Different Healthier Food Preparation Tips And Techniques

If you are to prepare as well as cook meals at home, you will certainly have better control over the nutritional content along with the overall healthfulness of the foods you ingest. This will also greatly help in saving money.

Health Food Prep Techniques

Consider using and preparing foods that contain no or little salt. Also, use low-fat, reduced, light or no-fat salad dressings on salads as marinades or perhaps dips. When it comes to poultry, you must use leaner light meat rather than fattier dark meat. Most importantly, be sure to remove the skin.

When it comes to seasonings, you must not use prepackaged seasoning mixes since they usually contain plenty of salt. Also, you have to use fresh herbs. Using a mortar and pestle, you have to grind herbs to achieve the fullest and freshest flavor.

Three Ways To Cook Bacon And How to Get Rid Of Cooking Oil Waste

Just like there's more than one way to skin a cat, there's also more than one way to cook bacon. Learn about the three ways to cook bacon and how to properly dispose of the leftover cooking oil waste.

In The Oven

If you are cooking a large amount of bacon, cooking bacon in the oven is the easiest way to go. First, pre-heat the oven to 400°. While the oven pre-heats, place some foil on a baking sheet; then lay the bacon there. Depending on the thickness of the slices, bake for 15 to 20 minutes. While the slices bake, place some paper towels on a platter, and once the baking is done, use tongs to remove the slices so they can cool and allow the paper towels to absorb excess grease.

How To Can Homemade Applesauce - Step By Step Instructions For Canning And Storing Fresh Apples

Apple Sauce isn't all that hard to make. I did this batch without the food processor, and so it took a little longer to cook down. You can chop it with your food processor and make much smaller chunks that cook down quicker, but I just cut the chunks up as I was getting the apples peeled.

So without further ado... here we go!

I have yellow apples... probably a Granny Smith, but if not it is that type of apple that my grandma planted about 40 years ago. I have already washed the apples with anti-bacterial hand soap and rinsed them well, and they are in one big bowl. I have one bowl for bad spots and yuck, another bowl for the good peels without blemishes... will explain in a minute, my two knives, a bowl for the good cut up pieces and a bucket on the floor beside me to dump the small waste bowl into.

I save the good apple peels and good cores to make jelly out of. I put them all in a big pot, and completely cover them with about 2 inches over the top of what is in the pot. Then I simmer them for three or four hours. You want to watch them and occasionally

The Basics of Home Canning

Let me tell you, home canning takes a lot of work. However, the rewards that come with it make all the work well worth the effort. For me, I like to experiment with unusual recipes. When I started canning it was not entirely for the standard jams and jellies you can find just about anywhere. When I discovered recipes that incorporated hot and spicy elements I figured I had found the right niche to work with. I was not disappointed.

But before I started to do any home canning I had to decide what canning method to use. There's just two common ways to preserve foods - pressure canning or water bath canning. I chose the latter as I've had experience with both but found a hot water bath far easier for the canning recipes I had chosen. Besides, the recipes I chose were not the kind that required a pressure canner.

Water Bath Canning In a Nutshell

In a word, for me, canning with a boiling water bath is easy. Even if I didn't have an actual canner I could use a large stock pot with a rack on the bottom to place jars. The only specialized equipment I would need is jars, lids and screw tops. The science involved is all about boiling water and the length of time the water is boiling.