Archive for the 'Food & Beverage' Category

What About Herbal Weight Loss Aids

by Karen Brown

To make weight drop more quickly, many people in the US follow the latest fad in taking herbal weight loss aids. Even if they are claimed to be safe, you should seek the advice of your doctor before selecting anything that you need to ingest. The majority of herbal pills on the market have not been proven to be effective and safe and are not tested by the FDA.

There are a lot of different herbal supplements currently available, all claiming to be weight loss aids. Due diligence is required and you must read what ingredients are in the supplements you are taking and understand their function. Many are unregulated and so are not held to strict medical standards, thus opening the debate on their very legality.

Most of the weight loss aids that are currently on the market are not composed of just one ingredient, but rather are made of many. It is vital for you as the consumer to be aware of each ingredient and how it may affect you, as well as how the ingredients may interact with other medication you may be taking.

Taking weight loss aids carries its own risks, since there are generally no easy solutions to losing weight. There can be unknown side effects to these weight loss aids. Since they are neither tested nor regulated, there is no way to determine their efficacy. In addition to this problem, each manufacturer may vary their ingredients and combinations.

If you do decide to use a weight loss aid, it would be prudent to purchase supplements from a reliable source. You may consult your local health food store to determine which brands and manufacturers are recommended, versus which ones are not as reputable.

Diet coupled with exercise has scientifically been shown to be a proven way to lose weight. Some physicians even say that diet and exercise is the only healthy way to lose the extra pounds. Other physicians do permit their patients to supplement their diets with safe weight loss aids like green teas.

Can weight loss aids truly help people to lose weight? They have helped some people to lose weight, while having virtually no effect on others. It is difficult to answer this question since there is no scientific evidence to back up an answer. Be sure to use caution when purchasing weight loss aids, and always seek your doctor’s advice regarding any supplement program.

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What is Kale and How to Use it in Cooking

by KC Kudra

A lot of cooks see kale in the grocery store and leave it in favor of another vegetable because they do not know exactly what it is or how to best prepare and cook it. If you find out a little more about this leafy green, you will discover that it is both delicious and very versatile. You might like to try a kale soup recipe, a kale salad recipes or a kale stew first of all. Kale can be eaten raw or cooked.

Before the 1600s, kale was the most common green vegetable but it has been around since long before then. There is evidence of kale cultivation going right back to the fourth century BC in Greece. Kale was a popular addition to the British Victory Gardens of World War II and people are rediscovering the goodness and flavor of kale these days. There are a lot of new kale recipes and kale is cooked in recipes all over the globe.

Have you ever been away for a few days and returned home to find a pile of soggy, brown mush in your refrigerator, which were green vegetables a few days earlier? Kale freezes well so if you do not want to use it immediately you will not have this problem. It actually tastes sweeter after being exposed to a frost. If you are using fresh kale, especially the tender young shoots, you can add them to a salad. You might also like to add strong peppers, peanuts and roasted nuts to emphasize the strong, smoky flavor of the kale.

If you want to know how to cook kale, the good new is that cooking kale is easy. It is also optional because kale tastes great raw too. If you like cooked vegetables, you might like to try a southern African recipe in which the kale is boiled with ground peanuts and coconut milk and served on top of flatbread or rice. This is a very good way to enjoy a tasty vegetarian treat, which is both delicious and healthy.

Kale is often combined with ground or sliced meat, such as ground beef or spicy sausage, in Europe. It is usually combined with broth, olive oil, and potatoes to complement the meat. This means the meat will not obscure the taste of the greens because kale is quite a strong and tasty vegetable and can easily stand up to the meat flavor. It is nice chopped up and used as a stir-fry ingredient. This type of dish is made in many different countries.

You might like to add some Japanese shiitake mushrooms if you are creating a kale stir-fry. Take off the kale stems and slice the leaves into large pieces. Heat some oil in a wok or frying pan and fry the garlic, mushrooms, and anything else you add on a low to medium heat. When the ingredients are tender, add the kale and any seasonings you want, such as pepper, sesame oil, and soy sauce. This tasty dish takes just minutes to make.

Kale is very underrated but you can see now that it can be used in many different recipes. So why not buy some kale the next time you shop for vegetables and discover its unique taste for yourself!

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Enjoying Cuban cigars at Dinner

by Trevor Wallace

Cuban cigars are perfect on their own and I’m sure you will agree and agree with one hundred percent compliance. Any day of the week (At least the people I know). would love to just chill at the beach with a nice Cohiba Robusto lit to it’s full potential.

Smoking Cuban cigars after a meal wasn’t always in fashion. The gentleman who discovered this great pleasure though needs to given the Nobel prize for helping the rest of the world discover the pure joy of smoking a Cuban cigar. Now what you have to decide is where are you eating? Is it a picnic or is it a dinner for two with that special lady in the red dress?

So it all depends on what kind of meal you are having. If you are having strong food that is rich in taste such as Thai or Indian food, than you need a nice light to medium cigar such as the Montecristo No 4. I personally don’t like Montecristo but you have to understand, my second cigar after the Fonseca was a Partagas and Cohiba Robusto.

Smoking and eating don’t mix and I’ll be the first to admit that. However, smoking after you eat is a beautiful thing. If you are a cigarette smoker, than you probably know how satisfying (Although a horrible habit) it can be after a big meal such as a gourmet burger. So their are some rules that you must follow because the goal here is to enjoy your cigars and your food.

Now it all depends on your taste buds but most likely, you either want to smoke before or after. Some people have a small Cohiba Siglo in the beginning and than go for their meals. You can than add a much stronger cigar after a meal. I find that it’s much better that way.

Cigar dinners are actually now becoming very popular. It is unfortunate that in the United States of America, Cuban cigars are not sold (At least legally). As Cuban cigars after a nice dinner with friends and family can complete an already stellar night.

The Basics of Gourmet Cooking

by Ashley King

To many, learning the art of gourmet cooking might appear to be an impossible dream. But no matter what your present cooking skills are, this simply isn’t the reality. There are numerous gourmet cooking techniques that you can practice to enhance your everyday cookery skills.

One path to developing these skills is to sign on for a gourmet cooking class. The downside is that many of these courses can be quite costly, and you might not have the time in your schedule to make it to all the classes.

With gourmet cooking classes not an option for some, what are other ways that you can learn about gourmet cooking that you can incorporate into everyday meals?

Well, there are a few things you can do and if you read on hopefully you can pick up a few tricks to implement gourmet cooking into your everyday routine.

First off, you have to think of gourmet cooking in a realistic light. It doesn’t mean expensive, nor does it mean rare or exotic. Gourmet cooking entails utilizing only the freshest ingredients that are of the highest quality.

An easy way to go about gourmet cooking is to examine the basic spices you use. For instance, a gourmet chef would never cook with garlic powder, bottled garlic, or any other type of garlic that wasn’t freshly chopped. As well, a gourmet chef would never use dehydrated or bottled herbs. Only fresh herbs from the produce department of the supermarket would be considered.

In some cases these ingredients will be more expensive, however in most you will find that the price difference will not be nearly as excessive as you would think and far cheaper than eating out. In addition, once you become accustomed to the gourmet cooking style you will not even want to eat out. Instead you will want to dine at home, trying new techniques and cooking methods at your leisure.

The fastest and simplest way to add gourmet cooking into your everyday meal preparation is to enhance the quality of the ingredients that you’re using. Then you’ll want to learn how to cook the ingredients properly.

The easiest way to do this is to browse through cookbooks, where you’ll be able to study the basic principles and learn at your own rate. Your library will have numerous cookbooks that you can explore.

Your cookbook should deal with the basics, including what type of knife you should use for various tasks, how to prepare chicken stock, and the process for clarifying butter. These are all fundamental cooking techniques that can often seem unattainable because they are considered to be gourmet.

Hopefully you can now see that gourmet cooking is something you can bring into your everyday life, and not something that is simply in the realm of the rich.

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All about Kale and How to Cook with It

by KC Kudra

This is something that many cooks of all levels of experience ask themselves, but if you do a little bit of investigation, you’ll find that there are plenty of things that you can do with this highly versatile leafy green. When you eat kale, you are in good company.

Kale was the most common green vegetable in Europe until the 1600s, and even before that, we have had evidence of the cultivation of Kale going back to the fourth century BC in Greece. Kale was a favorite addition to the British Victory Gardens of World War II, and today, people are finding more reasons than ever to add it to their diets.

If you have been out for dinner several nights in a row or not cooked for another reason, you have probably opened your refrigerator door at some point and winced at a soggy, brown pile of what were once vegetables. Kale freezes very well and actually tastes sweeter after being exposed to a frost. If you have fresh kale and especially fresh kale shoots which are very tender, try adding them to a salad. If you are making a kale salad, you might also want to add strong peppers, roasted nuts and peanuts, all of which bring out the strong, smoky flavor.

Kale is eaten all over the globe and there are a lot of kale recipes you can use. If you want to learn how to cook kale, the good news is that cooking kale is easy and it can be cooked in various ways. If you prefer cooked vegetables to raw ones, you can look at southern African recipes where kale is boiled with coconut milk and ground or powdered peanuts. This mixture is served on flat bread or rice. If you are a vegetarian or just enjoy vegetarian recipes from time to time, using kale in this way is a good way to cut back on eating meat and replacing it with something delicious and rich in flavor.

By contrast, you will also find that in Europe, kale is often combined with sliced or ground up meat, especially heavily spiced sausage or ground beef. It is usually combined with potatoes, broth, and olive oil and served in such a way that will complement the meat; in this fashion, the meat does not completely obscure the taste of the greens, as it would with a milder vegetable. You will also find that kale can be quite tasty if it is chopped up and added to stir-fry, something that happens around the globe.

If you want to stir fry kale, add some Japanese shiitake mushrooms to the mixture. Remove the stems of the kale and cut the leaves into large parts. Heat some oil in a wok or large frying pan and gently fry the garlic, mushrooms, and anything else you want to add. When these ingredients are tender, add the kale and season with pepper, soy sauce, and sesame oil and you will have a delicious, healthy meal within minutes, which is great served with some noodles or rice.

Kale is very underrated but you can see now that it can be used in many different recipes. So why not buy some kale the next time you shop for vegetables and discover its unique taste for yourself!

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Coarsely Ground Coffee For The Masses

by Clinton Maxwell

here are so many types of coffee that you would find it really difficult to say which one is the best. Of course, a lot depends upon the personal taste as well. However, when it comes to judging the quality of the coffee, the smell, flavor and richness of taste are a few factors that are taken into consideration such the quality of beans, the grinder you use and the time elapsed from the preparation of the coffee cup.

Why Coffee Grinders Are Important?

The truth is that without coffee grinders you would never been able to taste a cup of coffee. Boiling the beans directly would never give you the taste of this magical beverage that has people all over the world craving for it. The type of coffee you have would very much depend upon the way ad the time your coffee beans are ground.

For example, if you love espresso the beans need to be totally powdered for the right taste; if you want to use the coffee in coffee pots, it is best to have the coffee coarsely ground as these would release the flavor slowly over a longer period of time.

How Do The Coffee Grinders Work?

There are two major types of coffee grinders available today in the market. The first utilizes blades which rotate and quite literally chops the beans into pieces. Your actual consistency of the pow eder will depend on how long you ruin it and the speed at which the grinder runs. To control the powder you get ? if you let it run on a slow speed for less time, you would get coarse coffee; if it were to run for a longer time at a higher speed you then would get superfine powder for your espresso.

Burr Grinders are the other type of coffee grinders also known as burr grinders, use grinding wheels. What these grinders do is to permit you almost a complete control over the grind you get on your beans. They come in two varieties ? there is one shaped like a cone and one that is flat. The cone shaped unit, because it does not plug up as easily as the flat one, is preferred.

Then, you have the electric models which run on plain old household electricity. In answer to the growing popularity of coffee, these grinders come in portable sizes. You can but these very affordably with prices starting under $20 American. This makes them easy to take every where.

Why People Love Coffee Grinders?

Today you find all types of coffee ground and not-ground in the market making it easy for you to pick up any type of coffee and use it. Why then the coffee grinder is still so much in demand? The answer to this question lies in the flavor of the coffee made with freshly grounded powder ? as you would have guessed, the taste and flavor can never be compared with anything ready made.

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Safe Food Handling Could Save Your Business

by Malcolm J. Richmond

Whether it’s the 4 Mile Restaurant & Pub, the Chez Michel Restaurant, the Heron Rock Bistro, the Club Bar & Grill, or any other great restaurant in Melbourne, food safety is of paramount importance. And no matter how great your business is, even simple food handling mistakes in the kitchen could seriously harm you- even possibly put you out of business.

As a restaurant, your business depends on two things. One is a loyal base of repeat customers. The other is the public’s perception of your restaurant. The restaurant business is to a large extent a reputation based business. One lawsuit related to improper food handling could ruin your establishment.

You make sure that proper food handling procedures are followed at your restaurant; you need to ensure kitchen staff are well aware of the risks which a case of food poisoning presents to your business. You need to be prepared in the event that health inspectors should decide to drop by for a surprise visit as well. Employees who see improper food handling in your kitchen are also a risk to your business, as they may decide to tell the world what they know if they lose their job.

There’s more to it all than just proper food storage and waste disposal, too.

One of the basic things that must be done is to constantly clean and keep clean food preparation areas and equipment. This seems simple, but it’s simple to screw it up, too. For instance, different cutting boards should be used to prepare meat, seafood, vegetables. Some places use stainless steel counters on which to do cutting, but this can dull your knives and some people say meat absorbs a little bit of “steel flavor” and, while harmless, that’s not good. Plastic cutting boards are more sanitary and easier to clean than wooden ones. Each cutting board needs to be thoroughly rinsed or put into the washer after every meal preparation. Chlorine bleach may be used for a deeper cleaning, but make sure the rinse is extremely thorough if bleach is used for cleaning.

Utensils need to be washed after every meal they are used to prepare, as well.

To keep them free of harmful bacteria, meats must always be cooked to a minimal internal temperature. For red meats and pork, this temperature is a minimum if 69 degrees centigrade. For seafood it is 74 degrees. Even if a rare steak has been ordered, it must be cooked to at least this minimum temperature for at least 15 seconds to minimize the risk of food poisoning. Any meat which is not very fresh should be cooked to very well done.

The preparation of raw foods such as sushi call for even greater care. These foods require you to keep your kitchen perfectly clean and a grade-A preparation staff are essential here, as is being sure that your supplier of seafood is very clean. When preparing sushi, disposable gloves and hair coverings must be worn and the preparation area so clean that one could literally eat that sushi off of the floor. Sushi must be discarded if it is not absolutely certain that it is fresh.

It is surprising how many kitchen workers neglect to wash their hands with soap and hot water in between meal preparation, even when raw meat is involved. Hand washing between meal preparations is a must and washing hands in between say, handling meat and vegetables is a very good idea.

By enforcing a strict kitchen sanitation and food handling program, you will be protecting the interests of your customers as well as those of your restaurant.

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How to Get Great Results from Baked Fish Recipes

by KC Kudra

If you have some delicious tilapia fish recipes to try out or some mouthwatering baked cod dish you have wanted to make, you might be thinking that baking fish is easy. To be honest, there is nothing too difficult about it but there are a few tips and tricks that will take your baked fish recipes to the next level and guarantee perfection.

You can bake fish steaks, fillets, seafood, or whole fish. Baking cooks fish quickly at a high temperature.

Baking is one of the most popular ways to cook fish but the problem a lot of people have is their fish drying out. If you leave the fish in the oven for as little as 2 minutes too long, this might dry it out. Dried out fish is actually when the fish oil is removed by allowing too much baking time. You have to be quite vigilant and check it often. Remember too that fish continues to cook once you have removed it from the oven.

Selecting and Preparing Fish for Baked Fish Recipes

When you buy a fish, check the eyes are clear, bright, and slightly protruded and the gills are pink or red. If the eyes are sunken, cloudy, or pink and the gills are gray, the fish is stale.

Whether you are shopping for fish for a tasty baked cod dish or delicious tilapia fish recipes, the same rules apply. If the fish is very fresh, your recipe will turn out better.

You need to ensure the fish is properly defrosted to get the very best results from your fish recipe. Frozen fish has the same nutritional value as fresh fish and will keep in the freezer for weeks or even months, depending what kind of fish it is. To defrost fish, leave it on the lower shelves of the refrigerator for between 8 and 12 hours.

If you need it quicker than that, you can submerge it in cold water with 3 or 4 tablespoons of salt. This takes a couple of hours. If you have defrosted fish or fresh fish in the refrigerator, use it within 24 hours for the best results.

Depending on what kind of baked fish recipe you are making, you might want to marinate the fish fillets in salt and lemon before cooking for firmer flesh, a fresh taste and to make it easier to handle. You can also soak your fish in water with vinegar before baking, to make it sweeter, more tender and hold its shape better.

Baking Your Fish

Fish contains natural oils so it is not necessary to add fat or oil before baking. These natural oils will keep the fish moist as long as you do not overcook it. To make sure the fish remains moist while cooking, you might want to top it with some thinly sliced vegetables or seasoned breadcrumbs. There are plenty of tilapia fish recipes, which use vegetables or breadcrumbs to add texture and taste. Alternatively, you can brush some oil or melted butter over the top of the fish before cooking.

When baking fish recipes, the general rule is to bake the fish for 10 minutes per inch of its thickness. Most baked fish recipes call for a temperature of 450C. You will need to turn the fish halfway through its cooking time unless it is less than an inch thick.

Tuck thin ends underneath to make sure the fillets cook evenly. Cooking times also vary depending how dense the fish is. Your fish is ready when you can flake it easily with a fork at its thickest point, when it is 145F internally or when it is opaque all the way through.

To stop fish from sticking to the baking dish and breaking up when you are trying to get it out, you can bake fish on a bed of onions, celery, or both. This also adds extra flavor to your baked fish recipe.

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Is the Food that you’re Serving Safe?

by Malcolm J. Richmond

Outbreaks of food poisoning have been in the news a lot as of late. As you know, many of these outbreaks were traced to restaurants. No matter where in the world you are, there are safety regulations which must be followed and Victoria, Australia is no exception.

In many cases of food poisoning, Salmonella is the culprit. Raw poultry and eggs are generally the source of this bacterium in foods, but this bacterium can also be carried by contamination from faeces as well as pet reptiles.

To prevent food poisoning occurring due to salmonella contamination, two steps can be taken. First, always thoroughly cook food, this will kill the bacteria. Second, regular hand washing before, during and after cooking will stop the transmission of this bacterium.

Escherichia coli (or E-coli for short) is a form of bacteria which can cause serious illness or even death. Found naturally inside of the human body and in some foods, some strains can be lethal. E-coli produces harmful, toxic substances and includes unpleasant (to say the least) symptoms including watery and/or bloody diarrhea. A healthy adult can generally weather a case of E-coli food poisoning, but the elderly, the sick and young children are at risk of getting very ill if infected. As with salmonella, the way to prevent E-coli infection is thorough cooking and regular hand washing, along with careful cleaning of all cooking areas. Hand washing should become a thoroughly ingrained habit. You use your hands to pick up everything - even harmful microbes.

With all of the stories about food poisoning in the news, it’s understandable that some people are a little nervous about dining out. To make sure that your establishment keeps your customers safe from the risk of infection, be sure to follow the HACCP principles. HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points and is a set of principles designed to make sure that foods prepared for people to eat are safe. Many of these regulations are simply common sense, such as putting milk back into the refrigerator after use or dating items before freezing.

Running a restaurant kitchen requires that you stay on top of a lot of different things. If you’ve got employees whom you supervise, you must ensure they are up to speed on HACCP principles and adhere to them. You don’t want all of the work you’ve put into your restaurant to be ruined by one mistake made out of ignorance of the HACCP principles.

Having a HACCP certified kitchen is very marketable. If you have received stickers or certifications from health officials, be sure to place them where your customers can see them. This way they know that the food which you are serving to them was prepared in a clean kitchen which complies with health and safety regulations and they can dine in without getting anxious.

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History of Tortillas and How to Use Them

by KC Kudra

The word “tortillas” comes from the Spanish word “torta” which means round cake. Tortillas are very popular in America as well as Mexico. Americans like to be creative with their tortilla fillings and will eat them with apples and brown sugar or beans and meat or even peanut butter and jelly. Tortillas can also be used instead of bread, to make a kind of sandwich, for casseroles and as a wrap for hot dogs. You can do many things with them and you can even make your own homemade tortillas.

Tortillas have been used for thousands of years but without the exotic, imaginative flavors and fillings of today.

Aztecs made tortillas more than 10,000 years before Christ. Aztecs ate a lot of corn, some right from the cob, and others they would save and use later. They would ground it into corn meal and later make into masa, which is corn dough. The masa is added with water. If the water is not the right temperature, the consistency will not be enough to make the tortilla. Once the masa is ready, it is placed in a ball size in the maker’s hands. It takes awhile to go through the process of making the masa flat. It is patted into what looks like a think pancake. Once it is the right size, it is placed on a hot griddle. It does not take long to cook.

Today the tortilla is still made with the same ingredients. Majority of them are made in factories with machines because they are in high demand. They come in many flavors. Anyone can still make them from scratch if they prefer. You can find tortillas in a variety of Mexican foods. Tacos use them as the shell. Enchiladas consist of the tortilla being filled and then rolled, afterwards being cooked. Quesadillas use tortillas as turnovers, which are filled and then fried.

Did you know that tortillas are not just for eating? “Tortilla art” is when tortillas are used as a canvas. They are baked before being covered with acrylic. Then they are painted. Tortilla art represents the culture of Latino artists.

Tortilla chips are also made from tortillas. The tortilla is fried after being cut into wedges. The ingredients in corn tortillas are corn, salt, water, and vegetable oil. These tortilla chips first gained popularity in the 1940s in Los Angeles, California. These chips were mass-produced there but are still known as Mexican food.

Americans like to use tortillas in various dishes. They are commonly used in burritos, which originated in northern Mexico many years ago. Many people from the north of Mexico and the Native Mexicans in the southwestern United States eat tortillas as a food staple. Many restaurants use flour tortillas in a variety of non-Mexican and Mexican recipes. Nearly every grocery store has tortillas and you can also make homemade tortillas and experiment with the ingredients and fillings.

There are a lot of different tortilla recipes if you want to try this exciting food in various ways and create your own delicious dishes with flour tortillas!

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