To find out if your yeast is good, first dissolve 1 tablespoon of sugar or other sweetener in warm water with 2 cups of liquid and then add your yeast. Wait several minutes for it to dissolve and start working, developing tiny bubbles. If there are no bubbles then discard it and go through the process again. Since yeast and salt don’t get along, add it after finding out the yeast is good.

Measuring

Fluff up your flour before measuring since it always settles when stored. Now sprinkle flour into measuring cup and slide off excess with a knife blade. Taking this step will cause you to measure a true 4-ounce cup instead of getting a 5-ounce cup from being compacted.

Knead

Knead dough for about 5 minutes and let it rest to relax the dough. This helps the rest of your kneading easier.

Liquids

To add a different flavor and even make nutrition better, substitute water for juices or broth or when a recipe calls for milk try buttermilk.

Sugar and Sweeteners

It’s not necessary to have or add sugar in a recipe, but it does bring out the flavor. If you want to add sugar and need moisture try honey or molasses.

Oil

Unless you’re counting calories adding oil to bread is better because it will make your bread fresher longer.

Storing Flour

If you use your flour fairly fast, store it in a cool, dry place. If you don’t use your flour very fast then put it in a lock-type plastic bag and store it in your freezer.

Dry Ingredients

Substitute a little dried fruit, vegetables, cheese, nuts, grains, seeds or herbs and spices for some of the flour in your recipes. Just add it into the cup before you measure your flour. It will change it up and it is wonderful.

You can find many more tips and recipes at Cristie’s Cookin. Submit your favorite recipe to win a free “Gotcha Covered” Apron. Check out those spices, Bling It, Ring It and Zing It. Cristie’s novel “11.11.11″ by TJ Stokes is a thriller you won’t want to miss.

Cooking lessons for Cristie began at 8 years old with the best teacher in the world — her Mom! Later, she cooked for the restaurant the family owned, and her love of the “trade” has grown ever since. Cristie’s creative cooking has continued for over 40 years. Her creations can soon be on your kitchen table. Check out Cristie’s books at http://www.cristiescookin.co m and http://www.tjstokes.com

They parboil, or partially pre-cook their pasta; so when an order comes in to the kitchen, a cook can turn out a dish of perfectly ‘al dente’ pasta in a minute or two. Pre-cooking is a worthwhile technique for home cooks, because it enables them to pull together a great sit-down meal in practically no time, no matter how busy their day may have been.

It’s also a great method to use when you plan to serve pasta for a crowd. I once catered a party for fifty, where I had a “pasta bar.” With the assistance of one helper, and two propane burners, I served fifty portions of freshly cooked pasta (al dente) without holding anyone up in the buffet line.

To parboil pasta at home, bring a large pot of salted water (at least six quarts) to the boil. Add one pound of pasta and stir until the pasta wilts (in the case of spaghetti or linguine) and becomes submerged. When the water returns to a full, rolling boil, cook the pasta for exactly two minutes, then drain, shock in ice water, and drain again. Note: Strand pasta like spaghetti or linguine will be brittle, so handle them with care.

Place the pasta in a container large enough to hold it, then add enough olive oil to just coat each strand. Cover and refrigerate until needed. Parboiled pasta will keep, refrigerated, for four to six hours.

Note: Coating pasta with olive oil flies in the face of conventional wisdom that says, “Never coat pasta with olive oil. The sauce won’t adhere to the pasta.” Well, conventional wisdom aside, sauce sticks to parboiled pasta like glue. What else can I say?

When it’s time to cook dinner, bring a large pot of salted water to the boil, add the pasta (You’ll note that the pasta has softened over the time you’ve had it refrigerated. This is perfectly fine.), cook for one or two minutes, then drain in a colander. Be sure to taste after a minute or so. The pasta cooks quickly. Serve as you would any pasta that you had cooked for eight to ten minutes.

Again, this is a great, worthwhile technique to use at home, because you can parboil the pasta at a time of day when you’re not juggling three or four other tasks, like preparing a sauce, or a salad. And when it’s time to prepare the rest of dinner, you’ll feel more confident in the outcome, because you can focus more of your attention on the other parts of the meal.

Try this technique once, and you could be hooked. You may not be serving fifty or sixty people per night, but you’ll be cooking just like a chef in a neighborhood Italian restaurant.

About The Author

Skip Lombardi is the author of two cookbooks: “La Cucina dei Poveri: Recipes from my Sicilian Grandparents,” and “Almost Italian: Recipes from America’s Little Italys.” He has been a Broadway musician, high-school math teacher, software engineer, and a fledgeling blogger. But he has never let any of those pursuits get in the way of his passion for cooking and eating. Visit his Web site to learn more about his cookbooks. http://www.skiplombardi.com or mailto:info@skiplombardi.com.

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How to cook Thai Jasmine Rice:

Take 1 cup of Thai jasmine rice and place in a medium pot. Rinse the rice with cold water and drain water at least three times to remove any debris. Add water to the sauce pan until the water levels 1 centimeter above the rice or 1 1/2 cups of water. Place a lid on the pot. Set the stove element to medium heat and place the pot on the element. After 20 minutes, turn the element off and let the rice rest for 10 more minutes.

Recipe for Thai Fried Rice:

2 cups Thai jasmine rice cooked
1 egg
2 tablespoons oil
3 cloves garlic chopped
½ cup of frozen peas and carrots thawed
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 sprig of Thai basil chopped
1 sprig for green onion chopped

Instructions on making fried egg strips: In a small bowl, crack an egg and 1 tablespoon of soy sauce mix using a fork. Set the stove element to high heat and place a wok on top. Add 1 tablespoon each of oil and garlic into the wok. Add the egg and swirl the egg around the wok. Fold the fried egg in half and lip the egg again to cook the other side. Place the fried egg on to a cutting board. Once the fried egg is cooled, slice the egg finely and thinly to create long strips.

Instructions on making Thai Jasmine Fried Rice: Set the stove element to high heat and place a wok on top. Add 1 tablespoon each of oil and garlic into the wok. Add the thawed vegetables and mix for 1 minute. Add the cooked jasmine rice. Add 2 tablespoons each of oyster sauce and soy sauce. Mix to incorporate all ingredients and break any rice clumps. Once the rice is broken, add chopped Thai basil and green onions. Place the fried jasmine rice into a serving bowl and top with the fried egg strips.

The best way to learn how to make Thai Fried rice is to view the free video at www.thai-laos-food.blogspot.com.

Manivan Larprom, a Thai / Lao girl, teaches you how to cook Thai / Lao food with her home made videos at http://www.thai-laos-food.blogspot.com

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The emotional trigger that a smell can stir up is one of the most powerful triggers that there is. If you live anywhere in the United States, chances are that the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking conjures up some kind of emotional memory for you. Smells are part of how we remember, part of how we define our memories, our stories, our lives.

For me, the smells of baking were part of my childhood, part of the fabric of how I define my childhood and part of the fabric of how I define my life to this day. The smell of a favorite baked treat can still bring a smile of remembrance to my face. What kitchen smells define your childhood memories? What smells do you want your children to define as their childhood memories? Here a couple of great variations on that old favorite, chocolate chip cookies. I hope you use these baking recipes to make wonderful memories with your children.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanuts, coarsely chopped

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugar, brown sugar, and peanut butter. Mix together until creamy. Add in the egg and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture. Add in the chocolate chips and peanuts. Drop the dough by teaspoons onto baking sheets. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 7 to 10 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are set but the centers are soft. After removing the cookies from the oven, leave them on the baking sheets for 4 minutes before removing them.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 3/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups light brown sugar, packed

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 tablespoons milk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. In a large bowl, mix together the brown sugar, butter and regular sugar. Add in the eggs, milk and vanilla extract. Slowly add the flour mixture. Add the oats, chocolate chips and nuts. Drop by tablespoons onto baking sheets. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 9 to 10 minutes for soft cookies and 12 to 13 for crispy ones.

Jill Borash loves to share her passion for baking and story telling at her website, YourBakingStory.com. If you’re looking for a tasty [http://www.yourbakingstory.com ]baking recipe or just a good story, stop by and browse awhile. Happy Baking!

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After the coals have begun to burn and ash starts to form, you will need to arrange them with long handled tongs into a single layer.

Once you have mastered even heating its time to step up to the professional level. A Pro likes to have a controlled temperature variation, a hot area and a not so hot area. In grilling this is called a two level fire. If you have a dual burner gas grill just set one burner on high and the other on medium. The advantage to this is that you will have one area to sear foods and another area to cook them through.

Grilled Chicken With Roasted Garlic Sauce

Yield: 6 Servings

6 boneless chicken breasts

-(about 1,1/2 pounds)

1/2 c lemon juice

2 cloves garlic

1 T red wine vinegar

1 t rosemary

1/4 c olive oil

1 salt and pepper To Taste

1 jar (28 ounces) Rag=FA Hearty

-Roasted Garlic Pasta Sauce

2 tb chopped fresh basil

2 tb chopped fresh parsley

Grilled crusty bread

Fresh herbs for garnish

-(optional)

Place chicken in a bowl with lemon juice, garlic, vinegar, rosemary, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Marinate in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight.

In a medium saucepan, heat sauce over low heat, stirring occasionally until heated through. Add fresh basil and parsley to the sauce just before serving. Meanwhile, preheat grill or broiler.

Grill chicken about 3-5 minutes per side or until chicken is thoroughly cooked.

Server grilled chicken with roasted garlic sauce of grilled crusty bread.

Garnish with fresh herbs.

Enjoy!

Jonny Andrews loves the grill and wants to be sure you do as well. Make sure you visit his blog today and get incredible Free Tips For Grilling Chicken. Give it a try today!

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Why Fruit Is Essential For Your Body
By Juan Mendoza

One thing that everyone has to do in order to survive is eat food and drink water. Along with air, food and water are the two other key elements that we need in order to allow our bodies to function. There is plenty of choices when it comes to food. However, it is well recommended that you eat a very nutritional balanced mean so that you can let your body work to full capacity. One essential area you should always keep track of is fruits.

Fruits are some of the best items we can eat because they contain so many good vitamins and minerals that our bodies thrive on. In all reality, fruits are pretty delicious, yet many people avoid them for one reason or another. The following will go over the nutritional facts of different popular fruit that we all have tried at least once unless your allergic to fruit or something like that.

The first fruit that will be discussed is the almighty apple. The famous quote goes, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” This is a scientifically proven fact but it is definitely a good idea to eat an apple a day just for the good natural nutritional ingredients that are associated with an apple. An apple contains about forty nine calories and consists of about eighty four percent water. It also has 2.3 grams of fiber, 0.4 grams of protein, 11.8 grams of sugar, 2 grams of vitamin A, 15 milligrams of vitamin C, 0.02 milligrams of vitamin B1, 0.01 milligrams of vitamin B2, 0.05 milligrams of vitamin B6, and 0.05 milligrams of vitamin E. All these thing are essential in order for our bodies to work properly. Apples may not seem like a super essential staple of someone´s diet but if eaten on a consistent basis, they can really make your body feel good.

Another popular fruit we all chew on from time to time is a banana. Bananas are really good to eat for several reasons. They are good for your skin and for your internal body as well. A banana contains about eighty eight calories and consists of about seventy six percent water. In addition, bananas also contain 2.7 grams of fiber, 1.2 grams of protein, 20.4 grams of sugar, and also has a small amount of other essential vitamins such as vitamins A, B, C, and E.

Those two fruits are the most popular fruits that people eat on a more regular basis then other fruits. However, all fruit is good for you in one way or another. One fruit can be better for you in one area of your health, while the other fruit is good for you in another area. All fruit is made up with a high level of water and almost all of them contain essential vitamins and minerals that our bodies need. Eat as much fruit as possible as well as the other vital things on the periodic food chart in order to be healthy and feel super good.

Written by Juan Mendoza. Learn more about buying and using an Apple Peeler and find out how peelers can add a new dimension to your recipes.

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I hope you liked the above article.  Do you have sugar cravings? Would you like to know how to get rid of sugar cravings? Well, there is a guide that will teach you how. Click here to find out more.

To maintain health and vitality, the Chinese believe that eating the Yin and Yang way can protect us from developing major health problems like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke and high blood pressure.

Almost no foodstuff is purely yin or yang - it’s more that one characteristic tends to dominate. It also reinforces that it is not so much the individual ingredients, as the the balance and contrast between ingredients in each dish, that is important. Interestingly, cooking methods also have more of a yin or yang property, as the list below demonstrates.

Cooking Methods:

Yin Qualities Yang Qualities
Boiling Deep-frying
Poaching Roasting
Steaming Stir-frying

Types of Foods:

Yin Foods Yang Foods
Bean Sprouts Bamboo
Cabbage Beef
Carrots Chicken
Crab Eggs
Cucumber Ginger
Duck Glutinous Rice
Tofu Mushrooms
Watercress Sesame Oil
Water Wine

There are more than 500 recipes in this book, all designed to be quick and easy, no fancy ingredients or equipments to be used here. The good Chef has simplified the whole process specially to cater to busy folks as yourself and shares the secret cooking tips used by professional Chinese chefs including Cooking temperatures, cooking with oil, marinades, sugar and other coatings, sauces, gravies, stocks and flavoring sauces. The ebook also features 173 colourful pictures!

Click below to find out more:

http://dowager.geyi138.hop.clickbank.net/

Ingredients:

3 cups of flour
2 tablespoons of baking powder
1 pinch of salt
1 tablespoon of mix spices
1 cup of blueberry/fruits
150 gramme of butter
1 cup of sugar
1 egg
1 cup of milk (fresh)

Preparations:
1. Heat the oven at 200°C. Grease the muffin tin.  In a bowl, add all the dry ingredients.
Add the fruits.  Mix well and create a hole in the middle.

2. Melt butter and sugar on slow heat , once melted, remove from heat.

3. Pour melted butter and sugar into the dry ingredients as well as the egg and fresh milk. 
Don’t stir too hard to ensure the blueberries are not too crushed.

4. Pour mixture into muffin tin at 3/4 level. Bake for 25 - 30 mins or
until it’s turn golden brown. Wait few minutes before removing the muffin from the tin.

Preparation: 15 mins
Cooking time: 25 - 30 mins
Make: 16 pcs

Nora’s comments:  Sounds good and ez pz, like my princess would say.

Thanks Liz for sharing! 
 

Ingredients:

15 large potatoes
3 cups water
2 cups milk
1 tbsp margarine/butter
1 egg
White pepper
Finely chopped coriander leaves
Salt
Lettuce and tomatoes for garnishing

Method:

Peel the potatoes, cut them into halves.  In a medium sufuria, boil with salt until cooked.  Pass the potatoes through a sieve to get rid of unnecessary water.  Put potatoes in a big mashing bowl; add milk, margarine/butter, white pepper and coriander leaves.  Mash thoroughly using a wooden spoon or mashing spoon and set aside.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, beat the egg thoroughly and add to the mashed potato mixture, a little at a time as you continue mashing.  The more you mash, the creamier mixture should get, shape as desired.

In servicing tray, set as desired and garnish with lettuce and tomatoes.  Serve while hot with your favourite sauce or a generous spread of ketchup

 Attraction Accelerator - An Interview With Bob Proctor On The Science of Getting Rich

Imagine if you can have anything that you want in your life…

* money, love, career, joy, health, peace, abundance.

What would you give to find out the secret?

There is no secret really, as popularized by the movie,The Secret, the law of attraction is as old as God himself….for it is also known amongst the purists, as the law of the universe…

That everything that comes into your life is what you attract to it, what you think, it becomes.  

The challenge is to master this magical flow and it starts with your awareness and your mindset.  If you want more money but your thoughts focus on debts, you give energy to the wrong thought and you wonder why the money doesn’t come?  Believe that the law of attraction works, and it will work.

The Attraction Accelerator is a free special put together by my mentor, Stephen Pierce who interviewed Bob Proctor, the ultimate Guru on Law of Attraction (he is the Teacher featured in the movie, The Secret) where he shares his 40-year study of the science of getting rich.

Get the free report here, right click to save to your computer.

http://www.theinfopublishers.com/getrich/getrich.pdf
Bob Proctor made a profound statement which we must reflect upon:

There are people afraid, you know, If I quit my job,”I’ll lose my income”. Their income doesn’t come from their company. It comes through the company. The income comes according to their consciousness. And if it’s not coming from one source, it’ll come from another.

But If the Law of Attraction is as simple as that, why aren’t more people wealthy, even gratified about the state their lives are in?

The Answer is a Simple One.

There is an Exact Science to Applying the Law of Attraction to Build the Life You Seek. Can you imagine how many good intentions FAIL to manifest because of a lack of understanding of the Science of Getting Rich?

Does this sound like you?
*  I’d like to be earning a far greater income.

*  I want to provide more for my family.

*  I sometimes worry about money.

*  I work hard, but don’t see the income I desire.

*  There are many things in life I want, but cannot afford.

*  Without my current job, I have no other streams of income.

Well this is what the special report is about, can you afford not to find out.  Right click to save to your computer.

http://www.theinfopublishers.com/getrich/getrich.pdf 

With best wishes

Nora M

PS:  Feel free to share if you think this information is of value to you.