Delicious Potato Recipes

Here are five recipes for potatoes which make them a delicious vegetable instead of the rather boring, white, dull objects most people think they are!

Boiled Potatoes

The best way to boil potatoes is in their skins. It is not necessary to peel them, just scrub them and remove all blemishes. Place them in cold water and boil water with salt added. When dry, leave them to dry in an oven dish in a warm oven for about 10 minutes - this will improve the flavour. Serve with butter or a sour cream spread.

Roast Potatoes

The best option is also to roast them in their skins, but also scrub them first and remove all blemishes. Roast them in the oven, either alone in an oven dish, sprinkled with olive oil and salt or roast them round the fat of your Sunday roast.

Baked Potatoes

You will need

• 10 potatoes

• 4 cups full cream milk (fat free milk will suffice)

• Salt and pepper

• Garlic

Scrub the potatoes and slice thinly. Rinse with cold water and dry in a paper towel. Rub an ovenproof dish with garlic and then butter. Fill with potatoes, seasoning each layer. Pour the milk over the potatoes so that they are just covered, and dot with butter. Bake at 325⁰F for about one hour, or until cooked and browned. 

Potato Casserole

You will need

• 10 potatoes

• 5 onions

• Salt and pepper

• Prepared Cheese sauce

• 1 cup grated Cheddar cheese

Scrub the potatoes and cut them into thin slices. Slice the onions. Fill a greased casserole dish with the potatoes and onions in layers, finish with potato. Season. Pour the cheese sauce over the vegetables and sprinkle the grated cheese over. Bake in oven at 200⁰F for one hour or until the dish is cooked.

Pan Fried Potatoes

You will need

• 8 potatoes

• 4 onions

• 4 tomatoes

• 1 cup diced bacon, cooked

• 1 Tbsp. cooking fat

• 1 cup grated Cheddar Cheese

• Salt and pepper

Scrub the potatoes and cut into thin slices. Slice the onions and tomatoes. Heat the fat in a frying pan and put in layers of potato, onion, tomato, bacon, cheese and seasoning. Finish with potato. Cover the pan and cook for 20 minutes. Brown the top under the grill and serve.

Please Visit Our Store!

What You Should Know About Avoiding Food Poisoning

According to statistics of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) there are annually about 76 million cases of reported food poisoning in the USA of which 5 million cases are fatal. 

No one is excluded from food poisoning. Therefore, prevention is better than cure. The keys are good hygiene, proper cooking temperatures for animal protein and the basic rule “keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold”:

1. Keep your kitchen or food preparation area, utensils, surfaces and your hands clean.  Hands should be washed in warm soapy water for about 20 seconds before preparing food. Then, after handling food, especially raw meat, hands should be thoroughly washed again.

2. Be especially careful when canning food. Follow the instructions carefully to avoid botulism, a potentially fatal form of food poisoning. (Botulism is a rare but serious illness caused by a bacterium called Clostridium botulinum, which occurs in soil – National Institute of Health)

3. Thaw frozen meats – especially minced meat – in the refrigerator and cook it as soon as it have defrosted.

4. Although many people like to eat rare meat, be careful. Cooking meat only to rare may not kill the bacteria that can cause illness.

5. Poultry must be cooked until there is no red in the joints and juices run clear when it is pricked. 

6. Cook fish so that it flakes with a fork, and it looks firm and opaque, not shiny.

7. It is advisable not to prepare or serve steak tartare or other raw meat dishes. (Steak tartare is a meat dish made from finely chopped or minced raw beef. Tartare can also be made by thinly slicing a high grade of meat such as strip steak, marinating it in wine or other spirits, spicing it to taste, and then chilling it – Wikipedia.) These are among the type of foods most likely to cause food poisoning. Mincing equipment may harbour contaminants, and minced meat offers micro-organisms on which to multiply.

8. When dining out especially be careful of rare or undercooked hamburgers. 

9. Never depend on the sniff test to determine whether food is off. Meat that has been contaminated with E.coli bacteria, a major cause of food poisoning, does not necessarily smell bad. (E. coli is short for Escherichia coli -- a bacterium (germ) that causes severe cramps and diarrhoea. E. coli is a leading cause of bloody diarrhoea. The symptoms are worse in children and older people, and especially in people who have another illness. E. coli infection is more common during the summer months and in northern states – Family Doctor.Org).

10. Do not eat raw fin fish or shell fish if you have an immune disorder or are on chemotherapy. Although most fish you buy has been commercially frozen and thawed, freezing does not kill bacteria. It only kills most parasites.

Keep safe,

Engela

Recipe for Sunshine Burger

You will need

·         1 cup sunflower-seed flour

·         3 finely grated carrots

·         2 tbsp. finely chopped onion

·         ½ cup chopped celery

·         1 tsp. chopped parsley

·         1 tbsp. cooking oil

·         Salt to taste

·         ¼ cup milk

·         Pinch of sweet basil

Preparation

Combine all the ingredients with enough of the milk so that they can be moulded into patties about 12 mm (½ inch) thick.

Place in a shallow oiled baking tray and bake until brown on both sides.

These patties are good either hot or cold and make a good protein food for a lunch box.

While hot, they may be served with a butter sauce.

For variety add 2 tbsp. chopped ripe or stuffed olives and 1 tbsp. grated cheese.

www.dan-the-bookkeeper.co.za

Tips for Reheating Meat

Here a few tips on how to reheat meat with safety:

Always heat meat quickly and for the shortest possible time, otherwise it will become tough and indigestible – the aim is not to recook but simply to reheat. However, cooked ham or bacon which give flavour to so many dishes, are the exception to this rule.

Always cool meat dishes as quickly as possible and put them in the refrigerator only when they are completely cold.

Remember to add extra moisture when it is required.

CHICKEN A LA KING

Ingredients

·         1 cup fat-free milk

·         1 tin evaporated  milk

·         1 tsp. salt

·         2 tbsp. brandy

·         1 onion, chopped finely

·         1 cup stock mixture (½ cup boiling water, 1 tsp. chicken stock powder and ½ cup white wine).

·         1 green pepper, sliced

·         1 yellow pepper, sliced

·         1 punnet brown mushrooms, sliced

·         2 cloves garlic, crushed

·         2-4 breast fillets, sliced across the grain into thin strips

·         2 tbsp.  Maizena (premixed in a little water)

·         1 cup basmati rice

Method

1.       Put the rice and water on to cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring 2-3 minutes.

2.       Dry-fry onion, peppers, mushrooms and garlic.

3.       In a normal pan cook the onions dry over a high heat. Whilst you are waiting for them to stick to the bottom, make the stock mixture (½ cup boiling water, 1 tsp. Chicken stock powder and ½ cup white wine, mixed together). When the onions are sticking to the base of the pan, use a wooden spoon to lift them and toss them around the heat to get browned on all sides. As they begin really sticking to the bottom of the pan, carefully add tiny amounts of the stock mixture, to create very hot, scalding steam. Do not add so much fluid that the onions simmer –you will have lost the plot entirely. Toss the onions about and when they start sticking again, add a tiny bit more of the mixture, creating the same hot steam. Wait until they stick before adding the next bit. Continue until the onions are very brown indeed. Then, add the rest of the stock mixture, stir up the brown bits off the bottom of the pan, and let the mixture simmer down. When the fluid has simmered down, you have a pretty effective non-stick pan in which you can continue cooking.

4.       Add the chicken strips and brandy, and cook until seared and cooked through (About 3 minutes).

5.       Add the milk, evaporated milk, salt and premixed Maizena, and stir over medium heat until thickened.

6.       Serve over rice with freshly ground black pepper, with boiled courgettes and butternut on the side.

Beautiful Women 

My Beautiful Body

Beautiful South Africa

Food Safety and Hygiene

1. Always wash your hands before handling any food.

2. Always wash fruit and vegetables before using them.

3. Ensure your work surfaces and chopping boards are clean. Keep a separate chopping board for preparing raw meat.

4. Cool leftover food as quickly as possible, ideally within one to two hours, and then store covered in the fridge.

5. Leftover rice must be stored covered and for longer than one day.

6. Do not buy cracked eggs.

7. If you are reheating food, make sure you heat all the way through  and until it is piping hot. Do not reheat food more than once. Do not keep leftovers for longer than two days.

8. Once thawed, do not   refreeze raw food unless you have cooked it first.

9. Read and follow the use-by dates on packaging and jars.

10 Children, pregnant women or the elderly should not eat recipes that contain eggs.

11. Ensure that your fridge is 5⁰C or less and the deep freeze is at least-20⁰C.

12. Change and wash tea towels, towels, dishcloths, aprons an oven gloves often. Keep your pets away from surfaces and tables.

13. Organise your fridge so that meat is kept separately and on the bottom shelf. Keep dairy produce together  and fruit, vegetables and salad ingredients in the salad compartment.

14. Store raw foods separately from cooked foods to avoid contamination.

15. After shopping, put all food for the refrigerator and freezer into their allotted places as soon as possible.

Beef Stroganoff

Ingredients

• 1 kg sirloin steak

• 8 big sliced fresh mushrooms

• 3/4 cup chopped onion

• 2 cloves garlic, pressed

• Vegetable cooking spray

• 1 tablespoon margarine

• 2 tablespoons flour

• 1 cup hot water

• 1 teaspoon beef bouillon granules

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

• 1 tablespoon corn-starch

• 1/4 cup low fat sour cream

• 3 cups hot cooked noodles

• Finely chopped fresh parsley

Preparation

1. Trim fat from steak; slice steak diagonally across grain into thin strips. Cook steak and mushrooms, onion and garlic in a large saucepan with cooking spray over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until tender.

2. Drain steak mixture, and set aside; wipe drippings from pan. Melt margarine in saucepan over low heat; add flour, stirring with a wire whisk until smooth. Cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Gradually add 1 cup water, stirring constantly. Add bouillon granules, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened.

3. Stir in salt, pepper, and steak mixture. Cook until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat. Combine corn-starch and sour cream; stir into meat mixture (do not reheat).

Serve over noodles; sprinkle with parsley.

6 servings

Best Review - Top 5 Best Visited Websites

Best Review - Top 5 Sites That Pays You To blog