Italian Balsamic Vinegar For Luxury Recipes

By Daniela Colleo
There is a pleasure that has never known, and will never do, a decline or a negative trend: the pleasure for good food and good drinks.
Over the centuries men tried to improve their aliments sometimes reaching extremely high levels. For the most part of history, and most of the people, food was only something necessary and they tried to improve it in order to better chew and digest it.
But for luckier people, food was not only a matter of nourishment but a pleasure to indulge in.
In our present culture, for a great part of the world population, food unfortunately is still only synonym of survival. No matter how the food tastes and even if it really do any good to your body, as long as you finally have something in your stomach.
On the other hand, millions of people have the opportunity to get really much more food they can reasonably eat. Due to our eating habits, our younger loved are often obese or, in better cases, a little over weight. Poor populations cannot enjoy a proper meal, but funny enough also people who have too much food do not enjoy it and often their meals are partaken quickly, without any real need or desire.
In the middle of these two categories of humanity, there is a smaller group of people, wealthy enough to be able to afford whatever they want, who do not consider food just as a relieve valve to their rage or frustration or sadness, but a matter of culture.
In this environment, curiosity can originate luxury recipes for a very choosy and demanding taste.
One of the ingredients which concurs in creating luxury meals in Italian food is the balsamic vinegar of Modena which can be used with almost everything giving to the meal an unforgettable flavour.
This thick and aromatic vinegar is produced by the fermentation of Trebbiano grapes, which grow around Modena, and is left for at least 10 years in chestnut tree wood barrels.
Balsamic vinegar from Modena is nowadays known worldwide, but you might not known that two of its most exciting uses are as a topping for strawberries or for vanilla ice cream. Eating them with balsamic vinegar of Modena is an experience you should really not miss.
© Italian luxury handbags.com - http://www.italianluxuryhandbags.com/us
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daniela_Colleo http://EzineArticles.com/?Italian-Balsamic-Vinegar-For-Luxury-Recipes&id=1121108

How Do I Make My Own Bread?

By Mike Selvon
Bread making has reached a new popularity with many people. They want the best products but do not want to pay for grocery store items that are chock full of preservatives. There is a way to avoid those preservatives and still enjoy the homemade goodness of great biscuits and bread.
You are in luck today. One of the best biscuit recipes you will ever taste is included with this article. These light and fluffy biscuits will ensure that you never buy the canned or frozen varieties ever again. They are delicious and super easy to make.
Making homemade loaf all starts with a bread making recipe. It might be scone recipes for brunch, breakfast or an afternoon tea. It might even be roll recipes. You should choose a bread that you enjoy eating. The easiest types of loaf to make are made with bread making machine recipes.
You will be amazed at the simplicity it offers. You first need a machine for making and baking bread. Buy the type of machine that does everything for you. A good choice would be the Panasonic SD YD250 automatic bread maker. You simply buy a box of bread mix, add the necessary ingredients into the machine and then walk away. The machine will mix and knead it for you!
If you want to skip out on the bread maker and make it from scratch, then you'll want to start with a simple biscuit recipe. Biscuits are amazingly simple to make once you assemble the necessary ingredients. You will need flour, salt, shortening, baking soda, baking powder, milk and something to cut the biscuits.
Take 2 cups of flour and add it to the bowl, along with 2 tablespoons of baking powder, 2 tsp of baking soda and 1/4 cup of shortening. Your next step is to mix until it resembles cornmeal. Add just enough milk to make it into semi-firm dough. Turn it out onto a floured rolling surface and press into 1" squares.
Cut the biscuits out and place them on a baking sheet. Brush with a little butter and place them in a 350 degree, preheated oven. Let them bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. There you have it; a very easy biscuit recipe.
Scone recipes are very similar to this and you will enjoy them just as much. After you are comfortable working with biscuit dough, you can then start thinking about finding bread making recipes so you can enjoy hot, fresh loaf from scratch.
Mike Selvon portal offers free articles on bread making. Find out more about how to [http://breadmaking.micronicherecommends.com/Bread-Making.php]make your own bread, and leave a comment at the [http://www.mynicheportal.com/food-drinks/start-bread-making-now]bread making flour blog.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Selvon http://EzineArticles.com/?How-Do-I-Make-My-Own-Bread?&id=1108732

How To Use Gourmet Sea Salt In Your Food

By L. Moses
Gourmet chefs have known for some time the tremendous value of salt. We're not talking about ordinary table salt or even kosher salt which both definitely have their place. No, we're talking about the wide variety of specialized sea salts previously unavailable to the general public. Perhaps it was Iron Chef or any one of the other foodie television programs now watched by millions or perhaps it was simply an evolution of grocers and manufacturers, whatever the reason, the general public now has access to gourmet sea salts previously only used by the best chefs in the world.
Pure Salt, Fusions and More
Gourmet sea salt is just that, sea salt from unique areas of the world. Like a grape made into a fine wine, each salt has its own unique flavor and texture derived from the area it comes from. For example Hawaiian Sea Salt is reddish in color due to the minerals in the clay and it has a mild taste. Contrast that with the almost colorless Bali Sea Salt harvested annually from evaporating sea water in hollowed out palm tree trunks.
Gourmet Sea Salts can take on any number of unusual flavors including the smoky flavor of Fume de Sol made by cold smoking salt crystals in vintage wine barrels. The French Sea Salts in particular are known for having a very natural and earthy taste and considered to be one of the best tasting salts in the world. Even better, many Gourmet Sea Salts are now offered in combination with the perfect pairing of herbs and flavorings like Curry, Black Truffle and even Merlot. Imagine sprinkling your favorite steak with Merlot infused Sea Salt just before placing it on the grill. Gourmet cooking doesn't get much better or easier.
Gourmet Meals in a Pinch
Each salt has its own purpose. Some, like the Organic Sea Salts from France can be used in baking, cooking and even as a kicked-up table salt. The Hawaiian Sea Salt on the other hand has a very distinct flavor that works exceptionally well with a variety of meats. You can combine it with herbs and rub your favorite meat for grilling or roasting and have a truly distinct flavor. For example, the Japanese Curry Salt is excellent on eggs, vegetables, and even tofu.
With the abundance of Gourmet Sea Salts available on the market, it is tempting to buy them all. The good news is that you can. Salt doesn't go bad. Stocking up on a variety of flavors means that you will have the tools at your fingertips, or at least in your pantry, to create a special gourmet meal in a pinch.
Find the best gourmet sea salts available at http://www.mysecretpantry.com/ today!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=L._Moses http://EzineArticles.com/?How-To-Use-Gourmet-Sea-Salt-In-Your-Food&id=1112429

Spice Up Your Life With Herbs And Spices

By Robert Catherine
The secret to great tasting food is spicing it up and adding your own flavors.To give your food that WOW taste, add additional spices and herbs to your recipe.Spices will change how your food tastes. Here are some simple facts and tips about spices, herbs, condiments and salt and how to use them.Spices are usually found in the baking section of the grocery store. Spices are dried aromatic parts of plants such as roots, bark, flower buds, fruits and seeds.The most well know spice is pepper.Here are some spices I like to use; cayenne will add heat to your dish. Great in chili, soups and stews. Cumin is one of my favorite and it is most commonly used in Mexican dishes but is also great in soups, vegetables and really good in pan fried mushrooms. Cinnamon adds a nice flavor to beef or pork stews. Add a pinch of allspice and clove to your meat sauce for pasta to give a rich and full taste.
Herbs are soft stemmed aromatic plants that are now available fresh at any quality grocery store. There is no need to buy dried herbs any more. Storing fresh herbs is as easy as taking the herbs out of the container and placing them in vase of cold water. Put them in your fridge and change the water daily. The herbs will last for at least week.Most recipes refer to dried herbs, so when using fresh herbs double the amount you are using to get the correct flavors.Always add one third of the fresh herbs at the beginning of the cooking process. This helps flavor the food you are cooking. Then add the remaining herbs about five minutes before serving. This will allow the taste of the fresh herbs to give your dish a signature taste. Use rosemary in pork dishes, oregano in mushrooms, chop fresh basil into your salads, and use both opal (purple basil) and green sweet basil. Chop cilantro into your tomato dishes, use chives to add zip to your omelets. Use fresh chopped parsley to add color and flavor to beans and vegetables.
I call Tabasco, Worcestershire great food pick me uppers. They are great in stews, sauces and soups. Add just before serving to allow their flavors to accent your dishes. Use in small amounts and taste after each addition until you that wow taste.
Salt is very important in adding flavor to dishes. Add small amounts at the beginning of the cooking process and finish with salt just before serving. Always add small amounts and taste. Salt helps to bring all the flavors of your dish together.
The secret to great tasting food is spicing it up.
Chef Robert and Barb Catherine are authors of Chef Robert Presents Romantic Dinners For Two and relationship experts on the television show Get Married.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Robert_Catherine http://EzineArticles.com/?Spice-Up-Your-Life-With-Herbs-And-Spices&id=1091559

The Simplest and Best Way to Cure Olives

By Gerald Smith
If you are lucky enough to have your own olive trees, you will know how bitter raw olives taste straight from the tree. The bitterness is left behind with the pulp when olives are pressed to make oil, but if you want to prepare them for eating - and spare the expense of a press - the fruit must first must be processed, or 'cured'. Although there are several ways to do this, this article will outline the simplest - and in my experience the best - method, which uses only salt. It's the way olives have been cured in Greece for at least three thousand years.
Ripe olives generally include a mixture of black and green fruit. The black olives are the riper ones, but don't wait to harvest them until all of them are black. When the majority of the olives on the tree are black, all of them are ready for picking. Don't wait for the olives to fall from the tree, because by that time many of them will be spoiled. The following cure works equally well on both black and green olives.
Remove any stems and leaves, and wash the fruit in a bucket using fresh water. Pour away the dirty water and spread the olives across a clean table or floor.
Using a sharp knife or fork, make three or four cuts in the skin of each olive. These incisions will enable the salt water to draw the bitterness out of the fruit - the treatment won't work without them.
Dissolve 120 grams of salt into each liter of a bucket of clean water. Throw the the pricked olives into this solution, using an upturned plate to ensure that every olive is submerged. Note that this is about three times the concentration of salt in seawater, so don't use seawater as a substitute.
After 24 hours, pour the liquid away and replace with clean saline water of the same concentration. Repeat this step daily for about 12 days. After 10 days, taste an olive or two each day: continue this washing cycle until every trace of bitterness has gone.
When the washing process is completed and the olives are edible, they are ready to be stored. Pour away the last of the saline solution and dry the olives. Place them into sealable storage jars, topping up the jars with olive oil. If you want, you can add flavorings to the oil: garlic, basil and lemon juice are particular favorites. Ensure that every olive is submerged in the oil, then seal the jar. Store the olives in a cool, dark place.
Although this method is both cheap and simple, it is also quite labor-intensive, and therefore unsuitable for commercial quantities of fruit. The finished product, however, is delicious: those chemically-treated, mass-produced olives that you can buy for a fortune at the local delicatessen will never taste the same again.
Gerald Smith is a technical consultant at [http://www.smithgcb.demon.co.uk/]Piedmont Properties, a real estate agency specializing in Italian vineyards.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gerald_Smith http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Simplest-and-Best-Way-to-Cure-Olives&id=1096234

Seven Mistakes to Avoid When Melting Chocolate

By Barbara O'Brien
If you haven't had it happen to you at least once, consider yourself lucky. You're standing there at the stove, melting some of those little blocks of chocolate that come in boxes. You anticipate with glee those chocolate-dipped strawberries that will be tonight's dinner finale. You look up to check the time or talk to the kids, and when you look back at the stove, your chocolate is not becoming silky smooth, but gloppy and weird. And to add insult to (culinary) injury, the more you heat and stir, the lumpier it gets.
Your chocolate has seized. The good news is that you can still use that chocolate mess in other recipes if you haven't scorched it. The bad news is that you won't be having chocolate dipped strawberries tonight. Read on to discover the seven most common ways to ruin chocolate when melting it and what you can do to avoid disaster.
Mistake #1. Letting water make contact with the chocolate - A block of chocolate doesn't look like it, but it has no water in it at all. It's made of small, dry particles of cocoa and sugar and of cocoa butter. A drop of water that gets into the melting chocolate causes the particles to clump up around the water. This is seizing. You can avoid this by keeping any moisture away from the chocolate. If you melt your chocolate in a double boiler, don't use too much water in the bottom and do not let the water boil.
Mistake #2. Overheating. If the heat is too high, the chocolate will scorch before it's all melted. While this is technically not seizing, scorched chocolate forms little clumps of its own. There is nothing you can do with scorched chocolate, except maybe use it as a face mask or something. Don't eat it.
The double boiler is a life saver here (although still not totally foolproof). Again, let the water simmer, not boil. You can also melt chocolate in the oven if you have extra time. Set the oven to its lowest temperature and check the chocolate every few minutes and stir it. Keep in mind, chocolate shouldn't get hotter than about 115 degrees F. when melting. This is just warm, not hot.
The microwave oven works quite well if you set it on 50% power, check your chocolate and stir after 1 minute, then nuke and stir every 15-20 seconds until it is almost melted. Stir without heating, and let the residual heat melt the chocolate completely.
Mistake #3. Trying to melt a big chunk of chocolate - not only will you still be standing there at the stove until sometime tomorrow trying to melt it, you'll have scorched it long before the whole chunk is melted. Chop up the chocolate, please. Try to chop it into fairly uniform pieces. Think chocolate chips for dark chocolate, finer for milk or white chocolate, as they tend to burn more easily. This applies no matter what method you use.
Mistake #4. Trying to melt it directly in a pot on the stove - Much too hot, too fast. You know that the chocolate touching the bottom of the pan is going to get way over 115 degrees. Don't do it.
Mistake #5. Neglecting it - Melting chocolate needs attention; it needs love. It needs to be stirred frequently to distribute the heat evenly.
Mistake #6. Putting a lid on the melting chocolate - Okay, I've seen this recommended before, but the problem here is that any moisture caught in the pan will condense on the lid and drip down into the chocolate. And you know what happens then, right?
Mistake #7. Trying to make it melt faster - Patience is a virtue. You can't hurry the process. You're just asking for trouble. Use low heat and take your time.
Remember: use low heat, take your time, keep it dry, and stir, stir, stir. You're working with chocolate here. Breathe in that rich aroma. Marvel at the silkiness of the melted chocolate. Anticipate the delight of the final product. Hey, don't get too lost in your senses. You have to keep stirring. Good luck.
In the next article on chocolate, I'll talk about what you can do with that seized chocolate.
Barbara O'Brien is an author, cook and mother of two young chefs. She encourages adults and children to learning about cooking and nutrition together. Find great recipes, nutrition tips, and fun facts at [http://www.squidoo.com/yummyrecipes]Incredibly Good Recipes and [http://kids-cook.com]Kids-Cook.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Barbara_O'Brien http://EzineArticles.com/?Seven-Mistakes-to-Avoid-When-Melting-Chocolate&id=1094927

Benefits of Cinnamon

Cinnamon’s unique healing abilities come from three basic types of components in the essential oils found in its bark. These oils contain active components called cinnamaldehyde, cinnamyl acetate, and cinnamyl alcohol, plus a wide range of other volatile substances.

Cinnamaldehyde (also called cinnamic aldehyde) has been well-researched for its effects on blood platelets. Platelets are constituents of blood that are meant to clump together under emergency circumstances (like physical injury) as a way to stop bleeding, but under normal circumstances, they can make blood flow inadequate if they clump together too much. The cinnaldehyde in cinnamon helps prevent unwanted clumping of blood platelets. (The way it accomplishes this health-protective act is by inhibiting the release of an inflammatory fatty acid called arachidonic acid from platelet membranes and reducing the formation of an inflammatory messaging molecule called thromboxane A2.) Cinnamon's ability to lower the release of arachidonic acid from cell membranes also puts it in the category of an “anti-inflammatory” food that can be helpful in lessening inflammation.

Cinnamon may significantly help people with type 2 diabetes improve their ability to respond to insulin, thus normalizing their blood sugar levels. Both test tube and animal studies have shown that compounds in cinnamon not only stimulate insulin receptors, but also inhibit an enzyme that inactivates them, thus significantly increasing cells’ ability to use glucose. Studies to confirm cinnamon’s beneficial actions in humans are currently underway with the most recent report coming from researchers from the US Agricultural Research Service, who have shown that less than half a teaspoon per day of cinnamon reduces blood sugar levels in persons with type 2 diabetes. Their study included 60 Pakistani volunteers with type 2 diabetes who were not taking insulin. Subjects were divided into six groups. For 40 days, groups 1, 2 and 3 were given 1, 3, or 6 grams per day of cinnamon while groups 4, 5 and 6 received placebo capsules. Even the lowest amount of cinnamon, 1 gram per day (approximately ¼ to ½ teaspoon), produced an approximately 20% drop in blood sugar; cholesterol and triglycerides were lowered as well. When daily cinnamon was stopped, blood sugar levels began to increase. (December 30, 2003)

Not only does consuming cinnamon improve the body’s ability to utilize blood sugar, but just smelling the wonderful odor of this sweet spice boosts brain activity! Research led by Dr. P. Zoladz and presented April 24, 2004, at the annual meeting of the Association for Chemoreception Sciences, in Sarasota, FL, found that chewing cinnamon flavored gum or just smelling cinnamon enhanced study participants’ cognitive processing. Specifically, cinnamon improved participants’ scores on tasks related to attentional processes, virtual recognition memory, working memory, and visual-motor speed while working on a computer-based program. Participants were exposed to four odorant conditions: no odor, peppermint odor, jasmine, and cinnamon, with cinnamon emerging the clear winner in producing positive effects on brain function. Encouraged by the results of these studies, researchers will be evaluating cinnamon’s potential for enhancing cognition in the elderly, individuals with test-anxiety, and possibly even patients with diseases that lead to cognitive decline. (May 9, 2004)


Douglas Adams is an Independent Watkins Associate
http://www.watkinsonline.com/douglas.adams/

“Watkins award-winning high-oil Korintje cassia is about twice as flavorful as the Ceylon variety, and is the best quality cinnamon available anywhere”