Nutritional health is achieved through the therapeutic use of whole foods, safe culinary preparation, and understanding the metabolic impacts of specific dietary frameworks and ingredients.
A well-prepared rack of ribs is one of the best arguments for long, slow cooking methods. Whether braised in your slow cooker, slow-roasted in your oven or smoke-roasted over low coals in traditional barbecue fashion, ribs cook to a lush, tender richness.
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Chili sauces are almost infinitely variable in potency. Their heat can vary widely according to the peppers used, the cooking process and ultimately the freshness of your individual bottle. This makes it entirely too easy to accidentally take on more chili heat than you're comfortable with.
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Louisiana is known as one of America's great culinary capitals, and crawfish are among the most celebrated of Louisiana's cuisine. From December until June -- and especially during the spring when they're most plentiful -- crawfish are a mealtime staple.
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There is a school of thought that considers canned foods to be a compromise, trading quality for convenience. That's not always true. With tomatoes, for example, the "fresh" tomatoes available for much of the year are hard and flavorless, bred and picked purely for their storage characteristics.
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The brisket is one of the most challenging pieces of beef to cook well. A thick slab of muscle from the steer's chest, it's filled with dense muscle fibers and tough connective tissue. Cooked by most methods, it would be as tough as an old shoe.
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The difference between good beef and great beef is sometimes due to the qualities of the animal itself. More often, however, the difference is because of how that beef is handled after slaughter. Most modern beef is wet-aged, an economical and cost-effective process.
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Rice cookers are a convenient appliance both for those who cook rice regularly and those who seldom cook it. Those who cook rice every day appreciate the set-it-and-forget-it convenience.
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When they're properly made, meatballs are moist, tender and juicy. Unfortunately, even the best of cooks occasionally produce a batch that fall well short of that ideal. If you're in the unfortunate position of making up a batch of meatballs only to find them hard and dry, take heart.
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When you want to bring the kids running, there are few things more effective than a pan of cookies fresh out of the oven. Ideally, there will always be a wire rack nearby to cool them on. However, that's not always the case. Sometimes you might be baking in an unfamiliar location, where such niceties aren't available.
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For centuries, Asian countries have concentrated the sap of palm trees to make a sweetener for culinary and medicinal purposes. The sugar is drawn from two types of palm, the palmyra and the familiar coconut palm.
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French fries have been the downfall of countless dieters. Intellectually it's easy to identify them as a concentrated source of dietary fat and calories, and they're an obvious food to avoid whether you're looking for weight loss or maximum health. Unfortunately, they're also a formidably pleasurable food.
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Hams include some of the most legendary of all cured meats, from French Bayonne hams to Italian prosciutto, from Chinese Yunnan hams to the Smithfields of the American South. Whether wet-cured or dry, smoked or unsmoked, the rich flavor of a good ham always comes through.
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When everything works as planned, fresh-baked muffins are a moist, tender and flavorful breakfast pastry. However, despite muffins' simplicity, things can go wrong in several ways. Inaccurate measurements, stale baking powder and overmixing all can cause their texture to suffer.
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Countertop electric roasters provide a convenient and energy-efficient alternative to the full-sized oven in your kitchen. They're especially useful during large get-togethers, when there are multiple demands on your main oven.
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Steaks and chops are easy to find almost anywhere, but some less-common cuts can be a challenge. Unless you know a farmer or meat-cutter, you'll almost always have to special-order beef cheeks.
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Poached eggs are among the simplest and most delicate of all egg preparations. Nothing could be simpler, in theory: Crack an egg, slide it into gently simmering water and wait as it coagulates. In practice, the egg might dissipate into the water, leaving the yolk surrounded by a spongy veil of watery whites.
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Razor fish, often referred to as razor clams, belong to a family of shellfish found in most of the world's coastal regions. Their shells are more fragile than those of most other shellfish, so they have to be harvested by hand rather than with the big dredges used for most other clams.
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Carrots are among the kitchen's most versatile ingredients. Their firm texture and sweet flavor work well in any cuisine, and they can be eaten raw or cooked with equal pleasure. In their natural unpeeled state, they'll keep for months in a cool cellar with moderate humidity.
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In its natural state, beef brisket is one of the toughest pieces of the steer. It's a flat, leathery cut made of unusually long and stringy muscle fibers. However, when it's cooked long and slow at a low temperature, brisket is utterly transformed.
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Cornbread is not an especially difficult item to make, but like most other baked goods it does take time and organization. For those who don't always have the time, boxed cornbread mix can be a convenient timesaver.
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