Chinese New Year Cooking Ideas

There are few festivities that are felt around the world on quite the grand scale that the Chinese New Year is celebrated. This is an event that affects people all around the globe and the celebrations are quite exotic and a lot of fun for everyone involved. One thing that many outsiders may not realize is that many of the aspects of the Chinese New Year celebrations have a very specific purpose and meaning even the food. Whether you are Chinese are not, I know very few people in the world that couldn't use a small degree of good fortune to make things in their worlds run a little more smoothly.

When it comes to cooking for a Chinese New Year celebration there are a few things you might want to keep in mind. The foods that are prepared each have their very own meaning and a definite reason for being prepared.

Dumplings are believed to bring wealth in the New Year to those who eat them on this special day. Of course wealth is something that many people wish to accumulate so there are many paths to doing so. Other foods that are symbolic of wealth on the Chinese New Year are bamboo shoots, black moss seaweed, egg rolls, and oranges. Wow, this is just the beginning of the symbolic nature of food for the Chinese New Year so be sure to bring your appetite if you choose to celebrate.

Longevity or long life is something else that the Chinese are quite famous for. Eternal youth is what some may call it though these days it is far less eternal than may have been the case in centuries past. The secret however, to that long life was in consuming the proper foods as part of the New Year festivities. Those foods include: noodles, Chinese garlic chives, and peanuts (circus elephants everywhere rejoice at this news).

Prosperity is attributed to foods such as lettuce, whole fish, and pomelo. IN addition to prosperity whole fish and pomelo are believed to bring abundance and togetherness (as in marriage or romance) during the coming year.

Chicken is the main course when happiness is the goal. In addition chicken is associated with marriage, particularly when served with foods such as lobster that are considered to be dragon foods).

For those planning for children in the near future you might want to add eggs, seeds (such as watermelon seeds), and pomelo-the last two especially if you want several children.

Finally, if luck is what you are most in need of try to add a tangerine or some seaweed to your plate on this special day. If your run of luck has been really bad you may want to double up on your servings of both.

The Internet is filled with wonderful recipes for to help you celebrate the Chinese New Year in as traditional a setting as possible. Foods such as Jiaozi (Chinese noodles) and egg rolls are commonly found online and will go a long way towards creating the proper atmosphere for all good things to come your way in the coming year. Add a few lettuce wraps and longevity noodles and you have a good grasp on the good things that most of us hope will come our way in the coming year.

If you can't manage to eat all of the foods that are believed to be symbolic of good things to come in the coming year be sure to pick those you feel are most important and focus on eating those. This is, after all, quite a bit of food to take in during the course of one day unless you are barely getting a bite in of any of them and that would most likely defeat the purpose. Take time and make sure that you manage to enjoy cooking and preparing the dishes that make a Chinese New Year so special as well as you enjoy eating them.

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Best Home Based Business for Cooks

You don’t need to be a chef to find a career in cooking.  A best home based business for cooks is a personal chef business.  If you want to cook on a larger scale, another best home based business for cooks is catering.  Using your love of cooking and a little creativity can help you develop a best home based business doing what you love.

Think about it.  One of the reasons why catering is considered a best home based business is that it is a $5 billion dollar a year industry and continues to have an annual growth rate of 5 percent.  People are always having parties and events that need catering, and if you learn some basic business principles, you can run the best home based business while making great food and putting smiles on faces.

Still, not everyone likes to cook for big groups.  If your idea of the best home based business is to cook small meals for just a couple of people, you may want to consider becoming a personal chef.  You do not need to be an actual chef to run this type of business.  What makes this a best home based business is that it is one of the fastest-growing industries in the U.S.

Whether you choose for your best home based business to be in catering or in being a personal chef, you still need to do some preparation.  You will want to develop your food preparation skills so that you are showing people you have a best home based business.  You can gain experience in the food industry through stints in restaurants, clubs, caterers, or even volunteer work.  You do not need to have years of experience to run a best home based business in cooking, but you can gain some valuable advice.

You will also need to determine what type of services you want to offer when designing your best home based business.  Know what type of cooking you want to do and if you want to be a personal chef on a regularly scheduled basis.  You will also need to determine a name and gain some financing for your best home based business.  Also, don’t forget important items like insurance and kitchen equipment, and making sure you are in compliance with municipal standards.  In order to have the best home based business for cooking, you will also need to make sure you are within the law

There may be a number of things to think about when designing the best home based business for you, but if you have a passion for cooking, being a personal chef or caterer may be the best home based business for you.  Take the time to make plans and get started on the career you’ve always dreamed of, and cook your way to having the best home based business.

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Beat the Summer Heat with Crock Pot Cooking

When the weather outside warms up, the kitchen can be a terrible place to be. There are many things you can do however, when it comes to cooking a nice home made meal that doesn't require traditional stove top or oven cooking. Learn to utilize some of the lesser heat producing equipment in your kitchen, such as the crock pot, in order to truly beat the summer heat and keep your cool while preparing a nice hot meal for friends and family.

So, how does crock pot cooking really help beat the heat? Simply put, the crock pot in and of itself puts off far less heat when cooking than an oven or stove top. This is the first and possibly the best reason to utilize the crock pot in your summer meal planning. You should also consider the fact that by not heating the house by using your stove top or oven you are also preventing your air conditioning (or other cooling methods) from working overtime in order to compensate for the additional heat that other cooking methods introduce.

This makes crock pot cooking a win-win situation as the costs involved in operating a crock pot are far less than the costs involved in operating a stove or oven in general. Whether electric or gas, your stove and oven are often serious energy hogs. Add to that the fact that you are not raising the temperature in your home by traditional means of cooking and you are using even less electricity.

Unfortunately for most, the general consensus has been that crock pots were meant for comfort foods and hearty winter meals. The truth is that the crock pot should be one of your best loved and most often utilized cooking methods if you can manage it. When it comes to cooking with a crock pot, the options are almost limitless. Almost anything that can be baked can be made in the crock pot and many, many more wonderful and enticing meals and treats as well.

Benefits of Crock Pot Cooking

In addition to the cost benefits mentioned above when it comes to crock pot cooking there are many other benefits that are well worth mentioning. First of all, the bulk of the work involved in crock pot cooking takes place early in the day when you are refreshed rather than at the end of a hectic work or play day. This means that you are less likely to forget an ingredient or make other mistakes that often occur as we hurriedly prepare a dinner when we are exhausted from the activities of our day.

Second, many great crock pot recipes include the vegetables that insure we are getting the nutrients we need. So often, when preparing a meal at the last minute, vegetables and other side dishes are left out in favor of expedience. Crock pot cooking in many instances is a meal in one dish.

Another great reason to use a crock pot for your summertime cooking is the ease of clean up. Unlike pots and pans, most crock pot meals are made in one dish. This means that there will not be mountains of dishes to be either hand washed or loaded into the dishwasher (or if you are like me-both) afterwards. You can spend less time cleaning just as you spent less time slaving over a hot stove. Oh wait! Make that no time slaving over a hot stove. Once clean up is complete you can get back to enjoying the sun set, chasing the lightening bugs with your little ones, or waiting for the first star.

While there will never be a one size fits all best cooking method, crock pot cooking comes very close. If you have a crock pot collecting dust somewhere in the back of your pantry it is time to get it out, dust if off, and dig up some great summertime crock pot cooking recipes.

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10 Steps For Cooking-Up Family Memories

The kitchen is the perfect place for making memories. When you spend time baking, cooking and enjoying meals with your family, you create happy memories you and your children will cherish forever.

The benefits of preparing and enjoying food as a family are clear. You save money and eat healthier meals. You create opportunities to connect and communicate with your children and spouse. And most importantly, you show love for your family when you spend time cooking and eating with them. Children of all ages need your attention and your time. By working together to create a meal or bake a batch of cookies, you spend valuable time together.

So, here are 10 steps to get your family cooking up memories.

Step 1:
Teach small children the fun of cooking by helping them bake cookies and cakes. If you are short on time, you can use a boxed cookie mix and spend more time decorating.

Step 2:
Encourage the littlest ones to play pretend cooking. Kids love to play with real mixing bowls, strainers and wooden spoons. These make harmless toys and can be easily thrown in the dishwasher for quick cleanup.

Step 3:
If you live by your day-timer, schedule in baking cookies with your kids. Our schedules can be so hectic that something as simple as baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies can get skipped over. Write it down and do it.

Step 4:
If you have teenagers, let them play their favorite music while they wash the lettuce and set the table.

Step 5:
Work together with your spouse to prepare the dinner and use the time to catch up on each other's day.

Step 6:
Even if you are in a rush preparing dinner, remember to reduce your stress and focus on creating a fun atmosphere that naturally encourages the whole family to participate.

Step 7:
When spending time preparing food with your children, include lessons about healthy eating choices. Keep the conversation positive and avoid listing foods they can't have.

Step 8:
On days where you anticipate time will be tight, consider taking a short cut by using a frozen stir-fry mix or pasta with a jar of pre-made sauce. Your family will appreciate your relaxed mood much more than a made-from-scratch dinner.

Step 9:
Share the job of grocery shopping. One week have mom take one of the children as a helper, the next week dad can go with another child. Always work from a grocery list and let your children help you retrieve items and cross them off the list.

Step 10:
Have big family meals where you share about your day. Keep the conversation fun and avoid negative lectures over dinner. Remember to laugh.

Take these steps today and make your kitchen a fun and memorable place for your whole family.

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Cooking Advices For Vegetables

People have the opportunity to enjoy a large assortment of vegetables, which come in delightful colors and pleasing shapes. Some people like vegetables so much that they decorate their homes with their images on all sorts of home decorating modes. The foremost cooking advices for vegetables are that they should be eaten as often as possible because vegetables do a body good as far a nutritional value.

Some of the more popular vegetable choices are tomatoes, carrots, shallots, eggplant and cauliflower, and also include an abundant assortment of beans and squashes that people enjoy immensely because they are easy to prepare. Some vegetables come ready to cook straight from the garden where they are grown. Corn on the cob is a favorite vegetable that everyone in the family can enjoy.

People that live in the country, on farms, estates, and home far off the beaten travel path of the busy cities that surround them, routinely maintain gardens in their back yards and window sills to keep them in stock of precious vegetables they might not have otherwise. Some cooking advices for vegetables have said that distance plays a big factor on how much people want vegetables in their diet, and with this type of pre-planning and planting, they are assured of a wide variety of vegetables throughout the year.

When listening to the cooking advices for vegetables, people enjoy hearing about the history of a particular type of vegetable before they try to prepare it. Some of these advices are long winded, because the preparation process can be very complicated. Some tales are folk stories about country people who started the tradition of home-canning vegetables to preserve their flavor and afford them the opportunity to eat them in the Winter season when snow was on the ground.

Today, home canning is a big sales market where many devices have been manufactured to accommodate the large quantities that are prepared in large industrial complexes that make jellies and preserves, and a variety of canned vegetables that are too numerous to mention. The home canning cooking advices for vegetables canned in the home say homes keep it simple and only need water, mason jars and lids and jar rings and tongs to perform the home canning process.

Tomatoes are a very popular vegetable that people might buy several days a week if they are dieting. People that live in apartments love growing tomatoes in small pots, and in locations where land space is available, tomatoes are typically one of the first items to be planted. They require only water and good earth to grow, and plant food can be purchased to increase the size and quantity of what is planted.

Children love eating watermelons during the Summer months, and these vegetables can vary in size and flavor from year to year. To grow good watermelons, cooking advices for vegetables such as the watermelon say that they need direct sunlight and lots of water to grow on the vine throughout the day and night.

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Cooking Italy Vacation

When we think of going on vacation most of us see ourselves lying on a beach somewhere or gazing into a sunset. Most of us do not think about going on a cooking vacation. But if you are looking for something different to do this year when you travel this may be just the thing for you to try. There are several places in Italy where you can learn how to cook on a cooking Italy vacation. Who knows you may even be the next Rachel Ray when you return home!

A place you should know about if you want to try a cooking Italian vacation is a small family owned bed and breakfast called La Locanda del Prete. It is found high on the hills of Monte Amiata in a place called Arcidosso in the province of Grosseto, Tuscany. Arcidosso is found outside a small medieval village and is two and a half hours away from Rome. This family owned operation has welcomed visitors from all over the world. The owner's name is Carlo Innocenti and he is also the master chef. La Locanda Del Prete will provide a genuine Tuscan experience for you on your Italian vacation. It is far away from the normally busy and sometimes congested popular tourist destinations so this cozy little bed and breakfast on the hills promises a wonderful experience. Over the years the owner has operated or managed several Italian restaurants and has also been teaching Tuscan cooking. Some of his students have even included other chefs from all over the world who wanted to learn traditional Italian recipes handed down through the generations. Carlo and his family will teach you authentic Tuscan cooking in an authentic Tuscan environment.

Carlo is also helped by his son Romeo who is also a great Italian chef with a vast knowledge of Italian seafood recipes and the pairing of food with specific wines. If you need help Romeo is also a great tour guide who is fluent in English. Romeo handles their Tuscany Wine Tasting and Vacation Tours. These tours are a fantastic addition to your Cooking Italian Vacation because Romeo will take you through Brunello wine country. You will also be wined and dined while you learn about the culture. They also allow time for you to tour the area and perhaps re-visit some sights that were particularly interesting to you.

This bed and breakfast is open from mid-May and has 2 packages to choose from. You can stay for a week or for half a week (3 nights). The one week cooking Italian vacation is perfect for small groups of four to ten. You will stay with Carlo and his family for 6 nights and all transportation is included. For those of you who do not see themselves on vacation without the sea, this package even includes a visit to an old seaside fishing village. As part of this Italy vacation, you will receive an apron and recipe book and spend a morning learning how to cook Tuscan food and then you get to enjoy your own cooking for lunch. La Loconda Del Prete has a website to help you plane your cooking Italian Vacation at www.lalocandadelprete.com.

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Camp Cooking Made Easy

Camp cooking can be as elaborate or simple as you want it to be.  If you want to prepare quick and simple but nutritious meals while you are camping, camp cooking doesn't even have to require a fire.  But if you are interested in fueling your camping trip with a feast, camp cooking can allow you to make hot, healthy foods that are as good as you can make them at home in your own kitchen. 

Camp cooking does not have to be limited to sandwiches and baked potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil.  Almost any cooking method you use in the kitchen can be duplicated around the campfire.  For example, use a dutch oven or pit cooking to bake your food.  You can also easily fry foods in a pan over a grill, or boil, braise and roast.  What type of camping cookware is best for you? Camp cooking and clean-up can be easy or a hassle, it all starts with great camping equipment.

Some pots/pans come in sets that mate together or "nest" for storage and even allow you to tuck a canister of fuel inside them. This comes in handy when you're looking to save room while camping.

Following are some camping items to take with you if you are planning on preparing some meals around the campfire.  These common kitchen items will allow you to duplicate tasty meals while you are out of doors.

•    Salt and pepper
•    Other of your favorite herbs and spices
•    Cooking oil
•    Pot holder
•    Hand-held can opener
•    Aluminum foil
•    Tongs and spatula
•    Cutting knives
•    Cutting board
•    Mixing bowl
•    Paper or plastic silverware, plates and cups

If you have just a few campers and are looking for some simple camp cooking, try the easy and quick technique of tin can cooking.  All you will need is a clean tin can – a one gallon size can works well.  Your source of heat can be a small campfire, or if wood burning is prohibited, a small buddy burner will work well, which can be found at sporting good stores or online.  Place your meal in the tin can and simply heat the contents of your can over a flame.  You will have a hot meal ready in minutes.  This technique works great for soups, beans and tuna fish.

A more time-consuming camp cooking technique that also produces tasty meals is pit cooking.  Pit cooking is great for items that can be wrapped in aluminum foil to be cooked.  It is also a great camp cooking method if you are using a dutch oven or cast iron cookware.  Pit cooking warms your food by heating rocks and coals that are buried in the ground.  As the rocks cool off, their emitted heat cooks the food.  To pit cook, first dig a hole that is about three times larger than your cookware.  Line the pit with rocks and build a fire in the middle.  Once the fire has burned rapidly for about an hour, push the hot coals and rocks into the center.  Layer your wrapped food or covered skillets on top of the rocks and coals and place more on top.  After a few hours, you will have some delicious camp food to enjoy.

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