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Posts from the ‘Informational’ Category

Family Meal Planning Efficiency During the Week

In my last posting,  I talked  about the fact that in the fall, when activities start up, especially after school opens, schedules fill up so fast, even into the evening hours, that many people get really stressed. It takes time to adjust to new routines and frequently the first casualties are meals, most especially the family dinner. Read more

CHICKEN: TO RINSE OR NOT TO RINSE

About 5 yrs. ago all the chefs began touting “brining” poultry. My family has been “soaking” it in salted water, before cooking, for generations because salt draws the blood. Unlike other meats, residual blood in poultry toughens the meat and taints the taste. Read more

Basic Sauces Explained – Recipes for your favorite basic Sauces

A friend, who’s a really savvy cook, read me the riot act, via email, right after last week’s posting appeared. Quite rightly, he pointed out that I had confused sauces identity by incorrectly lumping them with gravies.   Read more

Savvy Sauce Recipes – Advanced Sauce Techniques

Those of you who read last week’s blog on sauce recipes will have realized that sauces, in their classic forms, can be tricky, time consuming, possibly expensive, to make and certainly no friend to any type of diet. Read more

The Mediterranean Diet Explained – Tips and Recipes

Lately the Mediterranean Diet is very popular and highly recommended. Correctly titled, it’s not actually “The Mediterranean Diet” but rather “A Mediterranean Style Diet” because this is not a calculated, calibrated formula for eating specific items over a given time to achieve a set goal.  Read more

Spotlight on Vegetables – Tips for a healthy summer food preperation

One steamy afternoon last week, I joined a group by the pool. One woman was describing her meal plan for guests the next day. Understandably, unwilling to cook in the heat, she had called a caterer. Read more

BEWARE RISING MEAT PRICES – Meat Buying Tips and International Meat Recipes

Sometimes it doesn’t feel good to be right. In fact, at times you’d rather be wrong and this is one of them for me. For nearly a year, I’ve been reporting predictions that meat, especially beef prices, were going to continue to go up. Just a few weeks ago, I warned that the usual pattern was to see them rise right after a holiday. Read more

Carbs Don’t Make You Gain Weight – What You Should Know About Carbohydrates

It’s been a long discussion on carbohydrates, but I think an important one. With each new season, be it Spring, Summer or the Holidays, attention is always focused on improving one’s image, usually on losing weight and carbs get trashed. Protein diets and fitness are the rage, but though protein does build muscle, it’s carbohydrates that provide the energy to get out of bed, let alone work out.   Read more