Chef Foundation

Archive for September, 2011

Do you sometimes feel like cooking, especially cooking “healthy” foods, is a chore? – Not to mention expensive. Or do you get frustrated at the end of the week when you have to throw away unused, rotten vegetables that you purchased to make a healthy salad and never found the time to put it all together.

Most households are just trying to stay above water. With our already over booked schedules, it seems impossible to add another task. Trying to shop and prepare healthy meals is not on our number one priority list.

But the truth is there is a little voice inside our heads that always makes us feel guilty about our eating habits. The fact is everyone really does want to eat healthier because we really want to be healthier.

Because of recent scientific evidence supporting the importance of a healthy diet for longevity and health, our priorities need revising. It is a fact that Americans have a hectic stressful lifestyle.

There may be little time available for healthy cooking. But again, the warning is clear – we must eat healthy in order to live lives free from the risk of chronic devastating disease. Eating healthier starts in our own kitchens. Cooking healthy nutritious meals at home is possible.

Healthy cooking will actually make our lives less stressful. The more we learn concerning nutrition, the more important it becomes to incorporate healthy choices into our lives.

Cooking healthy meals does not have to take up a lot of time and energy. With just a little and planning, cooking healthy nutrient rich meals will become second nature. Cooking healthy meals is the easiest way to keep track of the nutrients that your family is eating.

Rachel Ray has become a celebrity with her “30 Minute Meals” TV show. It is more than possible to get a good nutritious meal on the table for your family in under an hour. It would take you that long to get the kids together into the car to go to the neighborhood fast food joint. So put on your apron (don’t have one?) and get to the kitchen, it is time to cook healthy.

Here are five quick ways to prepare healthy meals.

1)Include fruits and vegetables in your meal plans.

Fruits require no cooking skills but can be
prepared as deserts or added to salads.

Baked vegetables are delicious and nutritious and easy to prepare.

2) Use more chicken and fish, beans and nuts in your cooking.
Bake, steam, grill, or broil meats instead of frying or saut

Everyone loves to have their favorite foods cooked to perfection on the grill. And learning how to marinate is an important step in achieving this perfection. marinating is a cooking method – or at the very least an important prelude to many cooking methods – that needs to be understood in itself. It is much more than simply soaking your favorite meat in your favorite salad dressing before slapping it on the grill. Or at least it should be! There are some tricks to getting it right and lucky for you, they are simple and you will learn them right here!

Marinate with a Mission.

You’re probably wondering if you really need to learn how to marinate for great grilling. My general mantra when it comes to cooking is that there are no unbreakable rules. So I guess, in sticking with that, you don’t HAVE to do anything. But before you decide your reading for now is over, let me give you some quick reasons why you might WANT to marinate. marinating meats imparts flavor, adds moisture, and can (to a degree) tenderize meat. The first secret to great marinating is learning how to match the correct marinate with the correct cut of meat and then apply the correct cooking method. This simple formula will produce great results every time.

Proceed with Caution (but not too much!).

In learning how to marinate, one of the things to determine is what meat you plan to use. A common mistake is to overestimate the meat tenderizing results that can be achieved with marinating. Yes, marinating will provide SOME tenderizing – but only some. You still cannot take shoe leather, marinate it and cut it with a butter knife. It’s not going to happen – and expecting that will only produce those disappointing results I mentioned before. Like anything else you cook, it is always best to start with good ingredients and to consider the end result you desire. In addition, muscle tissue will absorb marinate better than fat tissue so using an overly fatty piece of meat will result in very little marinating actually getting into your product.

There is a Method to the Madness (and to the marinate).

Making your own marinate is easy and ingredient options are virtually limitless. In most marinates, the essential ingredient is an acid, which acts as a slight tenderizer, but the type of acid you choose is completely open to your creativity and the type of dish you are making. Wine, lemon juice, tomato juice, balsamic vinegar, orange juice pineapple juice and margarita mix are all fairly common acids that work great in marinates. Adding oil is also an option, but keep in mind that the oil itself will not be drawn into the muscle tissue. Oil in this case is used solely for flavoring so if you use oil, choose a flavored oil. Fresh herbs and spices can also add flavor to marinates and you’ve got lots of choices here, too. When using herbs, remember that whole herbs release their flavor slowly so they work best for long marinates. If you are going with a quicker marinate, grind up the herbs before use to impart their flavor more quickly. Then you just make it up! Yes, you read that correctly. There is no recipe here because there are hundreds of recipes for marinates and I don’t know what you like or what you’re making. The key to cooking success is to learn the basic cooking methods, the techniques of achieving the end result you desire, and then let your taste, imagination and your unique situation be the guide for making up your very own marinate recipe, which might be different each and every time you marinate.

The only Reaction should be a Good One.

Always place the product you are marinating (with the marinate) in an air-tight container to keep the moisture in. Remember – one of the reasons we are going through this process is to add moisture so you don’t want to lose it at the same time! How long you let the juices soak in to the meat depends on how much time you have and the cut of meat you are using. The thicker the meat, the longer you will have to marinate to impart the flavor into the protein. Remember to use an acid-resistant container such as stainless steel. Don’t use copper or pewter as this can react with the acid, making those who eat the food sick. Finally, always store the container in the refrigerator for the entire duration – until you cook the meat. Remember to always discard the marinate after you have finished marinating and never re-use the marinate during the cooking process because it has had raw meat soaking in it for a length of time. In these ways, you are ensuring food safety.

So – what will you make this weekend? Relax. You know how to marinate and you’ve got a whole summer of delicious experimentation ahead of you!

Anyone on a low carb diet knows how great it is to find a new recipe that fits with their new meal plans. This is especially true with low carb desserts. Having the ability to eat delicious desserts while maintaining a weight loss diet helps to keep you excited about your diet results and satisfied with the food you are eating. Both of these things are important if you want to be able to stick with you diet and continue seeing weight loss with less effort. Here is a low carb cheesecake recipe and some helpful hints when it comes to baking while eating fewer carbohydrates.

When it comes to baking anything on a low carb diet there are 2 main substitutions that can make or break your recipes. In order for your dessert recipes to be a hit you will need to find a way to replace sugar and flour while keeping the flavor. Sugar and flour are both highly concentrated carbohydrates and therefore won’t fit in to the low carb lifestyle. An essential sugar substitute for a low carb cheesecake recipe is splenda. This sweetener is made from the sugar molecule and retains the same sweetness without being used as an energy source by the body. It also won’t cause the same cavities that sugar does. For flour there are different options that can be used such as flours made from almonds and other nuts or legumes. Soya flour is also a very popular flour substitute. Soya flour bakes a little differently that wheat flour so you should be aware of a couple of things if you decide to use it. Soya flour browns much more quickly and so you may need to reduce baking times or temperatures. Also be sure to store it in the fridge or freezer since it is whole grain flour.

Now comes for the best part, the low carb cheesecake recipe. This recipe is simple and delicious but not everyone shares the same tastes with desserts so feel free to make changes to the recipe to suit your own preference.

First, for the crust you will need:

• 1

Nutritionist and fitness experts say that going on vegan diet can be a healthy choice. Others would say it’s an exaggerated version of a nutritional diet and risky to embrace because the human body scientifically requires not just fiber and good carbohydrates but also high protein which vegetables have a little amount of. Not all can tolerate eating raw food and vegan recipes in every single meal. But those who can manage such diet plan are expectedly lean and fat-free. Certain dishes that fuse veggies and root crops together can be costly at times, which is why all-veggie diet isn’t a preferred diet among majority of individuals.

Good nutrition always comes with raw food and vegan recipes, balanced protein and carbohydrates. Yoga followers are on vegetable diet, which is why most of those who practice it appear to be skinny or slim. Organic food may be good source of fiber that our body highly requires but it doesn’t accelerate the development of muscles. If you are muscle builder, vegetables are not good to eat alone. You have to integrate some considerable amount of protein that contains all the amino acids you need for muscle building. Vegans usually go for foods like apples, beets, carrots, raw grains, oats, rye, sesame seeds, almonds, oranges, pumpkins, tomatoes, asparagus, broccoli, red peppers, spinach, buckwheat, pomegranate, cabbages, etc. Eating green salads without any meat content is strictly vegan but if you put in some chicken breasts or bacon strips in it, that’s deemed to be semi-vegan.

Fruits and vegetables are recognized to be good sources of vitamins and minerals, aside from fiber, good carbohydrates and antioxidants. Raw food and vegan recipes are usually broiled or boiled, not fried or mixed preservatives or additives. Raw whole grain muesli, oat yogurt, green salads, tomato salad, vegetable soup are among the vegan recipes that are considered healthy and effective for those who want to lose weight. Preparing raw food is ideal for those people whose schedule is too hectic in that they don’t have time to cook anymore. Vegetable dishes are fitting to those with high blood cholesterol and health-threatening issues. You can never go wrong with vegetable diet, as per vegans.

If you find yourself being overweight or obese, maybe it’s high time that you shift to a healthier diet plan. Perhaps you can consider eating raw food and vegan recipes. You can give it a week and discover the results yourself in order to gauge the efficacy of embracing an all-veggie diet and eating raw food. If you are too dedicated to lose weight and manage yourself healthily, you can make it in a longer period of time. But if you are too weak to tolerate such stiff diet that deprives you of other healthy foods found in lean meat, then you won’t survive in dwelling on a vegan diet for a longer time.

I love cooking and I often experiment with food to get the best recipes. Although sometimes it doesn’t work out, I often find the best recipes come from me experimenting with recipes I’ve read and changed to my own liking. I’ve decided to share one of these with you. I hope you find it enjoyable and easy to cook. Enjoy.

Soup in a Pumpkin

I love this because its unique and different and is great for dinner parties but also for bonfire night or Halloween. The recipes I’m about to tell you serves between 4-6 people depending on whether it’s a starter or as a main. This soup is lovely with some thick, crusty homemade bread.

It will take you roughly 15-20minutes to prepare and 1 hour to cook.

You’ll need a pumpkin or a round squash, butter, one onion (chopped very finely), a bottle of cider, 3 mugs of warm stock, seeds from ½ a vanilla pod, a pinch of chilli powder and ground cinnamon.

Firstly you need to dig out and gut the squash or pumpkin, remove the seeds and chop. You will also need the over at 200 degrees centigrade or gas mark 6.

Add the lump of butter to a ban and place on the hob over a medium heat, once it’s warm add the onions and a little bit of salt. Cook until they are soft and sweet. Pop the pumpkin in and put the lid on. Allow this to cook for 20-30 minutes. After this time stir in the vanilla and chilli then after a few minutes pop in the cider and stock and pop into a blender.

Once the soup is pureed pop it into the gutted pumpkin and place in the over for 30 minutes until bubbling and tender. Add more stock if it’s too thick and serve.

Cooking a scrumptious meal can be gratifying for both the person cooking and those who are eating the well prepared meal. But whether a newbie at cooking or experienced there are several factors to consider so that you have a most pleasant cooking experience.

Plan in Advance – If you have a busy schedule that involves taking the kids to baseball practice or making sure your hubby has clothes to wear to work then try to write menus for a week’s meal at a time. Shop for the main dish about once a week and fruits and vegetables twice a week. Before you begin cooking have all of the necessary ingredients and utensils laid out. Something else you may want to consider is cooking several main dishes, and baking a few cakes at one time and then freezing them for future use.

Combine Your Jobs – While your cake or cookies are baking take this time to wash the dishes. You will be so happy when your cake is done and your are too! Utilize leftovers. Cook meals that can be served more than once. For instance, roast beef can later be used to make roast beef sandwiches.

Keep Your Spirit Refreshed – While cooking can be fun and rewarding it at times can be extremely stressful. With kids hollering, the television blaring and the husband reading the newspaper sometimes frustration sets in when you know that you’ve got a full hour of cooking ahead of you and that doesn’t include the cleaning! It’s important that you as the cook have a hobby that you can turn to so that you can put your focus on something you enjoy.

This may seem to simple to have any effect but it works. As soon as you have a spare moment, sit down, close your eyes and relax. You will be surprised how the tension is eased.

Cooking can be fun when one is prepared. To see a selection of independent ingredients come together to produce a fine meal for family and friends can be very rewarding. Being organized and stress-free only enhances this rewarding experience.