Awesome Tips For Cooking Well And Efficiantly / Cooking Tips / By Bary Smith No ratings yet. No ratings yet. Knowing how to cook well can be one of the most useful skills you can have. Everyone enjoys eating a savory dish prepared by someone they know. Not everyone is as skillful in the kitchen as they would like to be. In this article, you will learn some helpful advice to improve your cooking skills. When preparing mashed potatoes, stir in hot (not boiling) milk to mix them. Using hot, rather than cold, milk results in more fluffed-up and lighter mashed potatoes. No one wants to eat mashed potatoes that are lumpy and bland. Consider using ketchup to add to your battering ingredients when making fried foods. You can dip chicken into ketchup prior to dipping it into breadcrumbs. This will enhance the moisture and flavor of your chicken. Adding ketchup or another sauce will add more flavor to your recipe. TIP! When you are baking pastry crusts, try increasing the cooking time a bit. It will help if you achieve a darker, more delicious golden caramel color, rather than stopping when the crust is still pale. Use extra virgin olive oil when necessary instead of oils that are high in saturated fat. There is a lot of unnecessary fat in butter and oil. A smart alternative is to switch to a nonstick cooking spray, it gives similar results with less of the unhealthy ingredients. You can sprinkle it on many other foods besides meat. Add it to seeds and nuts, or even scramble it with eggs. Everyone will beg you to let them in on the secret ingredient. If you boil your vegetables or cook them for too long, they will lose a lot of nutrients. Allow your vegetables to keep their nutritional benefits by cooking them quickly, or eating them raw! You should consider drying your tomatoes on your own. Try slicing a Roma in half lengthwise, or cut larger tomatoes into 1/2 inch slices. Using a cooling rack, lay the sliced tomatoes with the side that is cut facing upward, and then sprinkle them lightly with salt. Place the cooling rack on a cookie sheet and dry in a 190 degree oven for up to 10 hours. Place them in the freezer in plastic bags. Another option is to store dried tomatoes in a jar that contains fresh, flavorful herbs and olive oil. Kept in the refrigerator, these tomatoes will keep for a couple of weeks. Fresh Ingredients It is always better to choose fresh ingredients for your recipes instead of dried or frozen ones. The more fresh ingredients you use in your cooking, the better your dishes will be. Fresh ingredients have more flavor, and are less costly than frozen and canned ingredients. It is necessary for all cooks to organize their cooking supplies. Poorly organized supplies cause confusion and mess. Store similar items together in the same place. For example, since basil and parsley are both spices, put them in the same cabinet. Some fruits will grill up nicely, and make a tasty treat. Slice up nectarines, melons and peaches and then thread them onto a skewer. Place them on a grill that is clean, and cook until you see grill marks on the fruit. Serve in conjunction with some ice cream or a pound cake. TIP! Reduce the amount of cooking oil you use if you are looking to lose weight and make your diet healthier. Oil and butter have lots of fat. Winter greens offer a delicious vegetable choice that is both hardy and tasty. Kale, collars and broccoli rabe will taste much sweeter after they have lived passed the first frost. The brighter green these vegetables are, the better. When they start to go bad, they will turn yellow or become limp. By nature, these greens are more prone to dirt collection, so wash them thoroughly and carefully before consuming them. You can submerge the greens into a bowl filled with cool water, next shake them off and continue rinsing until the water is clear. As you can see, cooking can be easy. With the right techniques, creating delicious dishes for family and friends can suddenly become a breeze! Now that you have been introduced to these great tips and tricks, you just need to make the time to go and give them a try! Please rate this Please Rate Winnellie Supermarket Post navigation ← Previous PostNext Post →