More helpful links

These are some great tips and tricks from one of my favorite websites- Better Homes and Gardens They have great recipes, great tips, party and entertaining ideas, and so much more. I have the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and I use it all the time. Love it!

How to bake and frost a cake.

How to chop vs. mincing

Cooking with Herbs

Peeling and seeding tomatoes

How to roast poultry

How to broil meat

How to cook fish

How to toast nuts

How to roast garlic

Step by step egg cooking techniques

How to cut up a whole chicken

Helpful Hint: Frying Bacon

Are you like me and hate to fry bacon? It never works out well for me. I end up with half burnt, half under-cooked bacon and grease splattered everywhere. So I rarely ever do bacon for that reason. But finally I have found the solution to "frying" bacon! My handy-dandy Broiler Pan ! This morning I did a little test. I got out my frying pan and my broiler pan. Set the oven broiler on HIGH and placed one package of bacon out on my pan. In the time it took for me to burn 3 pieces of bacon in my frying pan, I had an entire package of bacon perfectly cooked and ready to go from the oven. Yep. Last time I will ever FRY bacon. By cooking it in the oven I had zero mess, evenly cooked bacon, and the best part- all the grease was in the dripping pan below and my bacon wasn't soaking in it! So this is my "helpful hint" for today- never fry bacon again!

   When using the broiler pan remember to spray both sides of the top piece, and the bottom piece with cooking spray and it will clean much easier. Make sure your oven broiler is set to HIGH and move the rack up. About half-way through you will need to flip the bacon over to make sure it gets cooked through. It takes about 5 minutes total cooking time. And did I mention no mess!? Can't beat that! :-)

Some helpful links for some tips and tricks in the kitchen

I posted a couple of charts yesterday but it was taking over my feed. So instead I am going to post a few links that I thought you might find helpful. These are in the back of my favorite Betty Crocker Cookbook, and these are from their website. If you have any you would like to share, please pass them along! :-)

Common Ingredients: Yields and Equivalents Chart from Betty Crocker

Emergency Substitutions Chart from Betty Crocker

Cooking tools

Knifes and Cutting

Pans

Pantry Basics

Equipment Glossary Page

Ingredients Glossary

Techniques Glossary

Broiler Pan

I know that most of you "old school" cooks know what a broiler pan is. But I am fairly certain a lot of people don't. I rarely ever used ours until about a year ago. Now we use it for EVERYTHING. If you don't have one.. get one. You will be so glad you did. I use it to make burgers, bacon, pork steaks, you name it, in the oven. What's so great about it is that it lets all the fat drain off into the pan underneath. One, thats much healthier, and two it lets bacon get crispy, not soggy. And I HATE frying bacon. Hate it. This way I get crispy bacon with no frying. Can't beat that. Also another thing I love about it is it isn't a big mess to clean up. I spray the bottom pan and both sides of the top piece with PAM before I start. When I am done I pour off any grease or bits of gunk in the pan, rinse it a little if it is extra dirty, and then put it in the dishwasher. It comes out spotless every time. You really don't have to stand there and scrub that nasty pan afterward. Love it. Just something that my Momma taught me about that I thought I would share after using it last night for pork steaks. They came out perfect.

How to set the table

This is a great photo I found when I googled "how to set the table". There seems to be a thousand ways to "properly" set the table now. This is the closest to the way that I do it.

Betty Crocker Cookbook: Wedding Edition

Betty Crocker Cookbook: Wedding Edition

OK so this is the end all be all most amazing cookbook EVER if you ask me. I have looked forever and a day for a cookbook that not only has great recipes but also shows you the BASICS. Not everyone was born a good cook, or has had the opportunity to learn from previous generations. And some of us that were blessed for those experiences, still need a little help when it comes time to actually make things happen on your own. Well this cookbook is that cookbook. It has all the great Betty Crocker recipes, and it also has pages and pages of basic information.

The front of the book starts with not only a list of basic kitchen gadgets you needs, but a description of what each one is used for and a photo. It has lots of entertaining ideas, how to properly set a table, things like that. The first chapter is all the cooking basics like how to measure dry ingredients versus wet ingredients, basics to stock your pantry with, a glossary of cooking terms, lots of basics that you can never seem to find in other cookbooks. It is a REAL how-to cookbook for beginners, or even for old pros to brush up!

I was so excited when Mom got me this for Christmas the year I got married. I have used it a million times and have learnt a lot. This is a GREAT wedding shower gift. The basic Betty Crocker Cookbook with the red cover has a lot of basics in it too, but the wedding edition has even more.

Honey Butter

Emailed from Merletta

Honey Butter

From: Merletta

 EQUAL PARTS OF SOFTENED (NOT MELTED) BUTTER AND HONEY MIXED

Substituting ground beef with turkey

I have found that using ground turkey instead of ground beef in my recipes is a wonderful thing. It is so much healthier, waayyy fewer calories, and you don't lose any of the taste. I have gotten the "fit" kind at Aldi's.. do not buy that kind. There was absolutely no flavor and no amount of seasoning helped. But I get the Wal-Mart kind from the meat department and you literally cannot tell it isn't beef. ESPECIALLY when using it in a dish like spaghetti, chili, something like that. And we have found that we actually think the turkey burgers taste better. And this is coming from someone who can ALWAYS taste when something is different or has been substituted. I hate artificial sweeteners and can taste them EVERY time... with the exception of sweet and lo in my ice tea.

Frozen Punch Tip

This is a trick my sister in law, Jamie, taught me. It is great for when you are serving punch and want to keep it cold. Using a Jello or cake mold with a pretty design in it, pour some of the punch in it and freeze it ahead of time. Float the frozen ring in your punch bowl during the party and it will keep it cold, look nice, and as it melts it won't water down your punch!

You can also add fruit (that will go well with your punch) to the punch ring before you freeze it if you want.

Thanks Jamie!

Really you can apply this to ANY time you are serving cold beverages. Instead of serving ice for lemonade, tea, etc. you can freeze some using ice trays ahead of time and that way it is cold and doesn't water down. They have really cute and unique ice trays now that will add a little fun to your plain old ice tea. :-)