Wednesday, September 3, 2008

How to Eat Healthy



from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

There are many popular diets on the market today. This article will explain how to eat healthy for life and avoid the fad diets.

Steps


  1. Determine how many calories your body needs to function each day.This number can vary wildly, depending upon your metabolism and how physically active you are. If you're the kind of person who puts on 10 pounds just smelling a slice of pizza,then your daily caloric intake should stay around 2000 calories for men, and 1500 calories for women. Your body mass also plays a part in this: More calories are suitable for naturally bigger people, and fewer calories for smaller people. If you're the kind of person who can eat anything he or she wants without putting on a pound, or you're physically active, you may want to increase your daily caloric intake to 1000-2000 calories, a little less for women. Also consider that the more muscle mass you have, the more calories you need to function. The bad fats are saturated and trans fat, which you do not need any of in moderation. Someone on a 2000 calorie diet should consume less than 20 grams of saturated fat a day, and trans fat can and should be avoided all together. The good fats are plain fat, which you should eat about 30% of your calories in, and poly- and monounsaturated fats.
  2. Don't fear fatty foods.You need to consume fat from foods for your body to function correctly. However, it's important to choose the right kinds of fats: Most animal fats and some vegetable oils are high in calories and are high in the kind of fats that raise your LDL cholesterol levels; the bad cholesterol. Contrary to popular belief, eating cholesterol doesn't necessarily raise the amount of cholesterol in your body. If you give your body the right tools, it will flush excess cholesterol from your body. Those tools are monounsaturated fatty acids, which you should try to consume regularly. These are the good fats, and they help lower the bad cholesterol in your body by raising the good cholesterol. Foods that are high in monounsaturated fatty acids are olive oil, nuts, fish oil, and various seed oils. Adding these "good" fats to your weekly diet can lower your cholesterol and reduce your risk of heart disease. Consider sautéing vegetables in small amounts of olive oil, and grabbing a hand full of mixed nuts for a snack instead of a candy bar. There are also various supplements that contain these good fats that you can take daily.
  3. Carbohydrates are important.You need to eat foods high in carbs since they are your body's main source of energy. The trick is to choose the right carbs. Simple carbs like sugar and processed flour are quickly absorbed by the body's digestive system. This causes a kind of carb overload, and your body releases huge amounts of insulin to combat the overload. Not only is the excess insulin bad on your heart, but it encourages weight gain. Insulin is the main hormone in your body responsible for fat storage. Eat plenty of carbs, but eat carbs that are slowly digested by the body like whole grain flour, hearty vegetables, oats, and unprocessed grains like brown rice. These kinds of food not only contain complex carbs that are slowly digested by the body, but are usually higher in vitamins and other nutrients that are beneficial to the body and they are higher in fiber which keeps your digestive system running smoothly.
  4. Eat larger meals early in the day.Your metabolism slows down towards the end of the evening and is less efficient at digesting foods. That means more of the energy stored in the food will be stored as fat and your body won't absorb as many nutrients from the meal. Many American families tend to have their big meal at dinner time. The problem with this is your day is basically over, and your body's need for energy isn't as great as it is early in the day. This large meal, late in the day, can also make you feel tired, and who wants to feel too tired to have fun now that the workday is over? Try eating a medium-sized meal for breakfast, a large meal for lunch, and a small meal for dinner. Better yet, try eating 4-6 small meals over the course of your day. That keeps your body fueled for the whole day without dumping a large amount of food into your stomach, which your body might have a hard time digesting.
  5. Don't skip breakfast!Many people do because they don't feel they need to eat breakfast, or they just don't feel hungry first thing in the morning. Research shows that people who skip breakfast are usually fatter than those who eat a well balanced breakfast. Although you might not feel hungry first thing in the morning, if you skip breakfast you will feel extra hungry come lunch time, making you more prone to overeating for your afternoon meal. In addition, skipping breakfast makes your body think that you are starving. After all, by lunch time, you may not have eaten in almost eighteen hours. For the rest of the day after you skip breakfast, your body will store up most of the energy you get from food, instead of allowing you to burn it, in anticipation of food scarcity. Not only will this cause you to be tired during the day when your body isn't using the food that you ate, but the extra energy stored up will result in weight gain.
  6. Make eating fun.Avoiding simple carbs and fatty foods doesn't need to be boring. Have fun not only with the food, but with the meal. Eating with family and friends makes the meal more satisfying than eating in front of the TV or in the car on the way home from work. You will also eat more slowly when enjoying your meal, which gives your body time to feel full before you burst a button. There are more creative cooking resources available to us than ever before. You can find great tasting recipes in magazines, books, and right here on the Internet. Eating baked fish three or four times a week can get boring, so do a little recipe hunting to find more exciting ways to prepare your meals.
  7. Buy non-fat or reduced fat foods.This is done not to avoid getting fat, because eating fat will not make you fat. And it's not about eating fewer calories. It's about control. Control over what kinds of fats you put in your body. For instance, olive oil has many health benefits, so buy non-fat or reduced fat salad dressing and add a table spoon of olive oil to the jar. You'll have a salad dressing that tastes great, and is also better for your health. So buy the non-fat foods so you can replace the missing fat with "good" fats. Remember, you do need to eat a moderate amount of fat each day. Fat is something that can be very deceiving. For example, if your trying to lose weight, you're going to look for food with low fat content. However,there are some foods that have good fats, these fats are like monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat. These fats add calories from fat, and so does trans fat and saturated fat, so they combine, which can be confusing. It's important to look at the saturated and trans fat content. If you see 20 calories from fat on the label, but 0g of trans fat and saturated fat, that means that there is polyunsaturated fat and/or monounsaturated fat. Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat are good for you. They protect your heart and increase 'good' cholesterol. It's good to have enough good fats, but all good things have to come to an end.
  8. Give yourself a cheat day.Cheating doesn't mean pigging all day on all the wrong foods once a week, it means enjoying a food you really love once a week. Have a couple slices of greasy pizza on Sundays, or a big slice of double chocolate cake on Saturdays. This cheat day will help you stick to the change in diet, and in some ways it's actually good for your body. Special occasions, such as birthdays in the family, count as cheat days.
  9. Avoid excess amounts of alcohol.You know that heavy drinking is bad for your body, but it's also bad for your will power. A heavy night of drinking could send you to the fridge pigging out on all the wrong foods. However, many studies show that a beer or glass of wine a day is actually good for the body. Wine contains anti-oxidants which help fight illness and that moderate amount of alcohol can help you relax. Excess caffeine can also be bad for the body since caffeine stimulates your body into producing insulin in the same way that carbs do.


Tips


  • Eating healthy will give you some health benefits, but you won't achieve the full benefits possible unless you exercise. Exercising doesn't have to be hard, and you don't even have to break a sweat. Just going for a short 30 minute walk four times a week will greatly improve your health.
  • If you consume more calories than your body needs each day, your body will store the excess energy as fat. In today's society, that excess body fat is unnecessary. We are no longer hunter/gatherers. Your next meal is as close as your local grocery store and we don't need extra energy stores to hold us over till the next meal.
  • Use extra virgin olive oil when cooking. It's purer, and is better for your heart than other kinds of olive oil. The darker the better. Furthermore, "light" olive oil has as many Calories as extra virgin olive oil -- the "light" refers to the color and flavor intensity. Unfortunately, though, using extra virgin olive oil when cooking at higher temperatures ruins the flavors that make it "extra virgin". But olive oil isn't necessarily the most healthy oil, canola oil may be better.
  • This takes patience. You won't see a drastic drop in your cholesterol level or weight or increase in your energy level immediately. You need to give the changes in diet some time to kick in.
  • Have a positive and upbeat attitude. If you start your new diet thinking "This is something I have to do," instead of "This is something I want to do," then you've already failed before you started.
  • Adding whole, unrefined grains to the diet can add valuable vitamins and minerals that would otherwise be lost, however it can completely upset our digestion as well. Many animals that eat grains have 4 stomachs they use to digest them adequately, and ferment them so they can uptake nutrients. Humans have only one stomach, and if you introduce grains without first fermenting or sprouting them you may experience digestive upsets. There are various anti nutrients in grains (like phytic acid) and enzyme inhibitors that will prevent mineral absorption and lead to deficiencies and digestive problems. To remedy this, take oatmeal and soak it the night before in a little bit of yogurt. This will make it taste slightly sour, but make it more digestible. Sourdough bread is also another good example.
  • Lettuce is a great choice of natural fiber, and can taste great with the proper healthy dressings. You can make a great salad with nuts, raisins, and whole wheat croutons. Mix it in a bowl so it's evenly distributed and place it on top of a salad. Use a sugar free and low carb balsamic dressing; it has less than 1 gram of carbohydrates and 0 Calories. The head of lettuce is 21 Calories, plus the nuts and raisins and whole wheat croutons which could range depending on size but for this example we will estimate 100 Calories, bringing you a very low calorie and filling meal for only ~120 Calories.
  • Choose wheat (brown) bread instead of white bread. Processed carbohydrates such as those found in white bread are harder to draw nutrients from, and therefore are seen as empty Calories.
  • Smoothies are great for breakfast. Combine the following:
    • banana
    • 4 medium-size strawberries
    • 1/2 cup of skim milk or soy milk

  • For protein, try substituting beans for higher calorie foods like boneless skinless chicken breasts, or tuna. Not only will you be getting additional phytochemicals from the plant based protein, it will not have the harmful saturated fat content. Remember that even an orange has more than 5% of its calories from protein!
  • Non-fat yogurt can make a great snack, and its healthy bacteria can help with various stomach problems.
  • Carry water with you at all times. Try to drink water in place of soft drinks and other flavored beverages. A good rule of thumb is to drink half your body weight in ounces per day.
  • Consider eating organic. Organic food isn't made with the use of a lot of harmful chemicals, or other harmful processes. Not only is organic food good for you, but it is sustainable and good for the environment too! Other foods can be extremely harmful to the environment.
  • Read the labels on everything you eat. Don't just buy something because it is marketed as being "healthy." Lots of companies trying to sell their food off as healthy when really it is full of high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, trans fats, and hidden sugars. This is also the best way to learn about a product. It gives you almost all the information about that product you'll ever need. If you're trying to lose weight, try to choose foods with low calories. If you want to gain weight for a football team or some such reason, you are going to choose food with lots of calories. However, too many calories, not enough exercise, and eating too much at one time, can make you fat.


Warnings


  • There is a vibrant debate in health circles about whether organic food is healthier. Some believe that the chemicals in conventional foods are just as safe and healthy as the expensive organic alternatives. Organic food advocates would argue the opposite. Everyone agrees that organic options have just as many calories as non-organic options. So even if it is organic, make sure you pay attention to your calorie intake.
  • You should always consult your doctor before making drastic changes to your diet and your lifestyle.
  • Excess body fat is hard on your body. It's hard on your heart because it needs to work extra hard to push blood through your larger body. Your body builds extra veins that run through the extra body fat and has to work harder to push blood through those veins.
  • Excess body weight is also hard on your muscles and joints. Carrying around extra weight puts more pressure on your knees, hips, and back. While this might not have a huge effect in your youth, you will feel it as you get older.
  • Any drastic change in your diet can cause constipation, so make sure you eat a lot of dark green leafy vegetables, and other naturally high fiber foods. Your digestive system will typically adjust after a week or two, but you should consult your doctor if it continues. (Other good sources of fiber include: flax seed, psyllium, whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and beans!-- Remember, you can always look at the nutrition facts to see the daily percentage of fiber given in different foods. For fresh, unpackaged foods, you can look up nutrition facts online; although, it usually won't ever hurt you to eat fresh, unpackaged fruits and veggies!)
  • Make sure there isn't a lot of unhealthy food in your house that can tempt you. Give or throw away the foods you shouldn't eat. You can't eat what you don't buy!
  • Please do not underfeed yourself. Even if you have extra body fat, do not let yourself go hungry. That is worse than being fat. Eating the right food and exercising daily is a much better way to lose weight!
  • Sugar resembles fat in many ways. There, again, is good sugar and bad sugar. We all like sugar, it's natural. And that doesn't mean if your trying to loose weight, you can't have sugar at all. The bad sugar, sucrose, makes you fat, because its high in calories, and it's sweet. The good sugar, glucose, is a natural sugar that comes from fruits and other natural plant sources. Glucose, the good sugar, goes into your blood, not your belly. It 'enriches' your blood, in a way. Sucrose, the bad sugar, doesn't go into your blood like glucose does. To put it simply, its raw energy turned into a sweetener, and when energy isn't used (exercise), it's stored (fat). That's why, on the label, sugars are below carbohydrates and indented, indicating that it is related to carbohydrates. So eat fruits, avoid candy and sweets if you're trying to lose weight.


Related wikiHows





Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Eat Healthy. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Posted by at 2 comments:
Labels:

Friday, August 29, 2008

How to Cook



from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Cooking has come a long way from when our ancestors roasted wild game and local vegetation over an open fire. We've discovered an infinite number of ways to prepare and season food, but the nature of cooking remains the same: Apply heat to make food taste better. The rest is really just details that can be learned from an inquisitive spirit, creativity, and trial and error.

Steps


  1. Find recipes. This is optional, of course, but is the recommended route if you're learning how to cook. Unfortunately, not all recipes are created equal. Some recipes don't break things down well for beginners, and some just aren't good. Get recipes from friends and family for dishes that you've tried (and loved). The benefit of doing this is that if you don't understand something in the recipe, you can call them and ask! If you look online, choose recipes that have received good reviews or comments. Look for dishes that you have tried previously (perhaps, made by a friend, or when eating at a restaurant) so that you may be able to appreciate the flavor to judge the finer nuances of the dish. The Better Home and Gardens cookbook has a great variety of recipes for beginners or more experienced cooks.
  2. Gather the ingredients and tools for the job. If you're just starting to cook, don't substitute. The ingredients might interact in a way that you're not aware of, and substituting what you think is a similar ingredient might ruin the entire meal. When you become more experienced, you'll have a better idea for predicting how introducing a different ingredient will affect the cooking process and the final flavor. Otherwise, get the right ingredients (as fresh and as high quality as you can afford) and in the right amounts (no, don't eyeball it; become friends with your measuring spoons and cups and invest in a kitchen scale).
  3. Prepare the food to be cooked. The practice of getting all of your tools and ingredients together, prepared, and measured is called "mise en place" by professional chefs, and is considered essential to efficient cooking. Your "mise en place" should be ready and close at hand before the stove is turned on.
    • Wash and clean the food. Most food needs to be cleaned somehow, and usually just rinsing with water will suffice. Foods that are peeled should be washed before peeling to decrease chance of transferring chemicals and dirt from unpeeled area to peeled area.
    • Cut the food into uniform slices or pieces so that they cook evenly. There are a wide variety of cutting techniques--chopping, dicing, cubing, slicing, julienning, etc. The bigger the pieces, the longer they'll take to cook. To complicate things further, some types of food cook faster than others; since zucchini cooks faster than carrot, for example, you might want to cut the carrot into smaller pieces if they're going to be thrown in at the same time so that they're both finished cooking simultaneously.[1]
    • Add salt, pepper, herbs, or marinade as called for in the recipe (or to taste). Any number of herbs or spices can be used to increase the flavor of whatever you are cooking. These may need to be added before or after cooking. Just be sure to add a little rather than too much. You can always add more later. Be especially careful with salt; it is very difficult to fix a dish that is too salty.
    • Ferment. This is NOT recommended for beginners. Fermentation (e.g. leavening) is a complicated technique that can result in wonderful baked goods, but it's the domain of experienced (or at least intermediate) cooks who understand how to control and direct this biological process. You need to be exact with baking (until you understand how each ingredient and method works, then you can switch around to your own tastes), especially since what goes in the oven can't be added to.

  4. Preheat appliances as needed. There are some small details in this step that are often overlooked.
    • Heat the water. Poaching, simmering, and boiling are slightly different techniques. Poaching is very gentle, reserved for delicate foods like eggs, fish, and fruit. Simmering is a little hotter, with a few small bubbles rising to the surface, and is often used for items that need a long time to cook. Boiling is when the water gets as hot as it's going to get and begins to evaporate into steam. The exact temperature varies by altitude, so be mindful of this if you're in a high altitude area. Get the water to whichever state the recipe calls for and keep it there. Don't place a lid on the pot if you're poaching or simmering because the heat may increase to a boil.[2] Remove from heat if necessary if the water starts to get too hot.
    • Preheat the oven. Don't get impatient, or else you will most likely throw off your cooking times, since recipes are written assuming the oven is preheated.[3] It usually takes an oven about 15 minutes to get to 350°F or 176°C, but every stove is different. Some models will beep or make a noise when the temperature is reached; otherwise, you might need to calibrate your oven to determine how long it takes for it to preheat to a certain temperature. Put a thermometer in the center of a rack set in the middle of the oven and turn it to the desired temperature; after 10 minutes, check the thermometer every 5 minutes until the desired temperature is reached and remember how long it took to get there.[4]
    • Heat the pan before adding oil. Only complete this step as follows with cast iron. Softer metals may warp when heated empty, and NEVER do this as shown, with a non-stick pan. Non stick cookware emits toxic fumes when heated empty. Heating the pan alone causes the metal to expand, opening up tiny scratches so that oil can get in there. Also, if you add oil to a pan that is already hot, it'll get hotter faster, which give it less time to break down. After you add the oil and cover the entire pan, wait for it to start smoking before adding the food. If you toss your food in before the oil has heated sufficiently, it'll soak up the oil rather than cook in it. This applies to butter, as well. Butter will brown slightly once hot enough and get a nice nutty smell. But don't let the oil or butter burn (keep in mind that butter and olive oil burn faster than other oils.[5]
      • Keep an eye on the pan. If it overheats and catches fire, turn the burner off and cover the pan completely with a metal lid, Damp Tea Towel or Fire Blanket (or smother it with baking soda). Never throw water on burning oil, and don't use a fire extinguisher--both can make the fire spread. Leave it for at least half an hour to cool.


  5. Start cooking with water (boiling, poaching, simmering, and stewing, to name an approachable few). It's easier because you have a greater window of opportunity as to when the food is "done". If you cook the food for a little too long, the result is usually still edible, whereas if you miss that narrow window of opportunity with other techniques (frying, roasting, baking) you could end up with a ruined, burnt piece of food (perhaps raw in the middle) that's inedible. Stick with water-based cooking until you get a feel for judging when various types of food are done. For instance, learn how to boil, poach, simmer and stew broccoli until you know exactly how a perfectly cooked head of broccoli feels when you stick your fork into it.
  6. Move on to "dry" cooking. This includes grilling, roasting, toasting, broiling, and baking. Now that you know what certain foods feel like when they're cooked, you need to be able to control the cooking process with your application of heat. This is really where you need to be attentive and patient. If you apply too much heat, the food will burn. If you apply too little, the food will be raw.
    • When you arrange the food in relation to the heat source, center it so that all the food gets cooked evenly; rotate it in the middle of the cooking process if you must.
    • Try to minimize opening the oven door or grill cover, as this lets heat escape and will make the cooking take longer (and may also interfere with the cooking process in other ways).
    • If you have a recipe, follow the directions exactly (allow the oven to preheat completely, turn the heat up or down when it says to, and pay very close attention to your timer). If you don't have a recipe, start off with a low amount of heat and see how long the food takes to cook. Next time, add a little more heat and see how long it takes to cook. Repeat until you determine the maximum heat the food needs to cook in the shortest time without burning.

  7. Advance to frying unless you're on a diet, in which case you might be better off not knowing how to coat your food in a layer of fat! If you do want to master this technique, however, it can produce amazing results that aren't easily achieved through other methods, like caramelizing onions so that they taste sweet, or sautéing vegetables so that they snap when you bite into them. It's a little more difficult than cooking with water or in an oven because you need to juggle timing, heat, and flipping/stirring.
    • Lower the food carefully into the oil, as the oil can splash up and burn you. Use tongs or a wire basket.
    • If sautéing or stir-frying, use a non-stick pan to prevent the food from becoming one with the pan. Pour just a thin layer of oil--pour it into a spoon, then into the pan (sometimes the oil comes out of the bottle faster than we'd like it to). The hotter the oil, the more you'll need to stir whatever you're frying so that it doesn't burn or stick.
    • If shallow-frying, in which one third or one half of the food is immersed in oil, the oil is typically used only once.[6] If you're deep-frying, however, you may be able to use the oil more than once.

  8. Write your own recipes. As you get better at cooking, you'll experiment and make some discoveries of your own. You'll know you're officially a good cook when people start asking "How did you make this? It's delicious!" Keep your cooking skills sharp by experimenting with new ingredients and techniques, like cooking on your car's engine!


Tips


  • When possible, taste your dishes frequently while you cook (not including raw or partially cooked fish, meat or eggs though, because of food safety issues). This lets you make sure the balance of spices is correct; it also helps you to learn how flavors develop with cooking.
  • A cooking thermometer is especially useful for beginning cooks to determine if roasts, meats, and other dishes are adequately heated.
  • When grilling meats, especially hamburgers and steaks, many cooks can tell if they are done by the firmness of the meat. A more well-done steak is firmer than a medium-rare one. The advantage of learning this (feeling meat as you are cooking with more familiar, surefire methods) is that you don't have to cut into your food, so the juices stay put.
  • Stay away from prepared food products in your cooking as these are hidden ways to add a great deal of fat, sugar, sodium and calories to your dishes. Opt instead for basic ingredients which enable you to control the amount of fat, sugar and salt in your food.
  • Look for a cooking class you could take, a person that could teach you, a cooking show, or a book you could read.
  • Start slow. Don't go home the first time and try to make a turkey dinner. Start with something small, like cookies or scrambled eggs, for example. Don't expect to be fully satisfied with your first try. Cooking is as complex as it is simple, and can take time to get results you like.
  • Enjoy a variety of foods. Research how to make the dishes you like and compare them to the ones produced by someone else.
  • Enjoy it. Cooking isn't for everyone, and is supposed to be fun, so if you find yourself dreading it, then it probably isn't for you.
  • Don't worry if you mess up on a recipe. We all make mistakes in our cooking now and then. You just have to use your good judgment to decide whether or not it's fixable.
  • Hot temperatures cook the outside more, while lower temperatures cook more thoroughly. So, use really hot temperatures to sear the outside of a rare steak or get a thicker crust on bread, but lower (and longer) temperatures for a well-done steak or a soft crust.
  • Stay in the kitchen while the food is cooking. If you walk away, you may end up with a burnt mess that's stuck to the bottom of the pan.
  • If you do need to walk away, invest in a timer.


Warnings


  • Beware of food allergies and the possible inedible or poisonous properties of different things before trying to cook them.
  • Be safe when heating anything. Anything hot enough to cook your food can be hot enough to hurt you.
  • When using sharp objects, be extremely careful not to cut yourself. A good cook knows better than to be careless when cutting up their carrots.


Related wikiHows




Sources and Citations



  1. ↑ http://www.foodreference.com/html/art-sauteing.html

  2. ↑ http://whatscookingamerica.net/Information/PoachingSimmeringBoiling.htm

  3. ↑ http://startcooking.com/blog/67/Oven-Settings

  4. ↑ http://ideas.thenest.com/Dinner/Articles/cooking-qa-preheating-the-oven/

  5. ↑ http://www.foodreference.com/html/art-sauteing.html

  6. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frying



Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Cook. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

How to Sauté Vegetables



from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Sautéed vegetables are a quick, healthy and colorful dish that can be added to lunch or dinner or even served a la carte. While there are many possible ways to do this, follow these instructions for an easy, hot and nutritious side. Sautéed vegetables can be used in pastas, salads, wraps, quesadillas, or they can even accompany your favorite meat.

Steps


  1. Gather the ingredients. Measure and pour the oil or stock into the skillet. Place the skillet on the stove and set the burner to a medium temperature and let it heat up.
  2. Cut the vegetables. Dice the tomatoes, mince the onions, and slice the bell peppers. You'll want to have fairly thin pieces if you're in a hurry as thick chunks will take longer to cook.
  3. Drop the vegetables into the skillet. Let them sit for a few minutes until they begin to caramelize, as indicated by a slight change in color (dark or brown).
  4. Stir once or twice. Continue to cook until the vegetables are tender (about 3-5 minutes). Remove from heat.
  5. Sprinkle with your favorite seasonings, like pepper, thyme, rosemary, and salt.
  6. Squeeze a little fresh orange juice on the vegetables if you'd like. Lime also tastes especially scrumptious on vegetables.


Tips


  • Vegetables take different amounts of time to sauté, so experiment with combining and cooking separately.
  • Serve as a side dish to meats, poultry or fish.
  • This dish would taste wonderful served over plain white rice.
  • Keep some soy sauce handy, as it tastes great with the vegetables!
  • Outrageous served over toasted cheese on bread.


Warnings


  • Be careful and don't burn yourself! Oil and metal both get extremely hot!
  • Children should cook only with adult supervision.


Things You'll Need


  • A large skillet (cast iron is safer than Teflon)
  • Vegetables of your choice, for example:
    • Mushrooms
    • Tomatoes
    • Bell peppers (green and sweet red)
    • Onions
    • Garlic
    • Carrots
    • Scallions
    • Finely chopped red potatoes

  • A sharp knife
  • A cutting board
  • 2-3 tsp oil
  • Olive or canola oil
  • Various spices
  • Various citrus fruits for squeezing


Related wikiHows




Sources and Citations





Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Sauté Vegetables. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

How to Prepare Fresh Citrus Fruit Peel



from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Zesting a citrus fruit (lemons, limes, grapefruits or oranges) is an easy cooking project if you have a zester or a microplane. Both can be found at a cooking store or ordered online. A vegetable peeler or knife can also be used to zest the peel. Here are some tips on how to zest a citrus fruit and save the zest for later use.

Steps


  1. Choose a fruit that is free of pesticides, dyes, and wax (since you will be eating the outer peel). If at all possible, start with an organic orange, lemon, or other citrus fruit. While some authorities recommend the use of organic citrus fruit, it is difficult to find. Thoroughly washing and drying the fruit should make the fruit safe to eat. If there is a concern, shop for organic citrus fruit.
  2. Wash and dry the fruit thoroughly, whether it is organic or not. Cut out any discolorations or bad spots.
  3. Hold the zester in your hand, much like a vegetable peeler, while applying pressure to the fruit. Pull the the zester across the surface and the zest will appear.
  4. Adopt the same basic technique if using a microplane. A microplane is like a grater. Pull it across the fruit to separate the zest.
  5. Try the old-fashioned method for grating zest. If you do not have a zester or microplane, take a vegetable peeler and peel the citrus rind. Once the peel is removed, finely mince the zest using a knife. The food processor can also mince the peel, if a food processor is available.
  6. Freeze the zest. Once the citrus fruit peel has been zested, freeze it in small freezer storage bags or containers. The zest is available for later cooking.
  7. to dry.]]Alternatively, dry the zest. Spread it in a single layer on a plate or waxed paper and leave it exposed to the air until it is dry enough to be brittle (a couple of days).
  8. Store the dried zest it in a sealed jar in a cool, dry place.


Tips


  • ]]Try to avoid the white pith. It is bitter. Instead, take just the bright orange or yellow layer on the very outside.
  • Orange zest is great in mulled cider, as an accompaniment to chocolate, and many other dishes. Also try it in tea, cakes, or as an addition to Apple Pie Oatmeal. It's good anywhere you want a hint of citrus.
  • Grinding or crushing orange zest before adding it to food can help to bring out the flavor.
  • Zest the fruit before eating or juicing it. It's much easier to hang onto the entire fruit.
  • The best tool is a microplane or grater, one with small blades that running your finger against them will not produce a negative effect.


Warnings


  • The zesting tool can be sharp, so be careful.


Things You'll Need


  • Citrus fruit
  • Zester, microplane, or grater
  • Vegetable peeler and kitchen knife


Related wikiHows




Sources and Citations





Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Prepare Fresh Citrus Fruit Peel. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Posted by at No comments:
Labels:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)