Cooking

Ever wanted to enter a cooking contest? Here’s why you should!

There are only two types of cooks. There are those who love to cook and those who don’t. If you love to mess around in the kitchen, varying your recipes with a little of this and a little of that, you know that sometimes the results are mixed. You may come up with a fabulous dish that lives on in the family annals for the next generation. You may also come up with something that has your family slipping their portion to the family pet.

Cooking Contest
In any case, cooks have fun experimenting. You’ve doubtless seen cooking contests, advertised in magazines, on the net or right in your hometown at the grocery store. The question is, have you ever entered a cooking contest? Few people actually follow through on the urge. Maybe you think you’re a decent cook, but these entrants who win such competitions must have studied with Julia Childs or Madeleine Kammerer. This is absolutely a myth. Many winning contestants are ordinary men and women who simply like to cook.

You’ve probably noticed that the cooking contests advertised in magazines have ridiculously large cash prizes. A $25,000 prize is not unusual. People have won the top prize for a bowl of chili or a holiday cookie bar. If you examine your repertoire of dishes your family requests often and which enjoy rave reviews at every potluck, isn’t it possible that you could win one of these competitions? Sure you can!

If you already spend lots of time experimenting in the kitchen, you do so because you enjoy cooking. So why shouldn’t you take a shot at winning some cash or a dream vacation or car with your avocation? Wouldn’t it be cool if you even placed?

You can find a plethora of the current cooking contests on the net. If you’re a bread artisan or dessert expert, search out baking competitions. If your thing is fish cookery, look for those. There’s a cooking contest for every type of food.

After all, taste is everything when it comes to cooking. Good cooks temper texture, consistency and flavoring in a manner that makes the food a delight in the mouth on on the taste buds. All of your fans can’t be wrong. If they absolutely love your Beef Bourguignon, perhaps the judges at the cooking contest will agree. More about Cooking and Mens101.

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Almost everyone includes Chinese food as a regular dining experience. Chinese dishes produce flavors, texture and a variety of combinations that you don’t find in typical Western cooking. However, few of us feel qualified to tackle Chinese cooking in our homes. If you love Chinese food and would like to try your hand, here are a few pointers to help you get started on learning this fascinating and delicious cuisine.

Expand your culinary expertise with Chinese cooking
One main difference between Western and Chinese cooking is that Chinese dishes require that most of your ingredients be ready for the pan before you begin cooking. There can be a considerable number of ingredients to slice, dice, season or otherwise prepare. This may seem, at first glance, to be an inordinate amount of work. Don’t let this factor put you off. Once your ingredients are ready, the actual cooking time proceeds rapidly. In many cases, much of this work may be done ahead of time, which turns out to be a plus when preparing several dishes for a single meal.

Chinese recipes also emphasize fresh raw ingredients, which is part of the attractiveness, both in flavor and appearance, of the finished dish. Snow peas retain their bright green color, while a red bell pepper remains crisp and colorful, due to short cooking times. If your recipe calls for bean sprouts, do choose fresh sprouts over canned. The crunchy texture of a fresh sprout is far superior to the canned version.

Exotic mushroom varieties, hot peppers and fragrant seasonings are also signature ingredients in Chinese cuisine. You’d be surprised how a simple bowl of steamed rice is made special with just a sprinkling of Chinese five-spice, a combination of anise, cinnamon, star anise, cloves and ginger, combined in specific proportions. If you try this single dish, you’ll certainly be inspired to learn a bit more about Chinese cooking.

A variety of prepared, fermented sauces are also key Chinese cooking ingredients. Hoison and fish sauce are just two common examples. Check out the Chinese ingredient aisle at the grocery for more exotic possibilities. More on Chinese Cooking.

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Safety had better be the top priority if you are going to be doing any camp cooking. A fully supplied first aid kit with supplies to for burn treatment needs to be on hand. This is important not just for cooking, but for any other unforeseen accident that may arise. Preparing meals over an open fire is an enjoyable, pleasant experience and you should have no problems as long as you use a little care and common sense. I’m sure tried it once you will want to it again and again.

For a lot of years, camp cooking was considered the typical thing to do when on a camping trip but several changes have occurred with respect to safety. These include things such as; where the fire can be built, the proximity to other campsites as well as dried brush and grasses nearby. Recently the amount of available firewood has decreased dramatically, so much so that many campsites now require campers to supply their own logs and kindling.

There are some times and places where camp cooking is expressly out of the question. If surrounding brush is extremely dry for instance, and a wind is blowing. Sparks from the campfire could ignite a brush fire ruining your camping trip, along with that of many others. Forestry Services will sometimes issue a high fire danger warning and no open fires will be permitted. This is not intended to ruin your fun but to keep you safe. And always be sure to build your fire with clean, dry wood. Chopping off a few branches from nearby trees will not get the job done and you may well manage to kill the tree, don’t do it. Plus if you actually get the fire started, it will produce so much smoke that you won’t be able to get near the fire and it may well ruin the taste of the food.

If the campground doesn’t have burning rings or fire-pits, your campfire can be built on bare earth, with no vegetation covering which can possible start a ground fire. Use a shovel to dig a small hole and be sure there are no roots showing. Then build a U-shaped fire pit of stones with one larger stone, approximately three times the height of the side stones to act as chimney. The smoke will naturally go towards that end and be lifted above the campfire.

If there are not enough stones to line the spot for campfire cooking, you can also use green logs but be sure to keep them watered down to prevent them from becoming dried out by the fire and bursting into flames!

Usually there is access to a metal grill to place across the fire on which to rest a pot for boiling water, frying pan and other cooking utensils. If no grate is available, steel tripods can be set over the fire to hold a pot for boiling water, making stew or any one of various single pot camp cooking recipes you can find. You can also bring along your own grill. When you are finished cooking and ready for bed, the fire must be clearly out. If built on the ground it may take more than bucket of water, but lugging two or three buckets of water can be better than finding your campsite on fire in the middle of the night. Pour some of the water on the coals then stir around with a stick. Add more water and stir again. Repeat this until you are sure the fire is out. Have fun. I hope you enjoyed these cooking tips.

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