How To Cook Like A Pro: Tips And Tricks shrimp and pasta recipes As millions of people have already found out, cooking is not only a necessity; it's a luxury. Learning how to cook well is a great hobby choice for anyone. If you have good advice, tools and information anyone can be a good cook. Anyone who can follow instructions correctly can make a delicious meal from scratch. All of the prep work can be done ahead of time. Save time by doing the prep work before you begin cooking the meal. When you're ready to begin cooking and have set your deadline to finish, you can get really stressed. You can save yourself a lot of stress by doing as much preparation ahead of time as you can. If you cooked with a sauce, save the leftover sauce in an ice cube tray that you can freeze. Take them out to use on another night when you'd like a no hassle home cooked meal. Simply reheat the sauce cubes slowly in a medium pan on your stove top. Have no fear, for the sauce will taste great even after being frozen in the trays! When you are baking pastry crusts, try increasing the cooking time a bit. Wait until the crust turns golden rather than pale blond. When you see the golden color it indicates carmelization, which lends a crisp, sweet flavor to the pie crust. To maintain a vegetable's quality, cook it quickly. Vegetables that are cooked slowly lose a lot of their taste and nutrition. Using these techniques will mean putting healthier food on the table. The less time you take to cook them, the better your vegetables will be. Do you enjoy flavoring your food with fresh basil? Put some fresh basil into a glass. Next, put water on the stems until they are covered. Next, place the basil and glass on the kitchen counter; the herb will remain fresh for a week or more. If the water is changed periodically, the basil may even sprout roots. Trim your basil plants back a bit to encourage new growth, and keep enjoying your basil for a long time. Try adding cauliflower to your mashed potatoes to lower the fat content. Cauliflower has a kind of bland taste that mixes well with potatoes and the other ingredients in them. Cauliflower also matches the color and texture of the potatoes. This is a great way to add veggies and eliminate calories from a favorite dish. It is a good practice to place cut potatoes in a bath of cold water for about half and hour, before frying in order to get crispy fries. A cold water soak helps the potatoes stand up to the rigors of deep fat frying. Though you may not realize it, garlic tends to seep into the pores of your skin during meal preparation. To get rid of this odor, or any other strong cooking smell, rub your hands on the inside of your stainless steal sink. This will clean your hand and keep the odor from transferring to other foods you are handling. To improve the flavor of your dishes, mix your own broth and other stock. You can make this in large batches, and freeze some for later use in resealable freezer bags. Your yummy stock will be ready for you when you're ready to create your next culinary treat or just make a simple soup. Preparing
your own stock in advance will reduce your need to use cheap over-salted options instead. Always measure the amount of cooking oil you use. To lower some fat content in foods, always measure your oil when you are cooking, do not pour it from the bottle right in the pan. This technique gives you greater control over the amount of oil you want to use. Cooking doesn't have to be an exact science; that's baking. But you should still measure the amount of oil you cook with. This will help you reduce how much fat is present in your cooking. This will enable you to keep track of the amount of oil you are using. Blot the ground meat that you are using before cooking it. Blotting away the moisture on ground meat is always a good idea. Any moisture left on the meat will be released when it's cooked. It will start to sizzle away. It will result in beef that is steamed, rather than seared, completely changing the flavor of your final dish. As we have discussed, there are a large variety of things you can do to make cooking much more fun and enjoyable. Follow the tips presented above, and your cooking experience will be transformed into a creative, fun-filled pastime. spicy shrimp recipes