Category: Tips, Advices & How-to (Page 1 of 4)
How to Clean a Butternut Squash for Cooking
October 6th, 2018 in Tips, Advices & How-to by Julia Volhina
Since a pumpkin and squash season is upon us again, for these of you who wanted to cook and eat some of these but was hesitant to go for it due to fear of “cleaning” and preparing the squash, here is the simple few steps method I use which allows me to do it quick and more importantly pain- and bloodless.
It works the best for smaller size squashes which you can slice across with a knife. For bigger ones just do you best to slice it in manageable slices first and the proceed as described.
The same method will likely to work for other types of squashes and pumpkins.
How to Make Cream Cheese Frosting
November 4th, 2017 in Tips, Advices & How-to by Julia Volhina
This is this time of the year for pumpkin cookies. And what pumpkin cookie doesn’t taste even better with cream cheese frosting?
So, if here is a quick how-to for cream cheese frosting.
Disclaimer: amount of powdered sugar is some what moving target here, it all depends on how sweet you want frosting to be. I don’t like it too sweet, so my amount is about 8 tablespoons.
So my advice is: start adding sugar gradually, taste from time to time and stop when it is as sweet as you want it.
Amount of ingredients mentioned in the recipe is enough for batch of pumpkin cookies. Adjust amounts if you plan to do more or less, or use it for a pumpkin roll or cake which requires more of frosting.
How to Boil Chickpeas
June 3rd, 2017 in Tips, Advices & How-to by Julia Volhina
If you don’t want to use canned beans in your recipe and prefer to cook chickpeas or garbanzo beans yourself, here are pretty easy to follow step-by-step instructions for how to boil them from scratch.
The trick is to soak beans for at least of 10 hours before cooking.
Make sure that beans don’t boil to hard, very light simmering is enough. Cook beans until desired tenderness (45 mins to an hour).
Use cooked beans right away, or freeze for later. You may also preserve some water the beans are cooking in for further use.
How to Blanch Peaches
July 2nd, 2016 in Tips, Advices & How-to by Julia Volhina
Whatever you may need skinless peaches for: a pie, a dessert or a salad, or anything else, here is step-by-step instructions how to skin them.
Ripe but somewhat firm peaches are easiest to blanch, so pick these if you have some choice.
It is important to not overcook peaches during blanching, especially if they are on the soft side, or peaches will get mushy and somewhat hard to work with after blanching.
Boiled Beef Tongue
June 18th, 2016 in Appetizers & Snacks, Beef, Main Dishes, Tips, Advices & How-to by Julia Volhina
Boiled beef tongue is one of foods I love from the childhood, I love the taste, and it also is nutritious and easily digestible and is a good source of protein.
Boiled beef tongue is a perfect dish on its own, that is you can serve it with a side. But it can be also used for sandwiches, or be sliced into a salad, or be used in further cooking.
Now, cooking time for beef tongue will vary greatly depending on it size and age. It will be anywhere between 2 and 4 hours. So start testing readiness at about 2 hours mark of boiling.
Broth prepared from cooking beef tongue with vegetables tastes great as well, you can use it for a soup or some other cooking, just discard roots and use fresh ones at that point if needed.
How to Skin Raw Chicken in One Piece
November 21st, 2015 in Tips, Advices & How-to by Julia Volhina
I was working on a recipe stuffed chicken skin (it will be coming up in next post) and, after seeing how much time and effort it took me to remove the skin from a raw chicken in one piece without damaging it on the way, I decided to create a post with step-by-step instructions and pictures for others to use.
Pictures have come up not that appetizing (and for that I apologize), but at least they illustrate the process in details and are easier to follow than plain word description.
Most of the work you will be doing with a knife placed in between skin and meat slightly angled towards the meat. Work with short precise cut motions to make sure skin remains undamaged through the process. So, to get a whole raw chicken skin to use for a recipe you will need a raw chicken, sharp long knife and a tablespoon.
How to Make Quark from Milk
June 28th, 2014 in Tips, Advices & How-to by Julia Volhina
This is a bit more time consuming way to prepare quark (fresh cheese) than the one from kefir, it it is also a bit cheaper.
Usually you would just leave unpasteurized milk in warm place for a day or two to sour. But since all milk sold here is pasteurized, it needs some help to get sour, this is why we will also use kefir or cultured buttermilk.
Whole milk will produce tastier cheese, so I suggest using whole milk. I use Snowville Creamery milk for my recipes and it works great every time.
This amount of ingredients will produce about 1.5lb of fresh cheese.