Summer means lots of active play for kids. This year, my six year-old son will begin his third year of soccer. He loves to run, and I love any sport requiring no special equipment besides a jock, cleats, and shin pads. But the thing that I don't love about soccer? The foods parents usually bring for the team as an after-practice snack when the kids are hot, sweaty, and in need of refueling.
You would think that a food product that's essentially a meat cylinder would be easy to prepare correctly and in the most delicious manner possible.
Alas, this is not true.
For your benefit, I am including all the information you need to know on how to prepare hot dogs correctly:
Cooking Hot Dogs
All proper hot dogs should be prepared on the grill. Honest charcoal is preferred. Do not allow applewood mesquite smoke to touch your hot dog in any circumstance.
Have you ever wondered how to make whipped cream or butter? Most people take the two products for granted and it never crosses their minds about how it's made, except that it comes from dairy and maybe butter-making requires a churn like you've seen at the Cracker Barrel on some trip to Florida. Many people don't even realize that the biggest difference between whipped cream and butter is the amount of time you've spent making it.
Great Britain has a message for all North Americans: Shepherds don't shepherd cows.
It's true. I once bore witness to a visiting British friend of mine's hilarious 30 minute gripe-capade on the subject over several beers at the local "Irish" pub called Sláinte (which he referred bitingly to as charmingly TGI-Irish... but with an acceptably-served Guinness draft). Incidentally, we learned that night that drinking beer does wonders for understanding ornery cockney.
Kids are hilarious. When something becomes their favourite food, they can eat it a thousand times in a row. And then, sometimes, for no reason whatsoever, it becomes the "Hate Most in the Universe" thing.
Case in point: when I first introduced my two year-old to spaghetti and meat sauce, it was his favorite food. Ever. He called it "Psketti and-a Meat-a-balls." Since I loaded up the meat sauce with spinach and other green veg, I thought it was a win-win situation all around. Kidlet ate his weight in spaghetti over the next couple of years, and all was great.
When you're making Chinese Fried Rice, you might be shooting yourself in the foot if you're a fresh food fanatic! There's a secret to making that perfect, hot, fluffy fried rice... and mostly it's that dreaded "L" word.
Would you believe me if I told you that these two spoons are hummus made from the same recipe? It's true. Except, the one on the right has one tiny little secret ingredient.
Oh hummus, one of the most popular things in the world to snack on, but so seldom made from scratch here in North America. Such a shame. Store bought hummus is so meh. And expensive.
And yet, to judge by my friends' habits, hummus is bought approximately 110,000 times as often as they make it fresh. Why? Because texture problems.
There's a day dedicated to Fettuccini Alfredo (February 7). Who knew? But if any food deserved a national holiday, I'm on board with this.
One of my best friends is Italian. Raging Italian. As in I'm not allowed to to say certain words in front of her, like proscuitto, unless I'm also copping a half-decent Italian-American accent.
Canning jars are built to be durable, but many people make the mistake of thinking that because they're glass, they're oven-proof... just like Pyrex.
They're not the same thing.
Glass expands when heated, like many materials. When it cools, it contracts. Objects that are heating or cooling usually do so unevenly due to a number of factors, including what may be touching it or even just the flow of air around it. But what many people don't know is that this causes the material stress.
Is the sink gross and brown-stained? You could scrub, or you can use this.
Step 1: Plug sink.
Step 2: Fill sink with hot water and a generous splash of bleach (I don't measure, but it's gotta be a half a cup or so).
Step 3: Ignore for about 20 minutes, or until all the stains are gone and your sink is SUPER shiny! Make sure you rinse the sink well when you drain it.
My husband's not a big fan of soup, generally speaking, but there are two soups I make that have sparked minor territorial skirmishes.
This is one of them.
You see, I like to make meals ahead, pre-portion them and put them in the fridge, so less cooking has to be done on a day-to-day basis. While he could give no f-words if the soup that I have stored in the fridge is chicken soup, the moment that one of the soups is potato, he gets all territorial. And if you take the last one, he will go all Liam Neeson.
My husband is one of those people who like to eat goo. I say goo, because we're both oatmeal eaters, but he likes the instant stuff. I, on the other hand, with my gag reflex that makes drinking a smoothie virtually impossible, prefer the good chunkiness of steel-cut oats.
It's a new year, and of course, that means it's time to break out the resolutions. My resolution this year, besides losing 10 pounds (which has been on the resolutions list since 2005), includes knocking out some of the convenience foods that I know I shouldn't eat by making them just as convenient and without all the junk inside.
This month, I had the pleasure of being invited out east, to Oshawa, where I haven’t had to drive near for ages. Durham College has campuses in Oshawa and Whitby, and they’ve opened up an exciting program for students with their boutique culinary school, the Center for Food (CFF), about a year ago.
For reasons I won't probe too deeply, I find that December tends to be the time of year when I decide to go multi-ethnic on the dinner plate. This might stem from a fear of conformity (turkey? BAH. EVERYONE is making turkey, man!), but it could just be that when I'm being flooded in holiday offerings, I don't want to eat holiday stuff all month long.
Besides, it reminds me of the fact that I haven't hung up a single holiday decoration yet.
OK, so we're probably still dealing with fear of conformity.
I know an awful lot of people are intimidated by the kitchen. Many think preparing a good meal takes a lot of time and energy, a massive grocery shopping trip, or a lot of culinary skill and an iron-clad recipe.
It ain’t so, my friends. Dinner: it’s not rocket science.
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