the years while I was learning how to cook I went through her recipe box time and time again, pulling out my favorite recipes and preparing them again and again.
Tasting Wine
April 8, 2008
Wine Tasting Component I: Look
The first step you have to undertake in wine tasting is visual.
1. Fill up the glass up to 1/3 of its volume; never fill it more than half;
2. Hold the glass by the stem. Initially you may find this too pretentious but there are good reasons for it:
а) by doing it this way you can actually observe the wine in it;
b) this will keep your fingerprints off the bowl;
в) the heat from your palm will not change the temperature of the wine.
There’s a good saying by one of the greatest French wine lovers, Emil Painot: Offer someone a glass of wine and you can immediately tell whether he/she is a connoisseur by the way they hold the glass." Even though you may not think of yourself as a connoisseur, you could still learn how to hold the wine glass.
3. Focus on the color intensity and the transparency of the liquid.
a) the color of the wine, and more specifically its nuances, are best observed on a white background.
б) the wine’s intensity is best judged by holding the glass without slanting it and looking at the liquid from above;
The Top 4 Reasons Why You Should Learn How To Cook French Food
April 7, 2008
The Top 4 Reasons Why You Should Learn How To Cook French Food
by: Paul Costelo
Food should be the most important thing in our lives. Without it we cannot survive yet we neglect it almost every day of our lives. Are you sick of eating junk ? If the answer’s yes then do something about it.
1. Take care of your family
Make no mistake if you want your family to be healthy you need to give them the best food available. The best food available is NOT hamburgers or pizza or any of the rest of the processed , pre-packaged junk we feed our kids nowadays. Are your kids badly behaved, over-weight, hyperactive ? The chances are its down to the food they eat. Stop giving them packaged junk- if you want a healthy lifestyle, a longer life and a happier family look to the food that they eat. And if you want to cook them the best food in the world cook them French food. If you know Europe, if you know cooking ,you’ll know that French food really is the best in the world.
2. Its simple and varied.
Is This The Year To Simplify Christmas Dinner?
April 6, 2008
Is This The Year To Simplify Christmas Dinner?
by: Joanie Williams
Are you hosting Christmas dinner this year? What do you think about making this the year you simplify it?
We know perfectly well that every year there’s too much food on the table. We eat too much, we work too hard, and most years we get ourselves too tired to really enjoy everything.
What about making as much as possible ahead?
What about (gasp!) even cooking the turkey and making the gravy the day before?
There are lots of recipes on the internet for making the turkey ahead. You just have to put in “make-ahead turkey” and you can pick and choose the one that suits you.
A few years ago one of my sisters and I tried cooking our turkey the day before. It worked beautifully. The turkey tasted no different, although I admit we “cheated” a little because we also cooked another turkey on Christmas Day. So the guests could smell turkey cooking when they walked in.
Just the same, I am going to cook my turkey ahead this year, and I won’t be cooking another one on Christmas Day.
