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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.