Archive for October 18th, 2008

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Why You Need a Koozie


2008
10.18

Posted in Food and Drinks | No Comments »

You may have noticed that after you take out a can of cold beer from the fridge it starts getting warm at room temperature and the taste is no longer the same which you experienced a few sips back. Moreover the water starts condensing on the outer cover wetting your hands and making the surface slippery.

This is a very irritating thing to deal with as you need a dry cloth to wipe your hands on otherwise the condensed water drips onto your clothes. What if you had something to cover the can with after removing it from the fridge without wetting your hands and retaining the cool temperature of the drink?

A koozie serves the purpose of a holder for your cans and bottles so that your drink remains cold for a longer duration and prevent your hands from freezing and dampening due to condensation. To make a koozie different materials are used such as leather, foam, neoprene, nylon and polyurethane. The koozie can be pulled over your coke can or your beer bottle and fitted snugly to give you comfort.

Normally a cold can or bottle if kept at room temperature starts getting warmer after 15 minutes but with the koozie you can keep your drink cool for a good 40 minutes. This is particularly beneficial when you watch your favorite sports at home or in the stadium. At home the koozie prevents you from going to the fridge for a cold drink every 15 minutes and disturbing your concentration. In the stadium it is a nuisance to walk up and down the aisles within short spans for a cooler drink.

A koozie is one which expresses your attitude. You can have different designs on your koozie or make your koozie a colorful looking holder on http://trueimprint.com. You can have your name engraved to express your identity on the koozie. A koozie is fun to have especially when you are out. If you have a decorative koozie or one with striking phrases, be sure to catch furtive glances at your koozie.

A koozie is a good idea for any party or special event where each koozie can have a unique graphic or text to make it more interesting. You can have each koozie tailor made for each guest and give them away as favors to your guests. They will use your koozie gift anytime they have a cold can in their hand and also appreciate the fact that you thought of such a brilliant idea.

Decorative Koozie

You can have each koozie with your family picture painted on them as a substitute for Christmas cards among your friends and relatives. What a way to highlight your family while being used in someone else’s household.

Koozie Promotion

If you own a business distributing a koozie is a great way to promote your product and increase publicity. If you distribute them free of cost( find our more on distribution on www.expresskoozies.com. like leaving them in the mailboxes the people will definitely use them and also bring your product into the limelight.

Koozie Convenience

The koozie is a compact material that can be neatly folded and carried in your pocket wherever you go. You can even have a koozie that has a dry-erase exterior on one side and you can write individual names on them with a marker to distinguish everybody’s drink at gatherings and events.

Your koozie can also be available with a zipper or one that is stretchable. You can have a collapsible one or one with a carrier or the metallic one or even one with a lining and many more.

Visit http://trueimprint.com if you looking for koozies for your next party

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Easy Dinner Ideas for the Whole Family


2008
10.18

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Providing your family with easy dinner ideas each night is never easy. They need to include foods which the family loves an also provide the right nutrition for health. They need to be made quickly especially on the nights you work late. It must include healthy options and, above all else, taste good. The recipes listed here will give you what you are looking for in easy dinner ideas the entire family will love.

The Easy dinner ideas listed here would not be served art a gourmet restaurant but, they will give you and your family a nutritious option each night. They are simple to prepare for and do not require many ingredients. You will also not need to take much time to plan for it. You might even look forward to coming home each night just so you can prepare them.

The first of the easy dinner ideas is an old classic, barbecue chicken. It will take less than an hour to make and can feed a large family cheaply. The trick to cooking barbecue chicken is to make sure the outside does not burn while the inside is cooking through. To make sure this is accomplished, put the barbecue coating on after the chicken is cooked thoroughly and let it heat until warm.

To prepare this, preheat the oven to 300 degrees. While you are waiting for the oven to heat, take out a baking dish and add about a teaspoon of oil. You can use olive oil for a healthier option. Add your chicken pieces to the pan and coat with salt and pepper. Put the chicken in the heated oven and cook until white inside and heated to 180 degrees by meat thermometer. Mix one 16 ounce can of orange soda and 16 ounces of barbecue sauce together and coat chicken. Put back into the oven for about ten to fifteen minutes. Remove and enjoy. Add a Side salad and a baked potato or potato salad made with low fat mayonnaise and you have one of the most perfect easy dinner ideas.

One of the kids favorites as well as good eating for adults is tater tot casserole. It is super simple to create and only takes less than an hour from start to finish. It is great because it only requires the use of two pans. A pound or two of ground met such as beef, turkey, chicken, or pork needs to be cooked and browned. While this is cooking, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Take out a large baking dish and begin to cover the bottom with frozen tater tots. Drain the cooked ground meat and begin to add a layer over the tater tots.

If you like onions, you can also cut these and layer them on top of the meat. Add a layer of shredded cheese of your choice. Cover all this with cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup. Continue layering the ingredients until you reach the top. Add a final layer of cheese and cover with foil. Put into the oven until the casserole is heated through. Take off the foil and let sit in the oven for a minute to make it brown. Serve each person and enjoy. It goes great with a fresh salad and a nice large glass of milk.

Want to learn more about Meal Planning? Visit http://mealplanningguide.com for meal planning ideas, meal plans and recipes.

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Baking Without an Oven


2008
10.18

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In the West, we are used, these days, to having an oven in every home. The truth is that this situation is actually a fairly new one, only arising with the global availability of electricity. Indeed, prior to the 1940s, in the main only bakeries, farmhouses and large estates would have had ovens. Everyone else would have been cooking on open fires or basic ranges.

If you wanted to bake bread or cakes you either had to fry them (which is entirely possible and still done today) or you had to construct a basic oven with something like a Dutch oven, or you had to steam the dish. This is what’s done today in many places in the world, most notably in Africa, where, if you want a cake then you need to steam it over a gas ring or on an open fire.

The same used to be true in Europe and America as well and, in Britain at least the recipes for these steamed desserts and cakes (basically steamed sponge cake mixes) still exist in many family recipe books. Indeed, the classic British Christmas pudding (plum pudding) is a steamed dessert. This article, however, focuses on sponge cake mixes that can be steamed and which can be served as cake substitutes. The one thing to remember when steaming rather than baking is that the temperature you’re using is much lower (100°C as opposed to 180°C to 210°C) so you need to double your cooking times.

Indeed, these recipes are so simple effective that they can be cooked over any fire and are great for wowing your friends whilst camping! No one will believe that you can turn-out a delicious cake over a simple camp-fire. The recipes have also been field-tested in the middle of nowhere in Africa and it always surprises people as to just how simple it is to create a basic cake anywhere.

Steamed Ginger and Citrus Cake

Ingredients:
50g Ginger Pieces in Syrup
2 tbsp Ginger Syrup
330g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
finely-grated zest of 1 orange
finely-grated zest of 2 limes
150g butter or margarine
150g brown sugar
segments of 1 orange
60g fresh fruit (for the filling)
pinch of salt
3 eggs

Method:
Sift together the salt and bicarbonate into a clean bowl then cube the butter and add to the mixture. Rub the butter into the flour mix with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Chop the ginger as finely as you can then add it to the crumbed flour mixture along with the citrus zest, sugar and ginger syrup. Mix thoroughly to combine the crack the eggs into the mixture. Beat the eggs lightly then stir into the mix to combine thoroughly.

Now grease your pudding bowl (it should be about 1.5l) and arrange the orange segments in a fan pattern on the base. Carefully spoon half the cake batter on top then scatter the fruit over the batter. Now add the remaining cake batter to the bowl.

Place either a lid or a sheet of waxed paper over the bowl then cover everything with a double layer of aluminum foil before placing the pudding basin on top of an upturned saucer in a large pan. Add boiling water so that it comes half way up the pudding basin and bring everything to a boil. Secure a tightly-fitting lid on top (if it’s loose add a folded kitchen towel) and steam for 2 hours. Check the water level every half hour or and top-up as needed.

After two hours’ cooking time carefully take the pudding basin out of the pan and turn off the heat. Set aside to cool a little then remove the foil wrapping and carefully invert the cake out onto a plate (you may need to shake everything up and down a few times if the cake is reluctant to emerge).

This dish can be served hot, but is best if allowed to cool before being stored in an air-tight tin over night and served with tea or coffee the following day as this allows the flavours a chance to develop properly.

I hope that this recipe has shown you just how easy it is to create a basic cake by steaming and that you are now ready to try a few more steamed cake recipes.

Dyfed Lloyd Evans is the creator of the Celtnet Recipes website where you can find many more Steamed Foods Recipes as well as hundreds of Cake and Baking Recipes.

By Dyfed Lloyd Evans

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Ice Cream Makers in the US


2008
10.18

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An ice cream maker is a machine used in making dairy products such as ice cream. Different variations and features of ice cream makers have now been introduced in home and commercial uses.

Ice cream makers can be hand cranking or with an electric motor. This chills the ice cream using a freezing mixture and by pre-cooling it into the refrigerator or the machine itself. The mixture must be chilled and stirred in simultaneously in order to produce a creamy and smooth ice cream. Some machines require chilling for an extra hour or for a desired consistency, especially those mixtures containing alcohol.

Historically, legend says that some historians during the 3000 B.C. credited the Chinese with creating the first ice cream circa and brought it back to Europe. Now, there are a growing numbers of ice cream makers being produced in the old-fashioned way using fresh and local ingredients made by hand.

A manual machine comprises an outer and inner bowl, which turns paddle, also called a dasher, in stirring the mixture. The outer bowl has a freezing mixture of ice and salt, as the salt melts the ice. This type is inconvenient but inexpensive.

Electric machines, on the other hand, possess an electric motor that drives the paddle to stir in the mixture. There are three types:

Counter-top machine – a low cost machine that uses a double-walled bowl, which contains solution to freeze below the freezing capacity of water. Once it is frozen, the mixture puts it into the machine after 20-30 minutes of paddling.

Small freezer units – this machine sits inside the freezer and is similar to the food processor that rotates in slow motion. It paddles automatically and stops if the ice cream becomes frozen. There is no pre-freezing of appliance necessary.

Built-in freezing mechanism unit – ice cream is ready in twenty to thirty minutes as the cooling system switches on. This machine is impractical in small kitchens.

The top five ice cream producing states in the United States are:

1. California

2. Indiana

3. Ohio

4. Illinois

5. Michigan

It is no wonder why California has cornered the market’s best ice cream. This is because of its temperate climate and fresh dairy products. The United States manufacturers also showcase many variations of ice cream makers, either hand-made or electrically done variations.

Here is the list of ice cream makers in the United States that really catches consumer interest in making ice cream as a dessert.

White Mountain Ice Cream Maker

White Mountain Ice Cream Freezers are one of the finest ice cream makers in home usage.

Products:

White Mountain 6-Quart Electric Ice Cream Maker $199.99

Features:

o Maple Finish

o Three Gear Triple Motion Cast Iron Drive

o Capacity- 6 quarts

o Tub Is Approximately 11

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Crudites with Vomit Vinaigrette


2008
10.18

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Ingredients for Crudites with Vomit Vinaigrette

cherry tomatoes
carrots, peeled
zucchini
celery stalks
radishes
mushroom caps
2 cups cottage cheese
1 envelope onion soup mix
1/4 cup milk
yellow food coloring

Directions for Crudites with Vomit Vinaigrette

Rinse the vegetables in warm water, except the mushroom caps.  Wipe those gently
with a damp paper towel.  Then slice the carrots, zucchini and celery into thin sticks.
The cherry tomatoes can be served whole, but you may want to remove any green
stems.  The radishes and mushrooms can be halved or served whole.  If you are not
serving right away, put the vegetables in a plastic bag and store them in the refrigerator
to keep them fresh and crispy.  In a small bowl, mix the cottage cheese, onion soup mix
and milk.  Stir in some food coloring until you get the desired yellowish color.  Do not
over mix!  Lumpy is more realistic!  Arrange your vegetables on a platter surrounding
the Vomit Vinaigrette.  Vomit Vinaigrette tastes great in sandwiches, too!  Try splattering some into pita pockets!