Best Grilling Tools

Filed Under (Food and Drink) by Natasha Johnson on 19-10-2008

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by Natasha Johnson

Summer’s coming, and the grill beckons! Before you start stocking up on thick juicy steaks and burgers, check out some of the essential grill and barbecue tools below. They’re sure to make your grilling experiences easier.

1. Basting brushes. You can never have too many of them! Check out natural bristle paintbrushes with long-handles - they make brushing on marinades and glazes a breeze while you’re grilling.

2. Hinged wire grill baskets. These come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and are perfect for grilling fish, seafood and vegetables - basically, anything that might flake or has small pieces that could drop through onto the fire can be grilled inside one of these baskets.

3. Barbecue skewers. Bring on those kabobs! Grilled kabobs are a nice summer meal, and you can get skewers for kabobs in either bamboo or metal. Make sure to soak bamboo skewers for half an hour before grilling. Metal skewers can get very hot, so take care when turning them, or get ones with heat-resistant handles.

4. Meat thermometer. This is one gadget that is perfect for grilling steaks, especially for people who like their beef rare or medium rare. It’s also a good idea to have one on hand when grilling chicken - you’ll have a perfectly grilled chicken without having to cut into it to make sure it’s thoroughly cooked.

5. Long-handled tongs. If you’ve only ever used a spatula and a grill fork when grilling, give tongs a try. They make turning food over very easy, and if you’re using a charcoal grill, you can get a set specifically to move the charcoal pieces around.

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Lobster Clambake: Have Fun All-year Round

Filed Under (Food and Drink) by matthew lewis on 15-10-2008

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by Shannon Linnen

Summer is a great period for entertaining, and a very fun way to entertain is to invite your friends and family over for a clambake. Lobster and clams cooked over a fire, some exotic drinks, brightly colored decorations and appropriate music make for a great time for everybody.

However, when the weather is not cooperating, or even when winter hits, why not hold a lobster clambake indoors? What a great way to bring the illusion of summer to a cold winter day! And it’s a fun, easy and healthy way to entertain.

Instead of just any old lobster clambake, consider having a super deluxe lobster clambake, which is sure to please a variety of tastes. For your indoor clambake, purchase some fresh lobster, clams, shrimp, mussels, and maybe even some crab. You might also want to include some lobster bisque or clam chowder on the menu, in addition to corn on the cob and roasted potatoes.

Besides the food for your super deluxe lobster clambake, you will want to have a good supply of lobster bibs on hand, claw crackers, lots and lots of napkins, and a good supply of pre-moistened towlettes. Seafood is delicious but it can be very messy indeed.

You may be wondering how you can have an indoor clambake, when the clams and other seafood at a clambake are traditionally cooked in a pit over an open fire. Easy! For this super deluxe lobster clambake you will be doing all of the cooking on the traditional indoor stovetop!

The only special equipment you need to complete the cooking is a lobster stock pot. These are available in a variety of sizes and some come with a steamer rack and basket. They can be found in many cooking supply stores and on the Internet. While looking for your lobster stock pot on the Internet, run an additional search for an indoor clambake recipe that sounds good.

To plan and prepare you party in even easier way, there are many super deluxe lobster clambake kits available. They can easily be found by searching the Internet. Many of the kits contain everything you need, including wetnaps, claw crackers and cloth napkins, in addition to the seafood itself. All you’ll need to shop for are the vegetables and you’ll be all set for the most popular party of the year.

Just because you don’t live near or on the coast does not mean you do not have to suffer without a Super Deluxe Clambake! Now that both Fedex and UPS offer overnight shipping it has never been easier to have some quality fresh seafood sent straight to your door. All you have to do is contact one of the various online seafood vendors, give them a call or visit their website. From there you can order up your clambake and start the countdown until it arrives.

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Where Does a Lobster Live?

Filed Under (Food and Drink) by Sherry Shantel on 15-10-2008

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by Sherry Shantel

Be it ever so humble, where does a lobster call home? Lobsters live in the coastal regions around the world. Once shunned and now cultivated for human consumption, lobsters have come to be one of the most sought-after delicacies in the world.

To see a newborn lobster, you could never imagine it growing up to look like an adult lobster. It is incredibly tiny and misshapen, and its chances of living to reach the adult stage is only 1 in a thousand. While he spends his first two weeks of life floating near the surface of the ocean, he is easy prey for any fish that comes swimming by him. If he lives as long as the fourth stage of life, he will have molted 3 times.

During the fourth stage the lobster swims very well and looks for a permanent place to live on the ocean floor. He may choose a home in a softer habitat, such as the salt marsh peat around Cape Cod, but most generally he’ll choose a harder spot, such as an area with a cobble (small rocks) bottom.

Cobble is an exceptionally suitable habitat for lobsters. There are many crevices and cracks around and under the small rocks that make up the cobble which offers him places to hide and wait for his food to come to him. While many coastal regions offer rocky bottoms, Maine is ideal in that it also has just what lobsters like, clean, cold water.

The lobster moves into his new, ocean bottom home when he molts into stage five. During his first year or so he lives in a tunnel or crevice underneath the cobble where his many predators won’t be able to find him. From his first year until about his fourth year, he hides in the seaweed and the kelp as he cruises around looking for food.

Small lobsters seldom come out in the open. If our lobster were to swim out into the ocean at this point in his life, he’d be eaten by fish within minutes. Only when he gets larger will he move to an area with larger rocks. He may also choose to live in sandy or muddy areas between the shoreline and the edge of the continental shelf. Being a loner, he lives by himself in a crevice or burrow under rocks.

No matter where a lobster lives, there are sure to be fishermen after him. If he manages to evade natural predators and fishermen, however, he can live a very long life. During colonial times when lobsters were abundant, there are reports that some of the lobsters were five or six feet long.

The largest lobster ever captured in modern times happened off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1977. This lobster weighed 44 pounds, 6 ounces and was somewhere between three and four feet long. Experts feel it could have been as much as 100 years old. Can you believe it?

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Life without Pots and Pans

Filed Under (Food and Drink) by Ellen Zee on 15-10-2008

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by Jon Ziger

Back in the day, cooking food was a difficult task, usually involving exposing the food to open fire or putting it on hot rocks which were heated in an open flame. As mankind became better with forging steel and utilizing resources, pots and pans became ubiquitous and appeared in nearly every kitchen. With the capacity and ability to cook food and control the outcome in pots and pans, the concept of cooking became far less difficult. In fact, there are so many pots and pans available for the skilled cook, choosing cookware can be a difficult task with no shortage of pans and pots to choose from. With all these different types of cookware, there is a vast plethora of nonstick surfaces and different types of products to choose from when selecting pots and pans in the modern-day.

It’s interesting to note that in the earliest days of mankind, simply boiling a pot of water was almost an insurmountable task. While there are all manner of archaeological findings which gave credence to the idea that the earliest dishes were clay pots and pans, even before these clay pots and pans came along there was a need for heating and cooking of food, even before pots and pans came along. Many times, these foods were cooked on hot rocks, over an open flame or simply eaten raw. It is a commentary on how advanced our civilization has become that we no longer depend on these somewhat unappealing and difficult methods of preparing food with limited cookware.

Today, pots and pans are so advanced that the work involved in cooking has almost been completely eliminated. The preparation involved in cooking now includes pushing a switch and watching the food closely to ensure that it does not burn. With the right kind of cookware, even the close attention is not always necessary. Compared to chopping wood and building a huge fire, the whole concept of pushing a switch seems extremely appealing. With modern-day pots and pans, there is a tremendous amount of ease involved in preparing food compared with primitive man.

Of course, when people discuss revolutionary technology, cooking rarely comes up. You might not realize it, but pots and pans have incorporated all manner of new technology to come up with crock pots, slow cookers and even pressure cookers, which are used in canning and preserving food. With modern-day food preparation and all the different types of products available, it is easy to see that we have far outstripped the original concept by leaps and bounds. Considering that even with the clay pots and pans of the early days, these types of items were not always so easy to come across. It required skill to manufacture the clay pots and pans and even as steel became available, pots and pans still were not all that common. What we take for granted in the modern day was quite often almost impossible to come across for our ancestors.

Fortunately, along with the pace of civilization, the evolution of pots and pans has kept up nicely. With the ability to prepare food on nonstick surfaces in stainless steel pots and pans and other types of modern-day cookware implements, the modern day cook can focus solely on preparation of the food, rather than dealing with all of the external and peripheral difficulties of primitive life. Rather than piling up firewood and starting a fire, the modern-day cook simply turns on the stove burner. In primitive times, the food would have been cooked on a spit or laid on a flat hot rock. Today, we simply chuck these products into a pan and set the timer, confident that our food will be cooked correctly thanks to modern technology. With such modern conveniences, it is no surprise that so few people make the effort to go back to nature and live on the land as our forebears were so accustomed to.

It is easy enough to take the evolution of pans for granted, but without these extremely fascinating leaps in technology, we would very likely still be cooking food with a hot rock or holding our meat over an open fire. The wonders of modern technology have brought us a long way and mankind has made great advances, not the least of which is the way in which we prepare our food. Without these leaps in technology, mankind would still be subject to all manner of difficulties, not to mention parasites that are easily spread through uncooked foods and unclean surfaces. After all, cooking food on a big rock can’t be all that sanitary.

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An Introduction to Small Appliances

Filed Under (Food and Drink) by Jon Ziger on 15-10-2008

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by William Maxwell

When it comes to outfitting a kitchen, people tend to think about all of the larger things; while they think about the larger appliances (such as the fridge and oven), and the other large objects in the kitchen (such as the countertops and the cabinetry). The small appliances in the kitchen are often as important as the other appliances. They are used more often than the large appliances, and make up the look of the counters and other various areas.

Small appliances seem abundant; that’s because in reality, there are seemingly copious amounts of appliances that they can add to their kitchen. Generally, these small appliances are countertop appliances, but may also be appliances that are built into the kitchen. Microwaves are generally the type of small appliance that is built into a kitchen. While many people use microwaves frequently, they forget that it is still a small appliance.

There are other types of appliance that are known as small home appliances, however. Coffee makers are some of the most popular home kitchen appliances, as they are relied on for late night caffeine needs, as well as early morning caffeine needs. Blenders are also well known small appliances. People will use blenders to mix drinks and dressings, as well as for crushing ice and various other kitchen tasks.

Cuisinart, a brand known for quality, is one of the most well known brands for small appliances. Cuisinart is known for quality, but is also known for having a price range that is affordable for man who want to fit other small appliances into their homes.

Kitchen Aid, an even more famous company, is known for its quality as well. Many know this brand as kitchen aide, but also know that the prices may be a little higher. Many believe that these higher prices are reflected in the quality of the product, however.

Anyone who is in the market for any type of small appliance needs to realize that they should not pick the appliance based on looks. Many will reach for the first working appliance, as they feel that it will be good enough. If you want to make sure that you are making the best decision possible, choose to take the time to look for the important qualities.

The first thing that you should look for when looking for the smaller appliances for your home is the quality of the product. You want to look for products that seem to be made of sturdy material, and seem to have a strong build and make. This can be found out by inspecting the product, or simply researching/asking questions about the process.

When you know that you have found a quality appliance, you need to understand it’s many features, as you want to make sure it meets your needs beyond quality.

The final and most important thing for man, however, is price. Many people will base their final decision on price, so it is incredibly important to make sure you stick to your budget. This will lead you to narrow down your choices to the best ones possible for your specific budget.

Trying to find the best small appliances for your kitchen may seem overwhelming, but the process can actually be easy. Those who are looking for small appliances need to make sure that they are covering all of their bases in their search. There are two major places to look; online, and in actual stores.

It is important to look in actual stores for the products so that you can find a price and understand how the product looks and feels. Looking at the internet allows you to compare more prices and find possible deals and sales.

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Food Portions, So You Can Still Enjoy Your Serve of Tiramisu

Filed Under (Food and Drink) by Rowena French on 14-10-2008

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by Rowena French

About twenty years ago, my friend Bianca and her parents moved from Italy and became our neighbors. We have always shared our closest secrets just as if we were sisters. Bianca’s most exciting news came about a year ago when she finally found a way to beat her weight problem by learning about food control and the food portions she ate each day.

Neither of Bianca’s parents has ever gained extra weight and they could never fully understand the cause of her weight gain after she left home. They did rightly suspect though, that she had started eating larger portions her favorite Italian pizza and pasta more often and that these had started to show around her hips and stomach.

She married Joe and between her job and her family she was never able to lose weight for long, despite following every diet that came her way. In her unsuccessful pursuit of better health and the body shape she craved, she cut out fats, carbs, fiber and sugar at different times. Her focus was always on what she ate (or did not eat), never on the size of her food portions.

Bianca marvels at how she decided to approach portion control one day in her kitchen. She had to find a way to lose weight that did not require any more time and energy than she presently had. She decided to include the same nutritious food she cooked for her family in her own menu but served herself smaller portions.

But what food portions should she eat? Bianca knew that a balanced diet provides us with the nutrients essential for a healthy body. She knew that health authorities like the American Diabetes Association, The American Heart Association and the American Medical Association all agree that the best approach to weight loss is a balanced diet and she knew she provided food from the four major food groups for her family.

And what of the size food portions on her menu? The answer was surprisingly simple for Bianca because she decided that her Italian dinner plates decorated with flowers on the lip and a blue circle inside this would determine the size of her food portions for lunch and dinner. Unwittingly, the blue circle became the boundary for her portion control.

Her husband and sons continued to eat their usual meals to fuel their very active lives and Bianca’s food portions of the same meal always fitted within the blue circle. She made a healthy start to the day with breakfast and snacked on small portions of fruit, nuts and vegetable sticks between meals.

Bianca found that she was able to lose weight consistently over the past twelve months and has never looked healthier or happier. She has taken the reins of her life and has resumed European Eating the way she did at home. Her food portions are smaller, she enjoys the taste of food and the social experience of meal times and she looks forward to an occasional treat.

Bianca still revels at how amazingly straight forward her weight loss was and looks forward to a longer life where she will be less likely to develop heart disease, diabetes or suffer a stroke. She is an advocate of portion control of food as the solution to obesity and as a long term approach to maintaining a healthy body. She even includes some tiramisu as part of her food portions now and then to satisfy her insatiable sweet tooth!

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