Archive for February, 2010
Most of us eat at restaurants for a variety of reasons; time and convenience are the most common motives. Below is a prepared list of quick tips for eating out of your home.
If you eat healthy food or sensible portions, that you like, you can stick with eating healthy for life.
Your portions should be spaced out over the course of the day. Water should be a part of every meal.
After you eat, your stomach should be half full, or less, with food. For every two parts of food consumed, you should drink one part water. Leave your stomach at least one quarter empty for movement of air.
When eating at a restaurant, eat half a portion, maximum, and wait five or ten minutes. Restaurant portions are commonly two to four meals on a single or double plate.
This is way too much to consume at a single sitting and you may find out that, once you pause and sip your drink, you are already full.
In the Providence, RI area, there are some restaurants where the single portions could feed a family of four. No wonder a man of 200 lbs. is now considered thin. Do not make comparisons to other people. Eat to live and enjoy your food, but do not use someone else’s over indulgence as an excuse for your own.
Establish control over your appetite. Most of us feel guilty if we don’t finish a plate. This is usually conditioning from your childhood. Bury your guilty past and have the rest “wrapped to go.”
Always eat something for breakfast and never “skip it.” When you skip breakfast, you will over-consume for it, later in the day.
Eat slowly and thoroughly chew your food.
Make sure your last meal, or last “snack” of the day, is small and nutritionally dense. Examples: Cereal with fruit, vegetable salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, rice with vegetables, and light popcorn, without the extra butter and salt. For those who eat meat or fish: turkey, chicken, or salmon salad on top of fresh greens.
In the later part of your day, skip desserts, sugary cereals, bread, and second portions.
If you absolutely must have sugar: Eat fruit, strawberries with yogurt or low fat cottage cheese, fruit with rice, or almonds with yogurt.
If you must have coffee or alcohol, beware that these should be consumed in extreme moderation. Both substances will dehydrate your body, and you will have to drink extra water to make up for it. Wine is much better than hard alcohol, but one or two glasses a day is the limit.
Barbequing can be a risky business. You invite your friends and family over for some home-cooked goodness — but how do you know your barbecue is going to turn out good? What if it’s not as good as the last time you made it?
Even for seasoned Barbecue vets, getting your meat consistently good is something that can be more than a little tricky. Well I’m here to tell you that it’s totally doable, and here are eleven tips that will help:
1. Purchase ribs that are evenly covered in meat. In other words, don’t buy a slab that is fatty on one end and fleshy on the other. Avoid slabs that have exposed bones!
2. Allow for one pound of ribs per guest. This is a generous helping but for more impressive appetites, make it two!
3. When preparing the meat, make sure you remove the membrane on the underside of the ribs with a sharp knife. If you don’t it blocks the flavor intake.
4. Always marinate your ribs in the refrigerator, not at room temperature.
5. Don’t even think about boiling those ribs! Above all else, boiling the meat causes it to lose all its flavor. If you just have to pre-cook your ribs before slapping them on the cooking grate, try steaming your slabs instead as this will help lock the flavor in.
6. Before placing your ribs on the grate for Barbecuing or smoking, make sure you coat the metal with a generous helping of oil.
7. Barbecuing demands constant attention! As soon as it goes on your grate, stay close by and keep an eye on it. Watch the cooking temperature and avoid going above 250 degrees Fahrenheit — the best ribs are cooked slowly over indirect heat for about five hours.
8. Put down that fork! Always use tongs to handle your meat once it’s on the grate. Why pierce the meat and let the flavor ooze out if you don’t have to?
9. If you’re going to baste during cooking stay away from anything with sugar in it. Your best bet is to use vinegar and/or water-based products only.
10. Only lay on the BBQ sauce in the last 20-30 minutes of cooking. Any sooner than that and the heat will cause the sauce to caramelize and burn your meat.
11. Let the ribs cool for 10-15 minutes before you serve them up. This is just a courtesy — you don’t want to singe your guests’ mouths with smoking hot sauce! You could lose some friends.
Now the only thing left to do is to go out and implement these tips. Happy barbecuing!!
Its almost like a tradition but in the spring time of every year people in America blow the dust of there barbecue sets and start to bulk buy all their meats. But how much do we really know about barbecuing?
1) Barbecues originated in pig-pickin’s, before the civil war it was common to throw parties and elaborate meals outside, they would roast an entire pig on an open flame.
2) “Smoking” has been used for over 6 millenia to safely cook and store food. The meat was treated to bellows of smoke and low heat this was done to prevent any bacteria cultivating.
3) Barbecuing is not that common, well not barbecuing as we no it barbecuing is a length cooking experience that cooks at a temperatures similar to boiling water in order to tenderize the meat while preserving the juices. Today the method most commonly used is in fact broiling, cooking at in much less time and a far higher temperature, about 300 degrees higher.
4) According to surveys done by the Barbecue Industry Association, half of all marshmallows consumed in the U.S. have been flame roasted.
5) One of the insanely easy ways to check your gas tank level, use bathroom scales.
6) The origin of the word barbecue is unclear. Some believe it came from the American-Indian word barbacoa for a wood on which foods were cooked.
7) To add a Smokey flavor to food cooked on a gas grill cooked or food that you cook inside the house, use “liquid Smoke.” Liquid Smoke is a condensation of actual smoke, this product is simply added to any barbecue.
Brisket, this incredibly dense cut of meat taken from a cow’s chest, cooks in 1 to 2 hours per pound on a barbecue. This works out at an average of 12 hours cooking time on the grill for a basic 8 pound piece!
9) Kansas City, Missouri and Lexington, North Carolina both claim to be the barbecue capitals of the world. Memphis, meanwhile, stakes a claim to being the pork barbecue capital.