THG Formulations

Whether you are sincerely seeking chances to explore new cultures or you are Jewish seeking appetizing recipes and cooking tips, you have come to the right place to get some of the basics. For as long as there have been family traditions, eating good food at special events and during festive times has been a part of the merriment.

Unfortunately, that appetizing food cannot be enjoyed unless someone goes to the trouble of actually preparing it. If you are looking for some delicious treats to go with the Hanukkah celebrations or just want to get a taste of what other cultures do during their religious or cultural festivities there are a lot of great foodstuffs you could be cooking for this particular holiday.

Oil is important in the celebration of Hanukkah and, as a consequence, many of the foodstuffs that are to do with Hanukkah traditions are cooked in oil. One well-liked favorite is Latkes, which are a kind of potato pancake that is deep-fried. Another popular favorite is fried lamb chops. The lamb is breaded and then fried much the same as many Americans fry chicken. Once again oil is used in the preparation of the meal.

If you are thinking about something more like finger food or a snack, you might consider deep-fried ricotta balls, fried zucchini, fried onion rings and fried mozzarella are good savory fried delights for the season of light. Of course, fried food is not the only thing that is eaten during this 8-day celebration, but it does play a vital part in the menu and in the celebrations.

Even the sweet treats for this celebration include a few fried goodies. There are apple fritters and raspberry dough nuts and lots of other luscious fried foods for you to snack on. If you like something a little sinful to eat during this delightful celebration you might like to try blintzes in your favorite flavor. There are many to pick from and their recipes can be found easily online.

If you would like to provide something a little healthier in your cuisine, then you might like to include an Israeli salad, stewed white beans, and baked eggplant and peppers. These dishes provide the opportunity to have something that is not either fried or sweet to help weight watchers, who always have a problem during festive seasons no matter which religion they practice.

Other Hanukkah favorites include scrumptious dishes such as cheese gelt coins, loukoumades, vegetable kugel, and brisket. Once again the recipes for these dishes are very extensively accessible online and in books on Jewish cooking and traditions.

To make things go a little more efficiently prepare as much food as possible well ahead and store items away quickly in order to stop them going stale. Enlist the help of children and other family members when required to move things along by taking turns preparing food.

You should also make an effort to keep the preparations as straightforward as possible to avoid delays and stress. This is a time of the year that is supposed to be dedicated to celebration not to struggling to cook tons of food. The good news is that with all that deep fried food, it is unlikely that you will find these dishes too difficult to prepare. Good luck and have fun exploring the world of cooking for Hanukkah.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with the 2 quart crock pot. If you have an interest in cooking or crock pots, please go over to our website now at Large Crock Pots

In these times of superior alertness of the shortages in the world and the recent economic problems in the whole world, but especially in the wealthy Western countries, which are the powerhouses of most Third World countries’ expansion, people are more aware of waste. It is a sin again to throw away food, like it was 50 years ago.

This can only be a good thing although it is a shame that it took an international financial crisis to make us remember the lesson. These days, waste of any kind is greeted with public disapproval and so it is at home too. Most people spend a very high percentage of their outgoings on food and so anyone who wants to cut back, has to first look to this quarter to make a saving.

However, saving does not necessarily mean ‘not buying’, it can and should mean ‘not throwing away’. In other words, prepare your food and do not let your food go off. Preparation and storage are the key words. With that thought in mind, here are a few of my tips for preparing and storing food correctly.

Bread – tons of bread is thrown away every day, because it has gone stale or mouldy and yet it is totally unnecessary. Keep your bread in the deep freezer and not in the bread bin. A whole loaf will slice frozen with the proper knife and sliced bread will come away slice by slice. There is no requirement to defrost as it only takes a minute or two at room temperature.

Bananas – most people understand that banana skins go black if kept in the fridge, but most people do not know that bananas can be frozen solid. Yes, the skins will still turn black, but the fruit will be undamaged.

Cake – to stop cake from going stale, store it in a tin with an apple. The moisture in the apple will prevent the cake from going hard.

Watercress – to keep watercress from wilting, store it upside down in water, that is stalks up.

Salt – salt often gets damp, particularly if stored in a steamy kitchen without adequate ventilation, but you do not have to fret about that if you put two or three grains of rice in the salt cellar. They will soak up the moisture before the salt.

Cereal – stop cereal from going soft by resealing the bag with a few clothes pegs. Your cereal will last weeks more.

Jam – boiling jam produces a scum which has to be skimmed off and thrown away. This wastes jam, goodness and flavour. However, if you whisk a knob of butter into the mixture at the last moment the scum will not appear, saving time and goodness.

Funnel – you always seem to need a funnel when you do not have one. Then you vow to get a funnel for the next time. Do not bother. Just cut the top nine inches off a plastic bottle of cola. It makes an ideal throw-away funnel. Some of the larger bottles even have a handle on them which is even better.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with researching the programmable crock pot. If you have an interest in cooking or crock pots, please go over to our website now at Large Crock Pots

Are bread machine mixes useful? Yes, some of them are, but the snag with all bread machine mixes is that they place limitations on your choice and discourage your creative talents. That may sound odd, but think about it for a minute. If you rely on bread machine mixes you can only make the bread for which you can buy a bread machine mix and you can only put the bread machine mix into the bowl and switch the bread making machine on. You are not encouraged to alter the bread machine mix for fear that it won’t work.

OK, what is the alternative? Well, the old-fashioned recipe book, of course! Not just any old recipe book, but a special bread making machine recipe book. Bread making is a very easy, but very tiresome process. The ingredients are ubiquitous, everyday, household items: water, flour, yeast, salt, sugar and oil. You most certainly have those items in your kitchen with the possible exception of yeast, which can be bought in any super store for very little money and it keeps for ages.

And you know what happens when you follow a recipe, don’t you? You’ve read the recipe through and you know you have everything in the kitchen, but when the recipe calls for, say, currants, you open the cupboard door and see that you don’t have any currants – they were sultanas! Oh, well you think, they’ll do. You make do. You experiment. You are developing your skills and creativity. Bread making mixes cannot do that for you.

A good bread making machine cookbook will have well over 100 recipes originating from several countries and you will get really enthusiastic about trying the different ones out. Have you eaten Welsh bread – Bara Brith? Or Amish bread? Cajun bread or onion bread? Banana bread is lovely too, but one of my favourites is Brazil Nut Bread – absolutely scrumptious.

The point is that you may not find recipes for all these breads in one place, but if you have a reference point, like a bread recipe cookbook, you can start off by using tried and tested gourmet bread recipes and gradually concoct your own – sometimes out of necessity.

I once made a fantastic loaf by adding all the left-over vegetables from my Sunday lunch. It was lovely, but I could never quite reproduce it, because I did not write down the weights and measures. I could only remember that it had green beans, potatoes and sweet corn in it!

Bread machine mixes will never ever provide that, will they? Furthermore, bread machine mixes are fairly expensive compared to the cost of 10 pounds of flour. I usually vary the ingredients too: honey instead of sugar, milk instead of water, olive oil or butter instead of just corn oil. Rock salt instead of sea salt or visa versa. I’m sure you see what I mean.

Bread machine mixes are not only limited but limiting too. Furthermore a bread making machine is a great way to use up leftovers. I have often put meat and fruit in my gourmet bread. My guiding principle is: if it’ll go in a sandwich it’ll go in the dough – like an Indian stuffed paratha or stuffed naan bread.

Save your money by not buying bread machine mixes and be creative with a bread machine recipes cookbook.

Do you use bread machine mixes or do you want bread machine recipes? If you want recipes, please pop along to: http://bread-machine-mixes.the-real-way.com Don’t reprint this exact article. Instead, reprint a free unique content version of this same article.

There can not be many people who do not like their food, but the human race, being what it is, I expect that there are a few of them. However, for the rest of us, food is a font of daily pleasure and, like a beverage, it is often employed to commemorate a celebration. not only that, but different foods are served for the different meals or distinct celebrations.

Commemorative meals were indubitably planned around the seasonal foods on hand, but a number of foodstuffs were transported enormous distances for the consumption of those who could pay for them. For example, my father considered it a grand treat to be given an orange in his stocking on Christmas Day 60 years in the past. How the times have altered! Very few children would deem an orange a present, special or otherwise, any day of the year in our time.

Nevertheless, the preservation of foodstuff is still a daily concern and therefore, I have listed a couple of good guidelines on preserving foodstuff below, so that you will obtain the best from that which you have bought or grown in your garden even a long while afterward.

The Quickest Quiche: a quiche is the archetypal healthy fast food and this is one of the best quick ways to make one. Put one onion, four eggs four ounces/125 grammes of butter, half a pint/250 ml milk, baking powder, 2 ounces/60 grammes of grated Cheddar cheese, parsley, salt and pepper and anything else you like into a strong food mixer/blender. Whirl it all up together and pour it into an appropriate dish, lined if you have it with some pre-made, shop bought, pastry. Bake at 190C/375F/Gas Mark 6 for 40 minutes. It serves four and is delicious.

Heavenly Hamburgers: next time you make hamburgers, do not salt the meat before cooking them. Use your normal recipe and prepare the patties as normal. Then, put a handful of sea salt in your favourite heavy duty frying pan and heat it up to very hot. Drop the hamburgers onto the salt and cook as normal. The outside of the hamburger will go crisp and the fat will be kept to the bare minimum.

Salmon In The Papers: a great way to cook a whole salmon is to cook it in newspaper. You ought to try it. Prepare your salmon according to your favourite recipe. Then wrap in three or four thoroughly drenched sheets of newspaper (any name). Make a nice parcel out of it; as neat as you can. Place the soaking-wet parcel on a baking tray in the centre of a moderate oven. Bake until the paper is dry on the top and then flip it over. When that side is dry the salmon is ready. It’ll take about an hour. If you want to eat it hot, peal the paper off straight away and dish up. If you want to eat it cold, leave the package until it is cold and then unwrap. Either way the skin will stick to the newspaper.

Off The Wall: if you are unsure when spaghetti is fit to be eaten, through a strand at a tiled wall. If it sticks, it is done.

Cheap And Cheerful: for a quick, healthy, unusual summer sandwich filling, pick some fresh, young dandelion leaves; wash them carefully; dress if you wish and put between slices off a good loaf of bread.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with researching the Rival Versaware crock pot. If you have an interest in cooking or crock pots, please go over to our website now at Large Crock Pots

In the West, alcoholic beverages are never far away from the scene at festive times, but do we aways know how to get the most from these expensive luxuries? Too many people these days just think its a question of ‘getting as much down as possible in as little time as possible’. This is the wrong attitude.

After all, most people understand that a good meal does not consist of eating as many chips as possible in fifteen minutes, so why should that principle not apply to having a drink too? You will get far more pleasure from a bottle of wine, if you spend an extra dollar on it and drink it slowly with a friend and some suitable food than if you swill down a cheap bottle of plonk on your own. It makes obvious sense, but not everyone sees it.

So, with that thought in mind, I have put together a few tips on how to get more enjoyment from your alcoholic drinks, if you are old enough and of that turn of mind.

Gin and Vodka – if these white spirits are your favourite tipple, always keep the bottle in the fridge, not the drinks cabinet. Keep the mixers in the fridge too. That way the ice will survive longer and you will not be tempted to have to swig it down before the ice melts. If you are having friends around, go one step farther and put the bottle in the freezer. It will not go solid. You can even cut the top off a plastic cola bottle, put the bottle of gin or vodka in that, fill it with water and then freeze it. Take off the plastic bottle and you have an attractive “collar of ice” around your bottle.

The Last Tot – five minutes or so after finishing a bottle of spirits, tip it out one more time and the bottle that you thought was drained will provide one more tot of contents. It is not a lot, but it is a satisfying free surprise. The same works for many alcohol based items including underarm roll-on and perfume.

White Wine – white wines taste best when they have been gently chilled over a prolonged length of time, but if you get taken by surprise visitors, put the bottle of wine in a container of ice and cold water. Try not to have to put it in the deep freeze, it is too severe, but if you have to, then ten minutes is all that it takes.

Port – it is always better to decant port and older, heavier red wines, because of the sediment that may be in the bottom of the bottle, which tastes horrible and because it aids the aeration of the wine. However, it is not always easy to see when the dregs are coming. The manuals say to use a candle, but they were written a hundred years ago. The concentrated beam from a torch is far better. Try using a Durabeam because its rotateable head allows it to be directed more accurately.

Decanters – sometimes the stopper becomes stuck fast. Tap it with another glass item and it should come free. If not, run the neck of the decanter under hot water for a few seconds and it will come out.

Labels – if you store your wine in a damp place where the labels are likely to rot or fall off, spray them with hair lacquer first.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching the programmable crock pot. If you have an interest in cooking or crock pots, please go over to our website now at Large Crock Pots