Cooking Addict

Finding new and exciting ways to prepare the same old foods can be a tough task for moms. This is especially true if you have children. Lots of kids are not happy to try something new, but if you had a restaurant recipe of one of your child’s favorites, they are sure to be pleased.

You can find many sites on the internet that will allow you to download or print famous restaurant recipe favorites. You can find recipes from Applebee’s desserts to your favorite entrees and sides from your favorite eating establishments.

Some sites will want to charge you a fee to join and have access to their recipes, and other sites will try and get you to buy their cookbooks. This is unnecessary. If you take some time and a little effort to search, you can find many websites that are happy to share their copycat restaurant recipes with you for no money at all.

You can create seafood recipes from Red Lobster, you can prepare hearty fare from Olive Garden and you can find scrumptious appetizers from Hooters. If you have a restaurant dish in mind it will be easy to locate the copycat recipe for you to prepare at home.

Another benefit of finding famous copycat recipes of your favorite restaurants is that you will not want to go out to eat as often. If you can prepare the same dishes you are served at your favorite restaurant at half the cost, why would you want to visit the restaurant?

Kids are tough to please and you can find many kid friendly recipes that they already know and love when you go searching for restaurant recipes to make in your own kitchen. You may even be offered help by eager eaters to prepare the dinner. Find out how you can begin to recreate your favorite restaurant meals in the comfort of your own home. Just remember to ask your family for a “tip.”

Making time for some fun activities with the kids when the holidays roll around can be a tough task. You can make the time spent together something your children will remember for many years to come. In fact, you just might start a family tradition that they can continue with their own kids.

A great family activity that can become a yearly event is making your own gingerbread house. If you are a baker, you can fill your home with the spicy scent of gingerbread in the oven while your children wait eagerly to decorate it with the bags of goodies you stocked up on.

Supplies You Will Need

For those who are not known for their baking skills, there are many already baked gingerbread houses available that are just waiting to be decorated. They come with a few embellishments, but you will have to supply the creativity and the sweets.

• Toll house chocolate morsels in holiday shapes and colors are a must
• Green and red spice drops for added zip
• Holiday themed M&Ms
• Sprinkles
• Vanilla and chocolate frosting
• Butter knives for spreading the frosting
• Newspaper to cover your work area

You can use your imagination and your own personal tastes to customize your gingerbread house.

Now that the holidays are rolling around, it’s time to start baking cookies to give away as gifts to friends and family. A gift of home baked cookies is a gift that everyone will appreciate, from the mailman to the tellers at your bank. The only hassle with baking is the mess and clean up afterwards. You can cut some of the mundane chores out in order to leave you more time for the fun stuff: decorating!

Here are some ways you cam cut down on the messy chores and still whip up a batch of perk-me-up treats!

Buy Packaged Cookie Dough

There are so many choices of packaged cookie dough, it seems a waste of time to bake from scratch. After all, with work, the house and the kids taking up most of your time, it’s hardly practical to expect women to prepare the dough from scratch.  There are choices of prepackaged cookie dough that will allow you to decorate your cookies in any way you want.

Be sure to use lots of flour in your work area. Sometime the dough will get soft and stick to your countertops. The use of flour can help you avoid that mess. Though flour itself can be a chore to clean.

You can buy packaged cookie dough that you’ll need to roll out and use cookie cutters with, or you can buy the kind that allows you to cut a piece off and place on your cooking sheet. Be sure you stock up on edible embellishments so that you can make your cookies even more delicious and festive.

Don’t be Afraid to Ask for Help

Get the kids in on the act.  Kids enjoy anything to do with cookies and will be excited to help with the actual reparations. Ensure that they help with all aspects and not just the decorating and tasting. You may find the time flies by quicker when you have little helpers cleaning up as you go along.  For more holiday baking tips, visit Real Simple.

Anyone with a love of barbecue grilling will find that a smoker can add more flavor to your summertime cooking.

What is a Smoker?

A smoker is a barrel-like contraption that allows you to prepare meat by using a smoking method of cooking. It not only adds delicious flavor to whatever meat you are making, it also makes it fall off the bone tender. The fragrant aroma from your steaks will make you the envy of the neighborhood and your family and friends will vie for a place at your table for your delicious ribs, smoked brisket, pulled pork as well as a variety of other foods that can be cooked to perfection using a smoker.

Once you decide to invest in a smoker, it is time to go out and comparison shop for the one that has the features and price you want. It won’t be long before you’re looking for recipes for turkey, chicken, beef as well as marinades and rubs to make your creations even tastier.

Barbeque Sauce is the Key

Depending upon what region of the United States you come from, barbecue sauce can be red, golden or any shade in between. Each region boasts its own secret barbecue sauces that give a unique flavor to whatever you are cooking. Some barbecue sauces use sugar and molasses as a base, some use vinegar and ketchup and other recipes use different ingredients entirely. When you taste the hickory smoked goodness of a batch of ribs or a brisket of beef, you will be so glad you bought a smoker for your backyard cooking pleasure.

Caution is advised: You may have to beat off the pack that lines up at your gate to get a taste of what they’ve been sniffing all day when you have a hunk of meat slowly smoking to perfection all afternoon.

For those people who love all things cooking and food, visiting a website that offers you free cooking games can be lots of fun. Finding games that you can share with your kids can be tough, and finding cooking games that are available online may be just the answer you were searching for. Instead of learning how to beat your enemies, you can learn how to beat eggs and whip up some delicious treats.

Types of Games You Will Find

Take a moment and browse the web for free cooking games and you will find guessing games such as trying to guess how many jelly beans are in a jar. You will find many cyber jigsaw puzzles that have food and cooking as their theme. There are also image sliders that challenge you to put the picture together much like a jigsaw puzzle.

If you are a fan of the sort of game that dares you to spot the differences, you can play a version of this game using photos of yummy concoctions to compare. For lovers of word games, you can find crossword puzzles, find a word, a cooking version of hangman, and word scrambles that revolve around the world of food and its preparation. There are memory games that use candy bars to tickle your taste buds as you strive to match one candy bar with another.

Whether you are an experienced gamer or are playing with a toddler, you can find many games that will be fun and informative for every age level as well as experience. Using cooking games as a learning tool as well as a chance to spend quality time with your child is a smart idea for the parent who fancies himself or herself a chef. Check out this site for amusing games that you can play alone or with a friend.

Again time management is also what is necessary in this case.  A mixture of water and cornstarch along with the mixing of sauces is done well in advance. She also meticulously marinates the fish and the meat in egg white, sherry and soya sauce, and of course not to forget cornstarch. The whole thing is then heated on high temperatures along with oil coated inside the pan.

Then the garnish is added which is inclusive of garlic and minced ginger. After this the whole dish without plopping is put into the pan. Caution has to taken when you do no have to stir for a while to let the chicken or meat settle in the oil. After that flip the mixture to cook the other side also soon after which stirring can begin again. Always the vegetables are cooked later than the meat or fish cause they are less denser than the non vegetarian food. My friend added all vegetables at the same time while some can prefer to go one Read the rest of this entry »

It is the most common notion among all that cooking is not only an art but also a very tedious job to do. Someone not only has to have the patience to do it but also an equal amount of  determination and courage for the same. This is to help you know how to cook chicken and what all to keep in mind. When buying chicken prefer buying fresh chicken rather than the frozen one. This is not because the frozen one is unhealthy but because it has a large amount of water content which would not make it that tasty after being cooked.

Depending on the feed of the bird and the are of where you stay, the fresh chicken may be slightly yellow or white. In case you still opt for frozen chicken look out for brown spots which indicate something that is called as freezer burn. Also it should be kept in mind, however easier and faster it might be to defrost the chicken in the  microwave it is advisable to do it Read the rest of this entry »

Frying and stirring is one of the most fun loving job that a new learner can do in the kitchen. Though, seems quite simple it could be really complicated. It faster and very simple once you get the hang of it. The fun part of the whole exercise is that you can mix as many ingredients as you want. It’s a mathematical exercise, where you add, subtract ingredients as per the choice of the people eating the meal. In case of more vegetarian add extra vegetables and subtract the non vegetarians dishes. Even if u forget to add or subtract in the fry and stir way, the result is never very disastrous, there is a scope of good taste because every way is a new way. But this method of cooking is also not all that simple as it may seem. It comprises buying different kinds of ingredients and utensils etc.

The first experience that I had of stir and fry is a memorable one. The result was kind of a Chinese tasting dish but the Read the rest of this entry »

The next category of cakes are the foam or the sponge cakes. They are less dense and very light. They have a chewy flavor with a delightful taste. The batter is prepared by whipped eggs and sugar. The idea behind it being light is that that the whole mixture whips air into it. Tortes and Chiffon are the best example in this category.

Rolls are also a form of sponge cake. But it is used for jelly rolls and is baked in a very shallow pan.  They are rolled up in sugared tea after baking and obviously are immediately removed. After cooling they are filled with custard or icing and rolled again.

Next in the category are the Meringue Cakes. They are usually prepared from egg whites and sugar with meringue used as a leavening agent in the batter of few cakes or as a lightener in case of mousse. They can be served as family size or as an individual serving. The hurdle in case is that the eggs cannot be over beaten or under beaten. Underbeating of the eggs involves too less air and overbeating has too much of it which Read the rest of this entry »

The first cake that I ever baked was a scratch cake on the Independence Day i.e. Fourth of July. The plan was to bake three layers of the flag making it totally festive. The whole idea gave me the feeling of pride. But as they say that before a fall comes the pride.

Since I was running short of cake flour so on advice of my mother I used regular flour along with sift twice and dying the batter with food coloring. The result was more than obvious but disaster. The recipe was completely wiped away from my mind and sifting twice was no excuse for running out of cake flour, so the result was that the pride that I had in baking that cake for independence day was a tricolor no doubt, but orange green and yellow, that obviously gave people a stomach ache.

All the pride had gone since there was no match to such a baking failure. But learning a lesson I have come to the conclusion that some disasters can be saved. Baking among all the cooking exercise requires the most accuracy and care in measurement and mixing. Cakes are best and the Read the rest of this entry »