Cooking & Baking Tips: Healthy Fats, Grain Prep & Substitutes

Mastering the kitchen involves understanding healthy fat profiles, variety-specific grain preparation, and safe food handling techniques.

golden honey bee

Does Sugar Make You Bloated?

Feeling bloated never is a comfortable feeling, especially if other gastrointestinal problems accompany it, such as pain, flatulence or changes in bowel movements.

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penne rigate pasta

Can You Cook Pasta Overnight in Cold Water?

Pasta is an amazingly varied and versatile food. Pasta dishes include spaghetti with a variety of sauces, lasagna and macaroni and cheese. Macaroni salad and other cold pasta recipes abound. Nor are you limited to wheat pasta. Rice pasta is a popular ingredient in many Asian dishes.

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Slicing Onion. Making Stuffing. Preparation Meat Dumplings.

How to Slice Onions for Fajitas

Slicing an onion for tasty fajitas is easy enough, but it's important to slice it in a way that will give you even slices. While cutting an onion in half, then making horizontal slices is easy, it results in slices that vary greatly in size.

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baked beans with maple syrup

How to Freeze Baked Beans

The heartiness of baked beans, as well as their low costs, makes the side dish a popular potluck item at family gatherings and cookouts. Baked beans are made form navy beans, which are full of fiber, folate, phosphorus and calcium.

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Father and daughter (2-4) baking in kitchen, side view

Can Self-Rising Flour Be Used in Baking Instead of All-Purpose Flour?

It's natural to assume that because self-rising flour eliminates the need for leavening agents in your baked goods that it is a better choice than all-purpose flour for baking. In some cases, this is true and self-rising flour is a convenient alternative to regular flour, but that is not always the case.

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Heap of Red Lentils

How to Freeze Lentils

If you store uncooked lentils in a cool, dry area, such as your pantry, they will keep for up to one year. This is nice but not very helpful on a busy weeknight when you are trying to get dinner on the table in a hurry.

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Close-up of uncooked spaghetti in a man's hands

How to Cook Jollibee Spaghetti

Jollibee spaghetti, or Filipino spaghetti, consists of a sweet, cheesy sauce with hot dogs and ground meat. Jollibee spaghetti is far sweeter than other varieties due to the addition of sweetened milk and sugar.

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baked lasagna

Can You Make a Lasagna & Cook it the Next Day?

Garfield the Cat's perennial favorite food, deep-dish Italian lasagna, takes a lot of time to prepare. From boiling the noodles to searing the meat and combining the cheese, eggs and spinach, depending on your favorite ingredients, lasagna can take up to an hour or more to be assembled before cooking in the oven.

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Grilled potatoes and onions

Can I Cook on Aluminum Foil in the Broiler?

Aluminum foil can be a handy way to contain the mess of broiling food, especially meat. Fat drippings that are caught by the foil can be easily thrown away without a lot of messy cleanup.

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How to Cook Pearl Rice

Pearl rice is sweet, sticky and like other types of rice, it can be long- or short-grain, processed or unprocessed. Its taste and texture, both common characteristics of glutinous or starchy rice, makes pearl rice a good choice for sushi, rice pudding and a number of oriental main-dish meals.

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Strawberry Pie, Erdbeertorte

How to Bake a Cake in a Mixing Bowl

If you are baking a cake that needs to be round or dome-shaped, use a mixing bowl instead of a traditional cake pan. This will save yourself the time and effort of carving your shape. When selecting a mixing bowl to bake in, be sure it is oven-safe. There should be indication of this on the bottom of the bowl.

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How to Grind Bean Flour

Beans are a nutritious food commonly used as a side dish or in salads, soups and casseroles. Vegetarians often use beans combined with a starch like rice as an alternative complete protein source. You can expand your bean use by making bean flours and using them in place of regular wheat flour.

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Pumpkin pie with leaf pastry toppings against rustic wood

How to Bake a Pie in a Toaster Oven

Toaster ovens have evolved from basic dorm and office accessories into countertop appliances just as capable of baking pie as a full-size oven. The toaster oven does it without heating up the kitchen or using much electricity. Use the oven for both sweet and savory pies.

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Roast meat lies on a wooden board

How to Cook Boned Rolled Shoulder of Lamb

As a somewhat fatty cut of meat, lamb shoulder is best cooked slowly, either roasted or braised. Unlike the lean leg of lamb, shoulder is laced with fat and tissue that melts into the meat when slowly cooked, resulting in very tender, succulent meat, though you can trim away some of the outer fat if you prefer.

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Hispanic mother holding cake at daughter's birthday party

How to Prevent a Cake From Crumbling

Baking a cake requires a delicate balance of ingredients and baking conditions to result in a moist, delicious finished product. Variations in the way you measure or mix your ingredients often leads to problems, such as unwanted crumbling. A crumbly cake is difficult to ice and may fall apart completely.

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How to Cook Acorns

If you think that acorns are just for squirrels, then it's time to think again. Native Americans have a long history of consuming acorns, and the Japanese used this nut to supplement rice during World War II, according to EatTheWeeds.com. These oak tree fruits contain healthy levels of carbohydrates, protein and fiber.

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Raw Kidney Beans

Are Red Kidney Beans Toxic?

Red kidney beans, although safe to eat when properly cooked, should not be eaten raw or partially cooked, because of the naturally occurring toxin Phytohaemagglutinin. Kidney beans belong to the bean genus within the pea family, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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Doctor Examining Child's Ears In Doctor's Office

Olive Oil & Ear Infections

Ear infections commonly occur in both adults and children, and they cause a variety of symptoms, including pain.

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hake in green sauce

How to Bake Frozen Whiting

Whiting are ocean-dwelling fish that are sometimes called mullet or southern kingfish. They are fished for sport as well as commercially in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. You can buy whiting fillets fresh or frozen at your local supermarket.

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Side profile of a girl and her mother having breakfast

How to Heat Frozen Whole Lobster

Lobster tails are often sold raw and frozen in the shell, but it's less common with whole lobsters. They're ordinarily pre-cooked and then blast-frozen at the processing plant, to preserve the fresh and delicate flavor of the lobsters and make them more durable for shipping and storage.

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