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.
Roasting pans and baking dishes are two closely related types of kitchenware. Often, they can be used interchangeably, with each performing the other's function. The difference between the two methods is more a matter of custom and tradition as opposed to anything physical.
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Pressure cookers are able to produce full meals in a much shorter time than conventional pots and pans. They do this by artificially creating a high atmospheric pressure in the pot, which allows the trapped water and steam to reach temperatures well above the normal boiling point of water.
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Garlic is one of the world's most popular ingredients, adding a pungent flavor to cuisines from around the globe. It consists of several small cloves, surrounded by papery skin and gathered into a bulb. Cooks appreciate its ability to grow in most climates, and its long-term storage ability.
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Cheesecakes are among the richest of all desserts, so potent that even the smallest of slices can be considered a substantial portion. Most are topped with fruit, to provide a tart foil for the richness of the cake, but this is by no means universal.
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Until refrigeration became cheap and widespread in the 20th century, our forebears kept leftovers covered at room temperature in their pantries. Not surprisingly, sudden illnesses were also common in those days.
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Pumpkin pie is one of the archetypal holiday dishes, almost as important as the turkey itself. Every dedicated baker has strong ideas on how it's best made and will argue eloquently for hours about the selection of ingredients or the correct baking technique.
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Pastry making was a very different proposition just a few centuries ago. Sugar was known, but rare until European planters built their great estates in the Caribbean and South America. Heavy cream for whipping came in the late 19th century, with milk-separating machines.
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Fresh crabs and other shellfish are among the most perishable of all foods. They die quickly once they've left the water, and spoil just as quickly once they've died. For that reason, crabs are often cooked and blast-frozen on large shipping boats immediately after the catch, in the interest of freshness.
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There are several starch-based thickeners available to cooks and bakers, including arrowroot, potato starch, rice starch, tapioca, cornstarch and flour. The latter two are the most widely used in America, and both are versatile thickeners.
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If you are in the habit of maintaining an emergency stockpile of chocolate for stressful days, you may occasionally find that some of your supply has become outdated. This raises the obvious question of whether you can still eat the chocolate, especially if it's all you have left and you really, really need some.
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Firm resolutions notwithstanding, you probably haven't cleaned out your kitchen cupboards as recently as you'd like. The back corners doubtless conceal a number of things you don't remember buying, or perhaps can't even identify.
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Although lamb is pricey in most parts of the country, a few overlooked cuts still offer good value. One is lamb flaps, known more formally as breast of lamb. It's the portion of the animal's chest that contains the gristly ends of the ribs, trimmed away when the butcher cuts racks and rib chops.
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Defining the "best" of anything is a tricky proposition. When it comes to roast beef, for example, the most common cuts are very different. The one that's best for you at any given meal is the one that meets your needs.
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Farm-raised venison is an easy meat to like, a lean and flavorful alternative to beef that can be cooked in much the same way. Wild venison is more problematic, in part because it's often tough and can have a strong, gamy flavor.
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An unfamiliar ingredient to most home bakers, lecithin is widely used in commercial baking. It's an emulsifier, an ingredient that helps other ingredients to mix more easily and remain mixed. Bakeries add lecithin to bread and other baked goods to improve doughs and batters, or to keep them from staling.
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Almost anyone can manage to grill a decent steak or hamburger, but cooking chicken on the barbecue is more problematic. All too often it's overcooked and stringy, or charred on the outside but still raw at the bone.
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Cooking fish in a sealed, airtight pouch is one of the easiest and healthiest preparation methods. Referred to as cooking "en papillote" -- the French term for the technique -- it usually calls for wrapping the fish in a parchment parcel and baking it in the oven.
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A thick slice of center-cut beef shank looks remarkably like a well-marbled steak, and is often labeled as shank steak in retail stores. They're too tough for grilling, but like chuck steaks, they're ideal for braising.
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Shoulder cuts of pork are used for a number of preparations, from fork-tender pulled pork to ham-like smoked shoulders. One unusual form of pork shoulder is the so-called "cottage roll," common in Canada and Britain but seldom seen in American meat cases.
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Although popcorn is the world champion, some other grains and pseudograins -- such as quinoa -- can be popped or puffed to lighten their texture. You won't get the huge puffy kernels you see in commercial cereal, which are created in a vacuum, but puffing gives an interestingly different texture.
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