Sucralose is a zero-calorie artificial sweetener derived from sugar. Known by the brand name, Splenda, you can use this sweetener for both cooking and baking. According to “Sweet Stuff: An American History of Sweeteners From Sugar to Sucralose,” sucralose is approximately 600-times sweeter than sugar.

Rojak is a vegetable and fruit salad commonly served in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. The vegetables and fruits in rojak are tossed with a thick, brown sauce. Rojak sauce has the consistency of melted caramel and a complex, sweet, salty and spicy flavor.

Rice is a low-cost, fat-free and cholesterol-free food. Rice with a removed husk, germ and bran is known as white rice. When cooking white rice for multiple people, you must consider the serving size of the rice before and after rice is cooked. One serving size of cooked white rice equals a 1/2 cup.

Cream of Rice cereal is simply rice ground into granules, but it can be a lot more if you know how to work with it. Cream of Rice cooks in fewer than five minutes if you're serving it as a stand-alone dish.

Pre-cooking pasta allows you to do the bulk of preparation before a dinner party. When party time rolls around, you only need to reheat the pasta with a quick plunge into boiling water. Restaurants use this technique to get pasta entrees to the table faster.

Prebiotic and probiotic substances can help you maintain the health of your digestive tract by affecting the bacteria in your gastrointestinal system. Honey is not normally a probiotic substance, but it can serve as a prebiotic.

Known for their sweet, earthy flavor, oatmeal cookies are a popular choice for a homemade dessert. Many oatmeal cookie recipes call for butter is it provides a sweet, creamy flavor and also gives the cookies a soft consistency.

Dried bean curd, also known as dried tofu or kyadofu, is tofu that has been freeze-dried to extend its shelf life. Dried bean curd sheets are typically sold in sealed packages, and are commonly available in health food stores in the United States.

All-purpose flour works in many baking situations, but it's not right for every cake. Flour contains protein, which forms gluten when mixed or kneaded. Gluten gives yeast breads their chewy, rustic texture, but it makes cakes tough and dry. The lower the protein content of the flour, the more tender a cake.

You can save time and energy by cooking a ribeye roast in a convection oven. Professional chefs have used convection ovens to prepare roasts for many years, but you can now get a smaller sized convection oven for home use.

On busy weekdays, a quick, fuss-free chicken dinner can be a lifesaver. Your oven is a good option for preparing these meals -- while dinner cooks, you can turn your attention to steaming or microwaving some vegetables, cooking rice or pasta and setting the table, all in under 40 minutes.

Oil, particularly unsaturated oils like canola, olive, peanut, or vegetable oil, go bad quickly. The traditional enemies of oils -- heat, light and oxygen -- can turn it rancid in a short time. While rancid oil may taste bad, it doesn’t normally make you sick, at least not in the short term.