Cooking with Lillian

Kitchen and Cooking at Lillian Kitchen secret, tips, learn to cook online.

Cooking Tips

Tips For Dining and Wining Your New Girlfriend at Home

By Leave a Comment

Tips For Dining and Wining Your New Girlfriend at Home

Dining and wining with your new girlfriend at home can symbolize a lot of things for her, such as your sincerity and commitment. This is also an ideal chance for you to get to know each other better, which is one of the main reasons why it is important to make sure that everything goes well and smooth, so you can create a relaxed and more open environment for both of you.

This is one of the most romantic and intimate ways to spend quality time together, away you’re your friends, strangers, and loud noise. Spending quality time this way gives you and your girlfriend more privacy, so you can converse better and be more comfortable with being together.

  • The best way to ensure that this dining experience goes well is to prepare good food. Asking your girlfriends’ favorite dish is a good start. Preparing dishes that you both like gives you the chance to share your interest in food. This can help keep the discussion going, and can also prevent any awkward moments.
  • The only problem is if you aren’t familiar with cooking your girlfriend’s favorite dish. This can, however, be easily resolved with the help of proper research. Find the easiest to understand recipes that can guide you in cooking your girlfriend’s favorite dish. Make sure you have all the necessary ingredients and kitchen tools that you need before you start cooking, so you don’t end up ruining the recipes.
  • The greatest challenge about dining and wining at home is creating the perfect ambiance. Aside from preparing meals, it is also essential for you to create the perfect environment that would make you and your girlfriend comfortable. Since you are both new in the relationship, a “feel at home” ambiance is usually better compared to a romantic dining environment that normally imposes too many expectations from both parties. A “feel at home” ambiance gives a more laid back environment, which you can use to comfortably engage in interesting conversations with your girlfriend.
  • After the main course, dessert should usually follow. Preparing a piece of cake or slices of different fruits should be a good way to keep the conversation running.  This is also a good way to get rid of the main course’s flavors from your mouth, which can make it more comfortable to keep on talking to your girlfriend.
  • Good wine is perfect as a finale for your dinner date at home with your girlfriend. This will help both of you to loosen up a bit more and enjoy each other’s company with fewer restrictions. This type of bonding can help build intimacy in your relationship.

You should use the tips above when planning to dine and wine with your new girlfriend. Dining and wining from home surely is a lot of work, but the result is definitely worth it. These dinner dates at home are more intimate and personal, compared to spending a romantic night in a restaurant full of strangers.

Cut breads and cakes perfectly every time. It may sound strange but dental floss can be used to slice bread and cakes for a perfect slice every time. This is also the easiest way to cut a layer cake in half so you can add a filling. For perfect results freeze the cake before cutting it.

Setting Up and Stocking A Home Bar

By Leave a Comment

Setting Up and Stocking A Home Bar

The initial set up of your own home bar might cost a fair few bucks to start off but once most of the equipment is purchased you will just need to replenish the consumables.

The first thing you want to look at is how often you will be entertaining and the types of drinks your family and friends prefer.

Spirits

Your selection of spirits will be the base of most of your cocktails and mixed drinks so it is important to have a few of these on hand.

A good quality Gin will be needed for favorites such as Gin & Tonic and also for making martini’s

Vodka is a useful spirit to stock as it can be mixed with orange or tonic, used for making a good Bloody Mary, Vodka Martinis and Long Island Ice Teas and 101 other cocktails.

Tequila is always a winner when entertaining at home, we have the exotic Tequila Sunshine, Tequila slammers and the classic Margarita to just name a few.

Whiskey would be my last essential spirit, a blended one to add mixers to or use for cocktails and a nice Single Malt Scotch to finish the evening or bring out for special occasions.

Other spirits worth considering would be dark and white rums as well as brandies and cognacs depending on your budget and the tastes of your guests.

Liquors

If you are making cocktails or planning on having an aperitif or nightcap you will also need at least one or two liquors on hand. A coffee liquor like Kahlua is always useful as is the orange-flavored Triple Sec.

Wines & Beers

Depending on who you’re catering for a case or two of beer and bottle of red and white wine would be worth stocking. I can guarantee there will always be somebody who only drinks beer at your gathering.

Mixers, Fruit Juices, and other Essentials

You’ll need a good stock of different mixers, I’ll just list what I would say we’re the most useful here but you can customize this for your own home bar…

Orange Juice, Cranberry Juice, and Tomato Juice would be the three juices I’d stock as well as some fresh fruits like Limes and Lemons and certainly some Maraschino Cherries.

For Mixers, you can’t really do without Cola, as well as this I’d stock Tonic Water, Soda and Ginger Ale.

Last up these few ingredients are nice to have, won’t break the bank and can be re-purposed; Olives, Salt, Worcestershire or Tabasco Sauce.

So now you’ve got all the ingredients, we need some glasses.

These would be my choices.

Beer Mugs, Red & White Wine Glasses, Champagne Flutes, Cocktail/Martini Glasses, Highballs, Shot Glasses and  I like to have some Margarita Glasses on hand.

cooking tips number 8

Last up the rest of the tools for the job.

Certainly, a cocktail shaker would be number one on my list, followed by something to measure your shots with as well as a bottle opener and a corkscrew. You’ll need a cutting board and sharp knife to cut up any fruit and an ice bucket and tongs. An electric blender would be something to think about and of course, cocktail sticks and straws should be on hand. A few cloths to mop up around you wouldn’t be a bad idea as well!

I saw this nice set of tools over at Amazon OXO SteeL 7-Piece Barware Set, they are not absolutely necessary but they do look pretty cool! In fact, you hardly need to leave your apartment as you can order pretty much everything you need from Amazon from the drinks and mixers to all the glasses and equipment you need.

Avoid oozing egg whites. Do your eggs ooze out some of their whites when you boil them? This is because every egg contains an air pocket at the larger, rounded end. When placed in simmering water the air pocket expands and creates a higher atmospheric pressure within the egg than in the water. The fragile shell cracks from the built-up pressure. Avoid this problem in the future by removing eggs from the refrigerator and piercing the larger end with a pin. This will give the air a hole to escape through!

Shop here.

Cooking With Jalapeno Peppers

By Leave a Comment

Cooking With Jalapeno Peppers

I’m guessing if you came to this page, you are a big Chilli pepper fan like me, I love spicy food and I’m always looking at new ideas and recipes to add to my repertoire.

Jalapenos are milder than a lot of the chilis available and their heat can vary depending on where and how they were cultivated and also how you prepare them. On the Scoville scale which measures how hot a chilli is, they vary from 2,500 to 8,000 heat units. One of The hottest recorded chilli is the naga viper pepper which hits the scale at a tongue burning 1,382,118 !!

Most times you will use green jalapeno’s to cook with even though these are the most common you can also get red ones these have been left on the vine for longer and are a bit sweeter. If you grow your own Jalapeno’s which isn’t that difficult, try leaving some to mature on the vine for a while and try the red ones they are really delicious.

Like the rest of the chilli family, jalapeno’s are also high in vitamin C and have a number of health-inducing properties which are all down to the main chemical that chillies are made up of Capsaicin which is also the component that makes them hot! Some of the benefits it is believed to have include; helps boost circulation, protects against certain cancers and lowers blood sugar levels.

So that’s the health benefits discussed so let’s know talk about getting them ready to cook. First of all, we need to prepare the jalapeno peppers, as most of the heat comes from the white pith and seeds of the jalapeno’s we will want to remove them first. I’m not going to state the obvious here because I’m sure that a lot of you have cooked with chillis before, but do make sure that you don’t rub your eyes or take a trip to the bathroom without washing your hands after preparing your chillis, the good thing is you won’t do it a second time! A good way of saving time and effort especially if you are planning on cooking a lot of jalapenos is to buy yourself a jalapeno corer, they cost about ten dollars but for five dollars more you can buy this  King Kooker 36JR Stainless-Steel 36-Hole Jalapeno Rack with Corer

From Amazon.

Jalapenos can be used in literally hundreds of different recipes but the one they are the most well known for has got to be Jalapeno Poppers. This originally was a trademark used by Anchor Food but is pretty much used for any stuffed Jalapeno recipes out there. Usually, the hollowed-out peppers are stuffed with a mixture of ingredients the common one being cheese and a few spices, quite often they are wrapped in bacon. They also are likely to be served with a dip, personally I’m partial to a bit of sour cream or a ranch dressing with my jalapeno’s.

cooking tips number 6

Jalapeno Poppers are really easy to make and once you’ve cored them you’re ready to go, I like to either stuff them with cream cheese or Monterey Jack as it really melts nicely and a bit of onion and garlic. There are a lot of other variations some people like goats cheese, some add the sausage meat and other spices. They really are versatile, you can grill, oven back or smoke them or coat them in breadcrumbs and deep fry them. If you use the King Kooker 36JR Stainless-Steel 36-Hole Jalapeno Rack with Corer

from Amazon that I mentioned earlier, you can prepare and cook 36 of these babies with no effort.

So forget those cheap frozen versions that you’ve probably eaten at restaurants or at home and try making some yourself, they’re fun and easy to cook and much, much tastier!

Stop foods from sticking to the pan. To keep food from sticking to the bottom of your pans, try to avoid ever putting cold foods into a hot pan. Also, don’t put food into a pan that is not perfectly clean, otherwise the resulting build up could lead to burned food.

Choosing the Best Coffee Maker Espresso Combo

By Leave a Comment

Choosing the Best Coffee Maker Espresso Combo

Choosing the best coffee maker and espresso combo depends on your requirements. The best coffee maker espresso combo is something that has everything you need and is still within your budget. The important factors you should consider are the following:

Size

The size of your coffee maker espresso combo should be sufficient to cover for the number of people that will regularly use it. A small machine is usually designed to provide a limited number of cups per day. Buying a small machine for a large number of users will only cause your machine to get overworked. Aside from this, using a small machine for numerous coffee drinkers requires more energy to accommodate everyone, which is not a cost-effective practice.

Type of Water Filter

The coffee maker espresso combo must have an effective water filter system to avoid impurity buildups in the machine itself. These impurities are usually the main cause of rust and leaks, which can also contaminate your drinks.

Added Features

Some coffee maker espresso combo products have added features, such as a coffee grinder and a reusable coffee filter. These added features should be included in your considerations because these could save you a lot of money and time. For instance, instead of buying disposable filters, you can have a reusable coffee filter, and instead of buying ground coffee or buying a separate coffee bean grinder, you can have the option of grinding your own coffee base with the texture that you want.

Digital Controls

A simple LCD monitor that includes timer settings, a temperature indicator and volume dispenser options can provide you with great convenience, especially for busy people. However, these types of products usually cost more than a standard coffee maker espresso combo machine, but if you have the budget, then these controls can make a huge difference to your coffee experience.

Reviews

Buying online coffee maker espresso combo is more advisable. This is primarily because you normally get wider options online than what you can get when you personally go to an appliance store. Aside from this, most appliance stores online provide reviews for every product, and this is a good way to get honest opinions from buyers like you.

Budget

Lastly, your budget will, of course, affect your decision in choosing which coffee maker espresso combo to buy. If you are working on a limited budget, then getting a standard coffee maker espresso combo is your best option. Products with too many additional features are usually more expensive.

The best way to choose the best coffee maker espresso combo is to list down the things that you need from these products, and stick to your list. Don’t get blinded by the latest fad and added features.

Keep your recipes organized. Nothing is more frustrating when you’re ready to start cooking then not being able to find your recipe. Keep things organized by finding a system for filing your recipes that you can keep close at hand in the kitchen. A great option is to buy one of those photo albums where you peel back a plastic sheet and underneath is a sticky surface. This makes recipes easy to find and at any time you can remove or replace them!

Buying a Set of Quality Kitchen Knives and Chicago Cutlery.

By Leave a Comment

Buying a Set of Quality Kitchen Knives

A set of kitchen knives is probably one of the most important tools for a home chef, not only that personally I find using a razor-sharp, well-balanced kitchen knife really therapeutic, and after a hard days work I actually love unwinding in my kitchen preparing an evening meal and drinking a couple of glasses of a nice red wine, make sure you watch what you’re doing with that knife though, we don’t want any missing fingers!

There are two ways of buying kitchen knives, you can either get yourself a complete set usually stored in their own knife block or you can buy each knife separately, either way is good.

If you buy a knife block set you get pretty much every knife you are going to need for preparing food and a few more that won’t see the light of day, the pros to buying a set are that you are good to go with all your required tools, the downside as mentioned is that you could have a set with a lot of knives that aren’t used. Another problem in buying a big set of knives is that unless you are paying hundreds of dollars your knife set is likely to be poor to middling in quality. My advice on this is to check out consumer reviews on various knife sets, look for the ones that are maybe the end of line or discounted so that you get a good price. And remember that quite often you get what you pay for so you might have to pay out a large chunk of cash now but in the long run a good set of kitchen knives should last a very long time, so we’re talking an investment here.

So the other way is to buy one or two knives at a time, a really good chef knife will handle many jobs and combined with a paring knife you should be able to prepare most ingredients.

This is the method I chose but the only problem was I threw out all my old cheap knives and just had the two quality knives, now I had to use my chef knife to cut a loaf of bread and carve a turkey and really I should have hung on to my old knives to do these sort of jobs. So my suggestion is to make sure you keep your old knives or if you are starting afresh, get one or two high-quality knives and then a few cheap ones like a bread knife until you can replace them with something superior.

So to conclude always check out the reviews from consumers first before buying. Look out for deep discounts especially on some of the online stores, also look out for ‘ends of line’ sales usually the new line is just a change in aesthetic design and nothing to do with the function of the knives.

You’re looking for quality brands such as Wusthof, Henckels and Calphalon, the sharpness of the knives and how long they retain their cutting edge are two of the most important factors to consider. Last up, once you have a set of good quality tools make sure that you find the time to learn how to use them correctly, not only will this make your time in the kitchen more enjoyable it will protect your knives from misuse.

Use your kitchen scissors. Right now you probably only use your kitchen scissors for opening packaging and bags of milk. But next time you’re trimming fat from a roast, opening pitas or cutting chicken into strips, consider using your scissors! Chefs use them all the time for cutting meats and other food items. It’s probably best to have a pair that are designated as food scissors only. And be sure you clean them very well after each use because they do have crevices where bacteria can hide.

Chicago Cutlery 18-Piece Insignia Steel Knife Set with Block and In-Block Sharpener Review

Introduction

The Chicago Cutlery 18-Piece Insignia Steel Knife Set with Block and In-Block Sharpener provides a complete cutlery solution for your kitchen, especially with its wide variety of blades in different shapes and sizes. The block product included in the cutlery package can help keep your knives away from children and protect these utensils from the usual wear and tear.

Each knife in the Chicago Cutlery 18-Piece Insignia Steel Knife Set is composed of high-carbon stainless steel material that is both stain and rust-resistant. Given a proper maintenance, you can actually enjoy these kitchen tools for a long time.

The in-block sharpener featured in this product allows you to conveniently maintain your cutlery set in their mint condition, so they don’t cause any accidents in the kitchen. Well maintained cutlery blades are also essential for quickly and easily completing your kitchen work, which helps you save time and make you more productive.

The Chicago Cutlery 18-Piece Insignia Steel Knife Set is made of full metal tang, from the tip of the blade down to the tip of the handle. This is an essential feature for a balanced and durable cutlery set.

 Features

  • The in-block sharpener is embedded with Taper Grind technology, which gives users an excellent blade sharpener that can be used for precise cutting
  • Enhanced bolster that can keep your fingers from sliding up to the blade
  • High carbon stainless steel blades and stainless steel handles that are both rustproof and stain-resistant.
  • Full metal materials, from the end of the blade to the end of the knives handle, which makes it durable and easier to control.

Pros

Materials: The high carbon stainless steel material that is used to create this cutlery set features essential protective functions for the entire set. It is rust-resistant and stain-resistant, which are essential features of kitchen tools that are made of steel. Kitchen tools that are not resistant to rust can wear out easily, and may even contaminate food during preparation. With the Chicago Cutlery 18-Piece Insignia Steel Knife set, you don’t have to worry about these problems.

Maintenance:  Added features like its block and in-block sharpener makes it easy to store and maintain the sharpness of the knives. Everything you need to keep a functional cutlery set is packaged in this single product, so you don’t have to buy them separately. The block and in block sharpener is easy to maintain and use.

Variety: The Chicago Cutlery 18-Piece Insignia Steel Knife Set includes 18 different knives, which are just about everything you need for numerous cooking styles at home. This means you don’t need to buy a different piece of cutlery for various purposes.

Cons

Price: The Chicago Cutlery 18-Piece Insignia Steel Knife Set is a bit more expensive than other cutlery packages. The materials used to produce the Chicago Cutlery set are made to last for a long time. These are highly durable and rustproof materials, and it includes added features like its blade sharpener and knife-block that you can’t get with cheaper cutlery sets.

Conclusion

The Chicago Cutlery 18-Piece Insignia Steel Knife Set is definitely worth your money. Although this product is quite expensive when compared against average cutlery sets, this product is built to last for a long time, and this makes the Chicago Cutlery 18-Piece Insignia Steel Knife Set a good investment.

How to be the BBQ Meister!!!

By Leave a Comment

How to be the BBQ Meister!!!

It’s really not rocket science to cook up a decent backyard barbeque but with these few tips I’m going to share with you, you’ll be known as the BBQMeister to your family and friends!

It mainly comes down to the correct preparation and a bit of organization.

Before you fire it up I recommend rubbing the grates of your grill with oil, this will stop your food sticking to the grill and also save a lot of time when having to clean your grill after the barbeque.

My next tip will also save on the boring cleaning tasks after your guests have gone home and that is to line you barbeque tray with Aluminum foil, doubled over and turned up at the edges to form a tray shape, this will make sure that all the stuff that drips into the tray is collected and easy to remove later.

Take your meat out of the refrigerator 30 minutes before you plan on grilling it, by doing this the meat should be easier to cook.

You don’t want your guests waiting around for ages not eating once they arrive so make sure that you pre-heat your barbeque, this means with a gas barbeque switching it on a high setting for 5 to 10 minutes or if you are using a charcoal barbeque you will need to light the coals about half an hour before you plan to start cooking.

Something I always do is find myself a helper one of the areas where I always find something goes wrong is when I have to go and find a beer for ‘Walt’ and get distracted by something else and find that I’ve managed to burn the sausages. So while you are dealing with the important things like putting the meat on the BBQ your assistant is handing out drinks and snacks and keeping your guests entertained. If you need to leave the BBQ at any point you will instruct him or her on what to do.

So let’s get on to the actual cooking.

Make sure you have the correct tools for the job, for instance never use a fork for turning meat as the juices will escape and you’ll end up with a dry old piece of shoe leather rather than a succulent steak! Tongs or a spatula or both are what you should be using.

My next must-have tool is a meat thermometer this is especially important if you have thick cuts of meat, this will mean that you never undercook your meat or have to guess when you think it is cooked.

You will have needed to marinate your meat for ideally a day before the BBQ so that the flavors go deep into the meat. What many cooks forget to do though is remove the marinade from the meat before you put it on the BBQ, the flavor should have permeated into the meat and if you leave a lot of marinade on the meat it will end up like charcoal.

This next tip is pretty obvious but make sure that the smaller pieces of meat are cooked indirectly at the edges of the grill and the large cuts or pieces in the center where there is more heat. If the smaller pieces get cooked first you can also wrap them tightly in foil and put them on a low heat in the oven until the rest is cooked.

My final bit of advice is to enjoy yourself, this is a BBQ not your day job if something goes wrong to make the best of it and pass round a few more drinks and nobody will notice. Happy Barbequing!!

Salted butter vs. unsalted butter. Butter is available both with and without salt. The salt is added for extra flavor and to help preserve it so it has a longer shelf life. The problem is that sometimes the salt in butter can be more than a recipe needs. Choosing unsalted butter gives you more control over how much salt your dish contains. If you only have salted butter, the best thing to do is omit approximately ¼ teaspoon of salt per ½ cup (one stick) of butter used in the recipe.