Cooking and meal preparation is more than just following a recipe.The information on these pages is not FDA approved, may not meet with current food guidelines and may not be accurate. It covers the way I do things, my opinions, philosophies, techniques, etc.
I have made a great effort to have the information as useful as possible.
Feel free to do things your own way, disagree with me, challenge me and tell me what I've missed.
A summary page showing all of the technical information we may need from time to time: conversions between ounces and grams; pounds and kilograms; ounces and milliliters, inches and centimeters. Plus general knowledge such as cooking temperatures for various types of meats and fish; oven temperatures in the 3 common ways a recipe might use; and comparative pan sizes with volumes, so you can substitute with some degree of hope.
Ever wonder how to pit an avocado? How to freeze tomatoes? How to preserve herbs? What's the difference between chopping and mincing? Or julienne and matchstick?
You'll find a lot of those answers here. And more as I discover the questions....
Plus information on barbecue grills and smokers; food pyramids and gardening.Having a well-stocked pantry is essential to good cooking. In a pinch, complete meals can be made easily from a good pantry. My pantry has slight seasonal variations: there are things I use for grilling meats in summer that I won't use for braising them in winter.
When I do the weekly shopping list I have a section on 'Pantry' items so that you can keep yours well-stocked. But having an item listed in the 'Pantry' section also means that you need to check your supply; not just buy it. You don't want 7 jars of Dijon-style mustard.I would love to have one of those outrageously expensive, perfectly equipped kitchens one sees in the magazines. But I don't. Nor will I.
It's important to have the right tools to cook with. It's equally important to understand that one does not need all of them. A set of 10 chef's knives would be lovely but one really only needs 2 or 3 good ones (although I suggest 5).
But the best quality that you can afford of a few items that you need. Add the optional items later - or not.
Would you like help planning dinner?
Our Weekly Menu Planning Service (Menu Mailer) gives you healthy, gourmet dinners, carefully planned to reduce waste and insure a wide variety of seasonal, wholesome foods each week.
All text and images are copyright © 2005 - 2010 Thyme for Cooking, K. L. Zeller.
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