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Recipes and Cooking Tips For a Variety of Foods (Not Just North American Dishes)

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Get Prepared First

If you're new to the kitchen, the best thing to do is PREPARE and familiarize yourself with some kitchen terminology and 'procedures.' From this, you'll be less nervous and consequently less inclined to 'freak out' if something doesn't work out right in the kitchen. Simply - grab some cookbooks and start reading. Most cookbooks have 'how to' guides, nutritional information about foods, and a glossary in them. Most will tell you what things like 'poached,' 'marinated,' 'braised,' 'browned,' 'scored,' and 'lightly tossed' mean - and even the difference between 'crushed' and 'crumbled,' and 'lightly tossed' versus 'mixed,' because there are differences and reasons why certain terms are used.

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Before You Start Cooking

Don't turn that burner on, plug that frypan in, or light that fire yet!

Feed Shark

Learn a little about 'basic substitutions' first! Then you won't need to panic if you end up 'missing' some of the ingredients on your recipe list!

I'll only have time to cover 'sugar' substitutions - no, not 'sugar-replacement' substitutes like aspartame - I mean substituting other kinds of sugar if you just ran out of a certain kind.

Most recipes are pretty FLEXIBLE, so there's no need to panic - unless you're missing the BEEF in a Beef Stroganoff!

You can even get around a missing LEMON in a lot of 'Lemon - Such-n-Such' recipes by using lime, orange juice or vinegar, so seriously...

DON'T PANIC!

Although it's a good idea to check your pantry thoroughly before you start cooking, most recipes are quite forgiving where ingredients are concerned.

* Exceptions: BAKING ITEMS and RECIPES are NOT usually one of the 'forgiving' recipes I'm talking about - because baking actually (seriously) involves CHEMISTRY!

Truth be told - I am NOT A BAKER - I don't really 'do desserts' that are baked in the oven or any special 'baking' apparatus - because this is the one area of cooking that I have not been able to master...

THINGS MAY BLOW UP IN MY KITCHEN when I attempt to 'Bake,' so I only do it under 'guidance' of a pro ('Auntie')...but I resolve to LEARN better baking skills one day.

As for other 'cooking,' I do pretty good, have a LOT of fun, and I rarely get worked up if someone says "oops, we forgot the--" or when I say, myself, "oops, I ran out of---"

No problem - IMPROVISE!

Here are a few 'Improv' substitutions:

Your recipe calls for 1 cup of light brown sugar...but you're clean OUT. So try:

1 cup of white sugar with 1 teaspoon of molasses.

If the recipe calls for a cup of DARK brown sugar, use 1 cup of white sugar with 1 TABLESPOON of molasses - yeah, pull out the BIG BAD SPOON for this - go crazy...well, not too crazy.

See? No problem.

OMIGOSH - this would be if I am BAKING, in general (see, I'm improving already - I'm already talking about substituting BAKING ingredients!)...

If you use SUGAR in stove-top recipes, BE CAREFUL - understand what the purpose of the sugar is in the recipe...sugar often browns VERY quickly - it BURNS if you add it to pan-fry recipes or stove-top sauces too early in your cooking process.

You can still substitute in the same way, but BE CAREFUL ABOUT WHEN you add the sugar.

My Other Cooking and Recipe Lens

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Easy Directions, Great Food

I have hunted down the best books from Amazon with the easiest, 'can't wreck this' recipes and directions.

Greek Cooking

A Few Tips

The ideas behind Greek cooking are a little different than in some cultures. It will help you to know, if you decide to deal with Greek meals, that many Greek dishes do not rely on a lot of spices.

A lot of Greek fare does not depend on a lot of mixed ingredients, spices, herbs, and other additions to the recipe.

Take Greek Salad, for instance. Very Easy. Quite plain. Delicious, depending on the freshness and quality of the produce used, rather than due to enhancements with spices.

* 3 medium to large tomatoes, ripe but still firm, cut into large bite-sized pieces
* 1 red (or Spanish) onion, sliced thinly
* 1 European cucumber, cut into chunks, large bite-sized pieces
* 1 small each of red, yellow and green pepper, cut into chunks, large bite-sized pieces
* 1 cup Kalamata black olives
* 1/2 cup, Sprigs of fresh, flat-leaf parsley
* 1/4 pound Feta (2 slices/bricks, imported Greek feta), crumble to just small bite-sized pieces
* 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
* 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar/balsamic
* 1 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed in the hand
* Course salt and black pepper to taste.

These ingredients are perfectly fine being added to a large mixing bowl in the order presented above. At the last, simply 'Toss' and your salad is complete!

Serve with pita bread that has been warmed on a hot griddle.

The trick is in using excellent ingredients for Greek salad. The ingredients in Greek salad naturally compliment each other without need of heavy spicing or an undue amount of herbs, blending of sauces, or anything fussy like that.

This salad can be whipped up in about 6 minutes and is ready to eat right away. If eaten right away, the flavours will each stand out quite prominently. If you prepare this salad ahead of time and let it sit, properly cooled for about 2h, the flavours will blend a little bit, and some people prefer the latter.

As compared with the French culture and French cooking, which utilizes a lot of blended spices in many sauces, which also require a lot of cooking and preparation time (including French salad dressing - which needs to be cooked in a saucepan), Greek dishes are often very simple and quick to make.

How To Use a Knife

It's a Skill - Practice Very Carefully

I found a great webpage with pictures and instructions on how to use a large knife. Before I post the link, I just have something to say about knives.

1. It's a myth that if you're not very experienced with using a knife, you should use a very small knife.

-- This is not true. It MATTERS what kind of kitchen tools - knives - you work with. Smaller knives make hands do more actions, actually, and this can make you put your fingers closer to the blade when you're cutting. The knife is supposed to do the cutting, not the motion of your hands.

The reason that experienced chefs look like they're 'doing so much' with a knife is simply because they are able to do things very fast! The actual movements of the blade are in straight lines and if a good cook or chef starts to feel like he or she is 'angling,' 'twisting,' 'turning,' or 'travelling with' the blade too much, he or she will stop working! He or she will re-align the food, if necessary, re-align their knife-stroke, and then proceed to work with working the knife on the food.

You'll see from the pictures once you follow the link out, that the knife in the photo is a very large butcher knife but the weilder of the knife can very easily keep fingers away from the blade and let the blade do the work of chopping, slicing, mincing.

Have respect - for sure - for larger knives, but do learn to use them. With proper respect, they are safer than smaller knives most of the time.

ie: Many people will cut large cooking onions with small steak-knife sized paring knives. Often, the blades of these are not actually LONGER than the onion, so the weilder of the knife must use some 'sawwing' motions in order to finish cutting the onion.

THIS IS QUITE DANGEROUS...the less you have to saw, angle your grip, draw the blade back and forth, the safer you are.

With large butcher knives and learning proper cutting techniques, a person usually has their fingers cleanly atop the top, safer edge of the blade, and cuts with straight down motions (no twisting, no saw-motion, not angling of the blade, and no drawing the blade back or forth) whereby it's almost impossible to get the fingers in the way.

Here's the link - have a really good look at the pictures as well as the text, please.

How To Use A Chef Knife (with pictures)
(opens in new window)

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Recipes and Cooking Tips For a Variety of Foods (Not Just North American Dishes)

Get Prepared First

Contents at a Glance

Contents at a Glance

New Word of the Day

Blogging about Food and Cooking

Before You Start Cooking

Don't turn that burner on, plug that frypan in, or light that fire yet!

Great Books For Beginner Cooks

Easy Directions, Great Food

Greek Cooking

A Few Tips

How To Use a Knife

It's a Skill - Practice Very Carefully

New Flickr Photos

Food and Cooking

Videos About The Kitchen on YouTube

Voting (Plexo)

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