Practical Hints and Habits

In the Kitchen:

1.   When cooking individual cuts of meat, oil the meat, not the pan. Let dry pan get hot then add the oiled meat.

2.   Butter browns foods and adds flavour; oil does not. Butter burns quite quickly; oil does not. Use both oil and butter for best results.

3.   There can be confusion about types of olive oil, their goodness and appropriate uses for example Pure olive oil is used for sauté-ing and light frying while extra-virgin should be used in vinaigrettes and as a topper to soups, roasted vegetables etc. All olive oils are part of the healthy fats and their variety ensures they can be adopted easily by canola and veg oil users.

4.   Instead of automatically reaching for the pharmaceutical response to long-term bathroom difficulties, turn to a food answer first. To increase soluble and insoluble fibre be sure to add dark green vegetables, beans, sweet potatoes, whole and unprocessed grains, nuts and seeds to your lifestyle. 

As fibre is important for more than good intestinal health, it is a good idea to adopt this regardless.

Start eating yoghurt, plain preferably as it is much lower in sugar than flavoured kinds. I know it sounds blah but add your own fruit and control the sugar that way. Still not sweet enough? Add some honey.

Cooking tip for increased fibre: Instead of using breadcrumbs in your hamburger mixture, use rolled oats. You can pulverize it in a processor or use as I do, soaked in 1 tbsp or two of milk for 5 minutes or so. You can also use ground nuts—I like to use ground almonds in beef and ground pecans in pork.

5.   When roasting meats use your thermometer to let you know when it has reached a safe temperature but use your eyes, hands and experience to tell you when it is ready to eat. It is not always the same thing.

6.   Try very, very hard not to buy spice blends with two exceptions—1)curry  

 (I recommend jarred pastes) as they carry a lot of ingredients you probably won’t find or be able to buy in small amounts and they can vary in heat and flavour depending on origins and 2) if you are purchasing a recipe sized amount that will be used up and not stored and it sounds interesting (such as a steak spice). 

You could also include garam masala because, like curry, there are so many regional variations.

It is much better to combine your own blends as they will be fresh and you will gain knowledge about herbs and spices and their respective flavours. Blending flavours is important to good cooking so getting to know different herbs and spices and how they work together just makes sense.

Making your own spice and herb blends as you need it has a benefit which I think is just as important as freshness—consistency of flavour. Most blends carry more than four ingredients whose particles can vary in size and shape unless ground to a powder. Such irregularities means that each spoonful or shake of the blend is going to vary which will affect flavour of your finished dish. As well, some spices keep their flavour and scent a long time while others fade so any long term storage can negate the financial gain there may have been at the time of purchase. 

I love buying in bulk as much as anyone but buying spices in bulk…not so much.