Don't be afraid to subsitute ingredients

This morning I made biscuits, I had some Canadian bacon and a few eggs in the fridge and was in the mood for a breakfast sandwich. I didn't have any buttermilk and I didn't want to use up any of our milk so I substituted plain yogurt in my recipe. I was very hesitant but I took the plunge and made my biscuits and they turned out fabulous. I only made a half batch in case my experiment failed.

That's my Kitchen Tip - Don't be afraid to experiment and substitute ingredients.

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Cookie Coating

I thought of this tip as I was trying to quickly make snicker doodle cookies the other day for a gift. Normally I take balls of cookie dough and roll them around on a plate of cinnamon sugar, I found it much much quicker to dump all the balls of dough in a large zip top bag add in cinnamon and sugar and toss. The cookies were evenly coated in a matter of seconds. My cookie dough was frozen, if you tried this with freshly made cookie dough the balls would stick to each other.

I was so pleased with how this worked, plus the left over cinnamon sugar can be stored in the bag for another use.

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Clothes Pin Recipe Holder

I recently discovered that my oven hood is magnetic. If you are like me your well loved recipe cards and print outs are wrinkled and splattered with all sorts of food stains. Yesterday, I made a recipe holder to get my recipe cards and printouts off the counter and in a more visible location. I glued a magnet to the back of a standard clothes pin. I than added a little paper tag for cuteness. The clothes pin attaches to my range hood and works really great. I love it! No more messy recipe pages. Now if only I can think of something to protect my recipe books.

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Making Frozen Yogurt

I made Raspberry frozen yogurt yesterday, It is so good and so easy. Also a less guilty pleasure than ice cream. You'll need an ice cream maker, I use the Kitchenaid mixer attachment ice cream maker.
Here's how I made my frozen yogurt:
Take two cups of plain yogurt place in fine mesh strainer and let about 1/2 liquid drain off. Meanwhile mix 2 cups frozen raspberries or strawberries with 1/3 cup sugar, pulse in blender or food processor until coarsely chopped, set aside. Sprinkle 1 envelope unflavored gelatin (2 1/4 teaspoons) over 1/4 cup whole milk and let sit about 10 minutes to soften gelatin (I suppose you could try a flavored gelatin) In a sauce pan bring to a simmer 3/4 cup whole milk with 1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons sugar, stirring to dissolve sugar. let cool 5 minutes. Add gelatin mixture and stir. Let cool to room temperature and than gently mix in the strained yogurt and berries. Refrigerate until cold and than poor into your ice cream maker and freeze as directed. Getting the mixture cold is really important, it helps your ice cream maker work better.

It seems like a lot of steps, but it's quite easy and well worth the reward. It was my first time using gelatin in frozen yogurt, I just happened to have some in my pantry from an old recipe. I think the gelatin helped give the frozen yogurt a creamy texture. Really fantastic! Plus it got the husband's seal of approval.

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Keeping a Recipe Binder

Keeping a recipe binder has been one of the best things I could do as a home cook. When I started keeping a binder with recipes it was a place for me to store printed out recipes and my monthly menu plans. It has morphed into something so much better. I no longer print out my menu plans, I didn't reference them anyways and it's all saved on my computer. What's in my Recipe binder is every successful and favorite recipe. No more searching through cook books and no more long internet searches looking for a recipe, it's all in the book. Only tried and true recipes make it in the binder. Most recipes are printed from internet sites, some I've re-typed from a cookbook, and some are torn from the back of food packages. If I try a new recipe and it turns out great the recipe goes in the binder along with the date and any notes about changes I've made. I use tabs to organize the recipes, the tabs have labels such as Chicken, Breads, Salads, Soups, Breakfast, and so forth. This recipe binder is such a great way to keep recipes organized. If get stuck when planning my menus I often browse my recipe binder, I always stumble across a recipe that has not been made in awhile and was a favorite. It's especially helpful to read my notes on the recipe page, some recipes even have a cost per serving calculated, I haven't done that for all of the recipes, but it's nice to see.

I heartily recommend starting your own recipe binder filled with your own tried and true recipes, it will become the most referenced and well used tool in the kitchen.

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Kitchen Tip Tuesday - Freezing Homemade Chicken Stock

Today's tip is not my own original tip, it comes from Martha Stewart. This tip is wonderful! it has helped me out a ton in the kitchen. When I make homemade chicken stock, I get about 4-5 quarts and of course I can't use all that stock at once, it only stays good in the fridge a few days, so I freeze it for future use. Well that's all fine and dandy until I need a measured amount of stock and find myself with a ginormous hunk of frozen stock. The tip:
Freeze your stock in muffin tins, once frozen you'll have little pre-measured disks of stock, you can pop them out of the muffin pan and throw them in a large Ziploc baggie then take out what you need when you need it. I use a silicone muffin pan, I place it on a baking sheet so it lays level and doesn't spill, the silicone pan works nicely too because the frozen stock just pops out of the cups. I measure out 1/4 cup increments, I like this size because my chicken pot pie recipe calls for 1 3/4 cups of chicken stock, so I grab out 7 frozen stock pieces and I'm good to go; no measuring needed. If you don't have the space or a large quantity of muffin tins you'll have to do freeze in batches; what I do is freeze two muffin tins full and the rest of the stock I freeze in 1 or 2 cup increments in separate containers, you can also freeze the stock in Ziploc baggies, they will lay flat in the freezer and take up hardly in room, plus it's easier to label a bag than a plastic container. When I want to make soup or need a larger amount of stock I take out a container or bag to thaw, it requires labeling if you freeze more than one size. I tell you once you make your own chicken stock you'll rarely buy it in the store. Homemade stock is easy, has more flavor, is far more healthier (read the labels you'll see) and definitely more cost effective.

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Storing just a few eggs

This is my first Kitchen Tip Tuesday. Today’s idea is something that my family did when I was younger, I didn’t pay much attention to it until I started running my own house, now it seems I can’t help but try and remember all the things my mom did in the kitchen to make life easier.

When you have just a few eggs in the carton, cut the carton in half, this has two benefits. First it takes up less space in the fridge and secondly you don’t risk grabbing a half empty egg carton and accidentally dropping it because of the weight imbalance, (tell me I’m not he only one to grab a carton of eggs on the empty side and nearly drop them) It isn’t difficult to cut the egg carton but make sure you use good strong kitchen shears.