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.

chicken nuggets  in a white bowl

How to Deep Fry Breaded Chicken Breasts

When breaded chicken breasts are deep-fried, the result is moist, flavorful chicken with a light, crispy outer coating. An old-fashioned cooking method, deep-fat frying is often shunned because of the large amount of fat involved in the cooking process.

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Hash brown potatoes closeup

How to Prepare Potatoes to Freeze for Hash Browns

Although potatoes are high in calories, they are low in fat and provide important nutrients, including dietary fiber, carbohydrates, potassium, calcium, vitamin C and folate. Frozen, homemade hash browns are ready to prepare in moments when you need them.

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Potato with dill and scalliom

How to Freeze Boiled Potatoes

Freezing boiled potatoes is a simple task, and the frozen potatoes then are ready to use as needed. Prepare the frozen potatoes by mashing or roasting, or incorporate them into hot dishes, such as casseroles, scalloped potatoes, soups or stews.

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Rubbed Sage in a Small Black Dish

How to Dry Sage in the Oven

Sage, or Salvia officinalis, is an aromatic, perennial herb that grows easily in warm, dry climates. A sturdy, long-stemmed herb, sage is easily dried by air drying in a warm, dry room, or with a microwave oven or food dehydrator. You can also use your home oven to dry sage quickly and evenly.

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How to Cook Pearl Barley in a Microwave

Barley is a nutritious whole grain, rich in fiber and nutrients such as protein, folic acid, calcium and niacin. Pearl barley, processed to speed cooking time, lacks the fibrous outer hull. However, it still provides generous amounts of fiber, believed to help maintain healthy cholesterol and prevent heart disease.

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Pile of chilli

How to Dry Cayenne Pepper & Avoid Mold

Cayenne peppers are commonly grown in the home garden. The peppers are decorative on the plant and full of robust flavor when used to spice up a favorite culinary dish.

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Banana Nut Bread

How to Cool Banana Bread

A type of quick bread made from sweet, ripe bananas, banana bread is irresistibly moist and delicious. Banana bread is simple to make, but proper cooling is important, because the bananas caramelize and become sticky during the cooking process. As a result, the bread can be difficult to remove from the pan.

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Cooking Instructions for Frozen Tater Tots

Tater tots have been a cafeteria lunch favorite for years, and most people continue to love the crispy little potato treats long after elementary school graduation. Frozen tater tots, readily available and relatively inexpensive, are fully cooked and ready to heat and serve.

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