Categories
Healthy Living

How To Add More Healthy Foods To Your Diet

In the modern-day, ultra-processed foods are often easier to access than natural produce and other healthy foods. Most smaller grocery stores focus their efforts on selling nothing but pre-packaged snack foods, and it’s almost impossible to find a fast food outlet that doesn’t sell junk filled with fat, salt, sugar, and worse.

Failing to consume a nutritious, balanced diet can have a severe impact on both your physical and mental health, as you need to eat a variety of vitamins and minerals to stay fit and happy! Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be as difficult as you might imagine to add more fruits and vegetables to your diet, as there are just a few simple steps that you can follow to totally transform the way that you eat (and feel). So, if you’re interested in finding out more, then simply read on to uncover some of the best tips and tricks that you can use now to bring more healthy foods into your diet.

How To Add More Healthy Foods To Your Diet

Make Smart Swaps that Maintain Flavor

One of the easiest ways to transform your diet is by introducing a few smart swaps that can help you to say goodbye to unhealthy junk without having to miss out on flavor. There’s no point in trying to substitute a glass of sugar filled cola for a pint of plain water, as the two taste completely different and you will never be able to get the sweet kick that your taste buds are craving! That’s why your swaps have to be smart, otherwise you risk falling right back into your bad habits soon after. If you need a little inspiration, make use of the following swaps to improve your diet in no time:

  • switch chips for salted popcorn,
  • ice cream for fruit sorbet,
  • white bread for seeded wholemeal and
  • milk chocolate for dark.

When you’re still able to experience some of the textures and tastes that you are craving but end up consuming fewer calories and bad ingredients, that’s a smart swap!

Cook Your Own Healthy Foods From Scratch

Purchasing a ready-made meal is always a risk, as you never know what ingredients have gone into creating the dish, as well as what quality the aforementioned ingredients are. It can be hard to identify just how much fat, sugar and salt is inside a fast food dish or microwaveable meal, and you’ll no doubt be shocked to read the ingredients list of such products as there’s often hundreds of incomprehensible items that no doubt can do real harm when consumed in excess.

Cooking your own food from scratch gives you the chance to control every individual ingredient that goes into the food that you eat, from start to finish! You can substitute for healthier ingredients, cut back on salt and serve up a healthy portion size to ensure that you can truly benefit from the meals that you eat. It’s so easy to find healthy, tasty recipes online, whether you want a protein hit with a fresh blackened mahi mahi recipe or the perfect hydrating summer salad.

Categories
Creative Cookery

How To Make Cooking More Enjoyable

As much as I love to cook, I must also admit that cooking is not always as enjoyable as it could be. The fact is that cooking can be a lot of fun, but only when you approach it with the right attitude and take the right steps to make it enjoyable. Otherwise, it can end up being just another daily household task, which then becomes something that isn’t fun or satisfying.

That’s why it’s so important to actively take steps to make sure that cooking is as enjoyable as possible. By making it something that you enjoy, you can ensure that it remains a passion of yours and an activity that you actively look forward to engaging in.

How To Make Cooking More Enjoyable

Wondering what steps you need to take to make cooking more enjoyable? The good news is that there are lots of ways you can ensure that your passion for food preparation stays with you – to learn more, read the following tips and suggestions!

Experiment and Get Creative in the Kitchen

Hey, that’s what this blog is all about and I’ve provided plenty of tips on how to do that with each recipe I post. So don’t stick to making the same old dishes. Instead, be open to experimenting in the kitchen. If you simply repeat the same recipes, again and again, you’re going to find it hard to feel passionate and excited about cooking. That’s why it’s so important that you take the time to get creative in the kitchen and experiment with the dishes that you’re making. Take the time to look for new dishes to try online, such as looking at a salmon cake recipe on Feasting at Home, for instance.

Take Cooking Classes

You might think you already know all of the basics of baking, grilling, roasting and more, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t continue to learn. The fact is that if you want to keep your passion for kitchen creativity alive, it’s important to consider taking the time to actually learn new recipes and cooking skills, and cooking classes are the perfect way to do that. There are lots of classes to choose from, from themed classes that center on a specific cuisine, to classes that focus on a certain style of cuisine. Plus, there are both in-person and virtual classes to choose from.

Make Cooking an Event

Don’t just visualize your time in the kitchen as a must-do daily task, instead turn it into an exciting and enjoyable event. If you make cooking something you look forward to each day, then you will end up enjoying it more. Carve out plenty of time each day for cooking to be actively able to engage with what you’re cooking and enjoy the cooking that you’re doing. Perhaps you could invite your family into the kitchen to help you cook? Or maybe you could treat yourself to a nice glass of your favorite wine while you cook? Do what you can to ensure that cooking is an event that you enjoy.

There you have it, a simple guide to some of the simple ways that you can make cooking more enjoyable, interesting, and engaging.

Categories
Cooking Techniques

How to Take Your Beef Steaks to Another Level

Steak. The king of meat. From the blue cheese smell of a raw, well-aged cut to the delectable, sweet, and smoky taste of a well-grilled chunk of beef, there’s nothing like it. But there’s nothing sadder than poorly cooked beef steaks. First of all, it’s a terrible waste of good food, and second, there’s no reason why you can’t have a steak like a professional chef.

How to Take Your Beef Steaks to Another Level

No matter where you go, a steak will taste different, and that’s because each chef has their own secret method of treating and cooking the steak. But in recent times, some chefs have become a little more open about some of the techniques involved in cooking a steak well. So, Heston Blumenthal’s blow torch technique aside, you should have no problem if you follow this advice.

Dry Beef Steaks Out

This might sound counterintuitive to getting a juicy steak, but the first secret to great beef steaks is actually allowing it to dry them out. If you have the room and you are serious about your meat, a dry aging cabinet is a beautiful appliance to treat your beef. However, for most of us, the fridge will work almost as well, as all you need is dry air.

When using the fridge, however, you will need steak that has already been aged. Cuts can be aged up to 120 days, but the average age of a good steak is 30 days. To dry your steak, simply lay it on a rack, season both sides with good quality salt, and leave it uncovered in the fridge for up to three days. This is known as dry brining. Dry brining allows the salt to penetrate the meat, but the dry exterior provides a great crust when cooked.

Butter, Butter, and More Butter

How do steakhouses get that unique taste on their steak? Butter. In particular, clarified butter. The reason for using clarified butter is that it has a higher smoking temperature than standard butter. Normal butter isn’t adequate for cooking steak recipes since searing at an extremely high temperature is necessary for cooking it properly.

Clarified butter adds lots and lots of flavor to your cut. The rich, nutty flavor associated with cooked butter permeates your meat when cooked in lashings of clarified butter. Additionally, clarified butter emulsifies on the meat and makes it shiny, helping with presentation. You can also use any butter left in the pan for a red wine deglaze.

Use the Oven

A critical method of cooking beef steaks is searing them in a pan. However, you shouldn’t be afraid to use your oven for cooking steak as well, especially with significant cuts such as a side of beef. Cuts like this are best seared in a pan and then placed in the oven to cook through. Searing won’t be enough, and if you try to cook a substantial cut this way, you will burn the outside with minimal cooking inside.

Other thick cuts such as sirloin, T-bone, and fillet mignon can also benefit from oven cooking. There are varying times for each amount of steak and numerous methods of cutting them following their cook. But generally sized steaks shouldn’t take longer than 10 minutes to get the center to 125 degrees, which is ideal for rare meat. Before serving a steak, always leave to rest for 5 minutes and slice against the grain.

Categories
Healthy Living

Nutritional Tips To Keep Your Health In Check

We all heard understand, on some level, that eating a well-balanced diet is important for general health. But what does that mean on a practical day-to-day, in the kitchen, basis? It’s easy to become perplexed about what is genuinely beneficial to your health. Is coffee good for you or not? Is it better to consume fewer or more carbohydrates? Do I get enough protein in my diet? Though it is important for each of us to discover what is best for our bodies, there are some basic principles that appear to benefit the majority of people. I will cover some of the more universal nutritional tips here.

Nutritional Tips To Keep Your Health In Check

Be simple but creative with your food choices

This is one of my favorite nutritional tips! Keeping your diet simple prevents you from becoming overwhelmed by meal plans and grocery shopping trips. However, if you are a parent, you may want to get creative in order to keep your children interested in eating healthy foods. Vegetables appear to be the most contentious of all the foods that children get finicky about. Check your personal attitude toward them and make sure you haven’t set a bad example. (I guess it’s a good thing I’m not a parent when it comes to this metric! I’m very fussy about veggies.)

Limit refined sugar as much as possible

Our diet has a significant impact on our oral health and other systems in the body. This emphasizes the importance of monitoring your family’s sugar consumption. Even if you limit your sugar intake and clean your teeth regularly, acids and natural sugars can destroy teeth and cause decay. Having regular check-ups at your local dentist, such as https://www.northsidedentalgroup.com will go a long way to protecting your teeth as well as catching any problems before they get too big.

Eat five portions of fruit and veg a day

One of the most common nutritional tips is eating five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. This probably true because it has been found to help avoid major diseases like diabetes, cancer, and strokes. This type of fiber also aids in keeping your digestive system healthy and functioning as it should. If your family doesn’t love eating fresh fruits and veggies, try incorporating them into milkshakes, smoothies, and casseroles. The internet is a terrific source of recipe inspiration.

Eat plenty of protein

Protein is required for the body’s growth and repair. It’s also good for weight loss because it’s tougher to digest than other food categories, so you’ll remain satiated for longer. Fortunately, there are numerous high-quality protein choices available to us, including fish, meats, nuts, beans, and fresh vegetables. Therefore, even if you don’t eat animal products, there are still plenty of ways to meet your daily protein requirements.

Of all the nutritional tips in this post, this one can evolve with age and metabolic type. As you grow older, if you’ve been injured, or if you are insulin resistant, your protein needs increase. Be sure to talk with your doctor about your nutritional needs.

Nutritional Tips About Carbs

Talk about a hotbed of controversy! Contrary to popular belief, carbs are not bad. In fact, carbs are a vital source of energy for the human body. Sugars and starches are two types of carbohydrates. For most people, sugary carbs are the more problematic of the two. Overeating can result in a sluggish digestive system as well as weight gain. Starches like whole-grain bread, potatoes, and pasta can be a good supply of unprocessed carbohydrates. These foods are higher in vitamins and minerals, keep you fuller for longer, and keep your bowels healthy thanks to the high fiber content.

My own personal experience: I’ve been on a high-protein, low-carb diet since late last year. However, I kind of when overboard on the protein and started feeling a little ill. I upped my carbs, while still maintaining more protein than carbs in my diet, and started to feel better again.

Nutritional tips are generalities. You need to understand what YOUR body needs. And speaking with your doctor about your unique metabolism will help.

Categories
Cooking Techniques

How to Boost Your Culinary Skills

Cooking is not an inborn skill. You learn how to cook through observation or training. The cooking process can be complicated, especially for someone who never had their parents teach them while they were young. Now that you’re an adult, you might feel embarrassed about your culinary skills, or worse, lack thereof. But no matter your skill level, there are ways to perfect your cooking. In this post, I share some simple techniques to help you master the basics of the culinary arts.

How to Boost Your Culinary Skills

Plan Ahead

As the adage goes, “failure to plan is planning to fail.” This also applies in the kitchen. Experimenting with a new recipe can be exciting, but the success of the process depends on how well prepared you are.

Don’t start blindly unless you want to disappoint yourself. Ensure you have all the necessary ingredients and read thoroughly through the whole recipe. You wouldn’t want to run to a grocery store in the middle of cooking.

If you’re experienced with a recipe before, you may want to deviate. However, a new recipe requires you to stick to every suggestion and detail, especially when you’re a beginner.

Perfect Your Culinary Skills with a Knife

Good food starts with a good knife. But you need to perfect your skills. Dicing a pepper or slicing onions in under 30 seconds is impressive, but it cannot make you a good cook.

What you need is to learn how to cut fruits, vegetables, and meat into the same shape and size. Uniformly chopped vegetables cook well and look presentable. If you chop the ingredients into different sizes, some pieces will get overcooked or undercooked, while others will come out burned.

Ensure you buy quality kitchen knives and learn how to sharpen them for an easy cooking process.

Have the Right Ingredients and Tools

A good meal is a product of the right ingredients cooked in the right appliances. Ensure your fridge and pantry are always stocked with various frozen or fresh vegetables, milk, spice options, and fruits.

Ensure you have the right appliances and tools like blenders, pans, and bowls. It’s also good to invest in equipment like a top wok for induction, classic serving spoons, and the right cooking pots.

Use Standard Recipes to Perfect Your Culinary Skills

The goal to is ensure you have delicious meals. After all, you’re not aiming to be an internal chef. So, follow the standard recipes in a cookbook. Learn and practice basic skills like cooking pasta, roasting a chicken, and sautéing vegetables.

This helps you build a strong cooking foundation. Once you’ve mastered these basic culinary skills, you may hone your craft with more advanced recipes and techniques.

Balance Your Flavors

Have you ever eaten a meal that’s too salty or too sweet? You may have the right ingredients and tools but end up with an unbalanced meal. Balancing flavors is an essential culinary skill you should learn.

Different dishes demand different amounts of salt. But if your meal calls for more salt, add to your own taste. You can toss in a splash of wine, lemon juice, or white vinegar for a tastier meal, as well.

The Bottom Line

These steps give you a foundation to boost your cooking skills. And as they say, practice makes perfect. Ensure you cook regularly to hone your culinary skills.

Categories
Flavor Blending

Sweet or Savory? How to Create the Perfect Summer Experience

Food has a way of uniting and bringing joy to people. It is an art that uses scientific methodologies to create a unique result that tantalizes the taste buds. During the summer, people like to experiment and spend quality time with the family as they take time off from their busy schedules to create the perfect summer experience.

Sweet or Savory - How to Create the Perfect Summer Experience

Whether you have a sweet tooth or prefer the spiciness or tartness, there is always something for you on the menu. You can apply various techniques and ingredients to get the perfect flavor bomb in your mouth. Here are some of the summer favorites in a three-course meal that you can try this summer.

The Perfect Summer Salad Experience

Summer is all about the freshness and brightness of colors. So what better way to start your meal than having a bright and tasty salad? A salad that represents the summer is one with corn, strawberries, and avocado. The freshness and sweetness of this dish make it perfect to be your first course.

It is an easy starter to prepare since you only have to steam the corn. The other ingredients (cherry tomatoes, avocado, and strawberries) remain fresh to provide freshness to the dish. The ruggedness of the plate because of the avocado chunks and roughly chopped and diced strawberries is synonymous with the lazy summer feel.

Once the corn is ready, you shred the kernels from the cob and let it cool. You then mix it with the other ingredients and sprinkle with feta cheese, olive oils, finely chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and lime juice for acidity.

BBQ Chicken Summer Style

What perfect summer experience would be without a BBQ? With the perfect glaze on crispy chicken skin, you are sure to have a good feast. But, first, you need to ensure that you barbeque the chicken to perfection. The trick is to choose the right equipment, grill, or smoker and pay attention to the time and heat source. Patience is vital in grilling; thus, ensure you check on your chicken to avoid overcooking.

Most people have their BBQ sauce recipe that features their favorite ingredients for a personal touch. However, the most common elements will often include apple cider vinegar, ketchup, honey or/and brown sugar, and an acidic flavor like lime juice. The trick is repeatedly tasting while adding the ingredients to ensure it has the perfect consistency and taste.

Summer Cake with Fruits and Cream Conclude the Perfect Summer Experience

Every celebration needs a sweet ending. Summer can especially present a challenge in choosing a flavor combination that works with the heat. Fresh fruits, acidity, and a refreshing cream usually do the trick. And cake is a good summer dessert choice because it stands up to the heat better than other dessert options.

It would help if you baked the cake perfectly by using the correct measurements and additives. Always use a parchment lining to avoid having your cake stick to the baking pan. However, if you run out of it and are stuck wondering what to use when parchment paper is not available, you can explore different aluminum foils or silicone mat to remove the cake once it is ready.

Finally, having a moist lemon and lime cake topped with vanilla whipped cream and fresh fruits like strawberries, kiwi fruits, nectarines, or peaches will bring a colorful conclusion to the day.

With such a complete meal, you only need your summer cocktail or drink of your choice as you watch the sunset. It is vital that you showcase and hero each dish in the summer experience.

Categories
Healthy Living

What’s the Beef with Meat?

If you follow social media, you may get the impression that the whole world is vegan now. Celebrities and influencers advocate online about their plant-based diets and how great they make them feel. Meat, it seems, is evil, and its health value is in doubt. But are humans designed to be herbivores, eating only fruit, vegetables, and grains? Tooth marks on fossilized animal bones suggest that meat-eating has been around for at least 2.6 million years, so why should you stop now?

What’s the Beef with Meat?

Of course, vegetables and fruits are delicious and healthy. Where would you be without your crunchy salads, tomato pasta sauces, baked potatoes, and cherry pie? There are certainly some fantastic vegetarian recipes available out there. Eating more of them is a great way to ensure that you get all the vitamins, minerals, and roughage you need. Unfortunately, research suggests that most people in Western societies eat far too little plant-based food, with only one in 10 Americans consuming as much as health experts recommend. But does that mean that you should abandon meat-eating altogether?

In fact, lean red meat, poultry, and fish also contain plenty of important nutrients that are essential for health. For example, eating meat — white or red — is the easiest way to boost your iron stores to prevent anemia. Meat is also full of zinc which is necessary for your immune system, vitamin B12 for your nervous system, and lots of other goodies. In fact, far from making you put on weight, protein from good quality meat is an efficient food for building muscle, not fat.

In addition, some people don’t do well on vegetarian and vegan diets. I had a friend in college who got anemic when she went vegan. Her doctor ordered her to eat red meat. Other people I know can’t digest red meat well at all. We all have different metabolic needs, and so need to listen to what our bodies want more than what some Instagram influencer says we should do.

Selecting the Best Meat to Eat

So, if meat is on the menu, try to buy the best lean cuts that you can afford. Farmers’ markets are a great place to find fresh, high-quality food. You can often find local producers there. Food that hasn’t traveled very far by the time it reaches your fridge is far more environmentally friendly than food shipped in from miles away.

Make sure the meat is at its freshest by checking the color — red meat should be an attractive dark pink, while poultry can vary from pale to golden depending on the food that the bird has eaten. If possible, you should touch the meat to make sure that it is dense and springy. Any suspicion of a slimy texture is a no-no!

The smell is also very important — one sniff and you will know whether the cut is fresh or not! Unfortunately, you may find that farmers’ markets in your area have been affected by the pandemic. Still, you can always buy gourmet meats online from companies that will do all the choosing for you.

By all means, have a meat-free Monday now and then to ensure that your family eats a wide range of vegetables, but you don’t need to ditch the steak altogether. Instead, a home-cooked meal with a lean cut of meat protein and a range of tasty side vegetables and salads will give you and your family all the nutrients you need.

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