How to Heat Brownies

warming up brownies makes them taste even better (click to enlarge image This is an easy method that doesn't require switching on the oven or risk drying out the delicate brownies in a microwave. It is particularly effective as it will not melt your brownies' chocolate icing topping.

Steps

1. Position a small metal frame over a pop up toaster.
2. Place the brownie on top of the frame.
3. Adjust the toaster to high
4. Switch on the toaster
5. Once the lever pops up the brownie should be warm.

Tips

• Use tongs to pick the brownie up once it is heated.

Warnings

• Don't place the brownie directly on top of the toaster without the frame, the heat that collects under the brownie could melt the plastic on your toaster.

How to Make Garlic Hummus

This how-to will walk you through the steps necessary to create a large batch of vegetarian garlic hummus.

Ingredients

• food processor or similar device (e.g., a blender)
• 4 cans of chickpeas
• juice of 2 lemons
• 1 bunch of parsley
• 7-10 cloves of garlic
• sesame tahini
• garlic flavored oil (or olive oil)
• spices of choice ***
• 1 large onion
• 1 red pepper
• 1 green pepper
• 1 large carrot
• sea salt

Steps

1. Drain and rinse the chickpeas and set aside.
2. Peel the garlic and chop it up a little bit before placing it in the food processor.
3. Chop some of the stems off the parsley before placing it in the food processor.
4. Add lemon juice and blend.
5. Add about 1/2 of the chickpeas, 2-3 tbsp. tahini and 2 tbsp. oil.
6. Blend.
7. Add remaining chickpeas and blend again, with more oil if needed. Mixture should be creamy, but fairly thick.
8. Season to taste with spices of choice, along with salt and pepper if desired.

Tips

• Use large quantities of: cumin, basil, onion powder and garlic powder, along with small amounts of: coriander, paprika, and oregano, and tiny bits of: cayenne pepper and thyme. Make sure spices are well-blended into the mixture.

Warnings

• As with any cooking, season as you see fit. Individual tastes vary. You can always add more spices, you can never add less.
• Some people may have allergies to one or more ingredients listed in this recipe.

How to Make Bread Balls

Bread balls are delightful, melt-in-the-mouth crunchy snacks that the kids will absolutely adore.

Ingredients

• breadcrumbs
• 2 eggs
• milk
• granulated garlic
• oil for frying (an oil that is suitable for high temperatures, such as peanut oil)

Steps

1. Mix 1 egg with 1 1/2 cups of breadcrumbs.
2. Add a dash of milk.
3. Mix in another egg.
4. Add a dash of granulated garlic.
5. Add 2 tablespoons of milk.
6. Mix these ingredients together well.
7. Form small ball shapes from the resulting mixture.
8. Fry the ball shapes in a small saucepan. Provide enough oil to cover the balls. Fry until brown.
9. Prepare the topping. After fried, coat top in butter and dip in parmesan cheese.

Tips

• Salsa is a delicious dipping sauce for older kids and adults

Warnings

• Take proper precautions around the hot oil.

How to Make Garlic Bread

Steps

1. Choose your bread. French bread (the long loaf/baguette) works best.
2. In a small bowl, mix crushed garlic with olive oil, and let it sit for a few minutes.
3. Use a brush to moisten the bread with the olive oil mixture.
4. Sprinkle on garlic powder. There should be about enough to lightly cover the entire surface, but not to the point where it falls off when you invert the bread.
5. Place the bread in a toaster oven or conventional oven on an ungreased cookie tray at 350ºF for about 10 minutes or until lightly browned.
6. Or: Try mixing the garlic with butter and mixed herbs to create a delicous spread that will go well on any type of bread.

Tips

• If garlic cloves are unavailable, you can use just the garlic powder.
• Try sprinkling on onion powder or chili powder for a new twist.
• Try adding Parmesan cheese to the garlic butter for extra flavour.
• Make a terrific bruschetta by spreading the olive oil and garlic mixture on bread, then topping the slices with chopped onion and tomato. Add a few shavings of Parmesan if desired.

Warnings

• Be careful when using an oven as not to burn yourself or others.
• The pan will be very hot when you remove it, so place it on a heat-safe surface until it cools.
• Be aware that people may have garlic allergies or simply dislike it, so ensure you ask your guests before serving this at a dinner party. It's a good idea to have plain bread or herb bread available as a stand-by for such guests.

Things You'll Need

• Bread (preferably French)
• Garlic cloves
• Olive oil
• Garlic powder
• Parmesan Cheese
• Butter
• Mixed Herbs
• Cooking brush

How to Make Bread from Scratch

If you want the supermarket bread aisle sandwich fodder, then by all means hit the back button on your browser right now. If you'd like some bread that is arguably 10 times better tasting, definitely fresher, contains no preservatives, is 30% air rather than 90%, and can hold its own in a meal, even without butter, then perhaps you would like to know how to bake bread.

This page goes well in combination with How to Make Bread Now, this is based on the "very basic bread" recipe by Alton Brown. The recipe can be easily found (as the link proves) on the foodTV web page, but here it has the added insight that comes from viewing Alton explain it, the experience of actually doing it some 25 loaves now, and research into bread theory from other resources.

Ingredients:

• 16 ounces bread flour, plus extra for shaping
• 1 teaspoon instant rapid rise yeast
• 2 teaspoons honey or sugar
• 10 ounces bottled or filtered water
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt

Optional:

• 1/3 cup water
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp honey

Functional:

• 2 quarts hot water
• Vegetable oil, for greasing the rising container
• 2 tablespoons cornmeal

Note:

Yes, you are going to want to use bread flour if you can. Bread flour has a higher protein content and therefore forms more gluten in the bread dough, and gluten is good. Make sure to weigh it - volume is a very inaccurate way of determining how much flour you have.

The water is important, too. Most faucet water has chemicals in it that kill micro-organisms (such as yeast) and distilled water has too little minerals. Alton recommends using water that has been filtered with a charcoal based filtration system (such as a Brita Filter) or bottled mineral water.

Steps

1. Combine 5 ounces of the flour, 1/4 teaspoon of the yeast, all of the honey, and all of the bottled water in a straight-sided container; cover loosely and refrigerate for 8 to 12 hours (overnight is best).
   
   • Why do we do this? Well, yeast does two things for bread: it leavens the bread and it adds flavor/texture to the bread. The problem is that to properly leaven the bread, yeast needs to reproduce quickly (to produce the gasses inside the bread), and to provide the proper flavor/texture it needs to reproduce slowly. The way around this is to make the pre-ferment or "sponge." By putting the yeasty mixture into the refrigerator, you slow down the fermentation process. This lets the dough absorb some of the gasses let off by the yeast (yielding a softer dough later on) and gives the bread an aged flavor. (You may think that "aged" doesn't sound good for bread, but it is.) And lastly, the extra time and hydration helps to form the gluten strands that are so very important for bread dough.
2. Place the remaining 11 ounces of flour, remaining yeast, and all the salt into the bowl of a stand mixer, and add the pre-ferment from the refrigerator. Using the dough hook attachment, knead the mixture on low for 2 to 3 minutes just until it comes together. Cover the dough in the bowl with a kitchen towel and allow to rest for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, knead the dough on medium speed for 5 to 10 minutes or until you are able to gently pull the dough into a thin sheet that light will pass through. The dough will be sticky, but not so sticky that you can't handle it.
   
   • (Though the mixer does make things easier and quicker, hand kneading is another path to the same destination.)
3. While the dough is kneading, pour half of the hot water into a shallow pan and place on the bottom rack of your oven. A glass baking dish works well.
4. Grease the inside of a large straight-sided container with the vegetable oil. Place the dough ball into the container and set on the rack above the pan of water. Allow to rise until doubled in size, approximately 1 to 2 hours. (The hot water does two things: It warms the dough to let it rise faster and it keeps the air inside the oven moist, keeping the dough from forming a dry skin on top.)
5. Once the dough has doubled in size, turn it onto a counter top, lightly dust your hands with flour, and press the dough out with your knuckles; then fold 1 side in towards the middle of the mass and then the other, as if you were making a tri-fold wallet. Repeat the folding a second time. Cover the dough with a kitchen towel and allow to rest for another 10 minutes.
6. Flatten the dough again with your knuckles and then fold the dough in onto itself, like you are shaping something that looks like a jellyfish. Turn the dough over and squeeze the bottom together so that the top surface of the dough is smooth.
7. Place the dough back onto the counter and begin to roll gently between your hands. Do not grab the dough but allow it to move gently back and forth between your hands, moving in a circular motion. The point of this is to tighten up the skin of the doughball as much as possible.
8. Move the dough ball to a pizza peel or the bottom of a sheet pan that has been sprinkled with the cornmeal (so it can slide off later). Cover with the kitchen towel and allow to bench proof for 1 hour, or until you poke the dough and it quickly fills back in where you poked it.
9. Place an unglazed terra cotta dish upside down into the oven and heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Be sure to put the dish into the cold oven. Terra cotta needs to heat and cool slowly and evenly or else it will crack. To ensure a properly pre-heated oven, turn it on while you let the dough bench proof for the final hour.
   
   • (The point of the dish is that terra cotta is made of earth. While metal conducts heat, earth will absorb and radiate heat. The physics behind the amount, rate, and direction of the heat need not be fully understood to appreciate that it helps your bread come out right.)
10. Combine the 1/3 cup of water and the cornstarch in a small bowl. Uncover the dough and brush the surface with this mixture.
11. Gently slash the top surface of the dough ball in several places, approximately 1/3 to 1/2-inch deep. The standard would be the shape of a square on top of the loaf, but you can do an X on top, slash lines, whatever you would like.
12. Add more of the hot water to the shallow pan if it has evaporated. Slide the bread onto the terra cotta dish in the oven and bake for 50 to 60 minutes (this can vary in practice depending on how hot and what size your oven is). Once the bread has reached an internal temperature of 205 to 210 degrees F, remove to a cooling rack and allow to sit for 30 minutes before slicing.
    
    • (The idea is that while it bakes it will expand and the crust will form. If the crust forms a shell, it will make the bread too dense. The slashes let the bread rise one last time in a situation where it can't expand in all directions, and the water provides steam that will prevent the crust from forming too quickly.)

Tips

• Don't skip the salt. Salt regulates the fermentation of the dough and keeps it from growing out of control.
• If you can, knead the dough by hand. It may go slower, and it is a bit more labor intensive, but kneading dough is one of life's simple pleasures.
• When "punching down", be aware that this is not like 'wedging' clay: you are not trying to force air out of the dough while working it. Instead, its perfectly ok to trap air inside the dough while manipulating. Yeast needs to breathe.
• The rest periods in-between are important so as not to overwork your dough and let the gluten "relax." If you are impatient, I suggest you pass the time by smelling the dough while it rises, a quite enjoyable experience.
• Step 10 is optional, but gives you a crispier crust.
• When it comes time to cut the dough, a bread knife does the job quite nicely.
• Step 5 is a good time to fold in any additions you may want, such as nuts or herbs.
• The recipe uses 1 pound of bread flour, and bread flour usually comes in 5 pound bags. When you get the hang of it, go for a quintuple recipe all at once. Since you're investing so much time in the rising and kneading and gluten resting, you may as well get enough bread to last you.*

The thin sheet of dough is also known as the bakers window. This lets you know if the gluten is properly dispersed.

• It is not necessary to buy bottled water in order to make bread. Chlorine is a gas dissolved in water. To remove it, simply keep some water uncovered in the refrigerator for a couple of days. You can do this with your drinking water as well.
• Bleached flour rises higher than most.

Warnings

• Don't skip the final 30 minute cool down. Cutting too early can smoosh your bread, and it would be tragic to spend all that time on bread just to mess it up in the last moments.

How To Make Bread

Freshly baked bread is one of life's greatest simple pleasures. It's much easier than you might think to make your own. It won't come out like generic white sandwich bread, and it may take a few batches till you get consistently good results, but don't give up! Anyone can learn how to make bread. These instructions are for people without breadmakers, those with breadmakers should give the real thing a try while you're at it.

Steps

1. Choose a bread recipe.This is not a recipe Every recipe is more or less the same: 1 package of yeast (equal to 2 1/2 tsp), one cup of liquid, and about 3 cups of flour per loaf. Read the Tips and Warnings below before you start, or check out how to Make Bread from Scratch.
2. Make sure you have the right ingredients. Cake or pastry flour is too "soft"--bread should be a bit chewy. Avoid self-raising flour as well. All purpose is fine, but bread flour (it will be labeled as "bread flour," "high protein flour," or "flour for bread machines") is best--it has a higher gluten content, so will respond to kneading better.
3. Now you have your ingredients all ready--don't bother preheating the oven yet, you're a long way from baking. If the weather is chilly and damp, and if your house is cold, turn on the oven to the lowest temperature for about 5 minutes to make a warm place for rising.
4. When using RapidRise Yeast you no longer have to dissolve the yeast in warm water like the old days.
5. Mix together all of the dry ingredients but the flour, including the yeast. Just add 1 cup of flour to start.
6. Mix together all of the wet ingredients and heat to very warm (120° to 130°F).
7. Add the wet and the dry together and beat 2 minutes at medium speed of electric mixer. Stir in one more 1 cup flour; beat at high speed for 2 minutes. Stir in enough remaining flour to make soft dough. How much flour you use will depend on how humid it is.
8. Press all the leftover crumbs of flour etc into the dough ball, the turn the lump out on a floury surface, and start kneading.
9. Keep your counter and your hands well covered in flour, and if your hands get sticky with dough, put some flour on them and rub them together, and the dough will crumble off. Keep kneading for about 10 minutes--set a timer if you have to. When you are finished the dough should be smooth, shiny and elastic--it will bounce back when you squish it.
10. Cover the ball of dough with oil, and put it in an oily bowl. This stops the surface from drying out and cracking while it rises--the dried dough will become nasty lumps in your finished bread. Some people also cover the dough with plastic wrap. Definitely cover the bowl with a dish towel, and put the bowl in a warm (but not hot) location until the dough is double in size, 45 to 90 minutes.
11. Punch it down. This literally means, put your fists on the ball of dough and squish it till it's about the size you started with. Don't mess it up too much, just make it small. Divide in two--if you tear, your bread may have marks of being torn. I usually cut mine by bearing down with my big chef's knife, or use one of those dough cutters if you have it (a flat metal piece that looks like a wallpaper smoother). I always cut dough for making buns.
12. If you're using loaf pans, make sure they're greased. I often just shape the dough into a round or oblong loaf and bake it without a pan on a greased baking sheet. If you want the bottom to be dry, sprinkle cornmeal on the greased baking sheet and put the dough on that. If you like the look of a split-top loaf, slash the top of the loaf a couple times with a very sharp knife. Cover the dough and let it rise again till it's doubled, about 30 to 45 minutes.
13. Now you are ready to bake! Of course it's been so long since you started making the bread that the kitchen is nice and clean, or perhaps you started cooking the ratatouile you're going to eat with your hot, fresh bread. Put the bread into a preheated 400 F oven for about 35 minutes (or check your recipe). When it's done it will sound "hollow" when you tap it with your finger, and it will easily fall out of the loaf pan. Cool them on wire racks.
14. Then after cooling, serve as you wish!

Tips

• These tips are numbered to correspond with the steps above. Please read everything before starting!
• What you use for liquid will change the flavour of your bread. Milk and shortening make light white bread. Water and olive oil make tougher Italian bread. You can use wholewheat (wholemeal) or white flour, or a mix of both (recommended as whole wheat can be too heavy), or add other grains, bran, flax seeds, other seeds and herbs... Once you know how you can make up any combination you want!
• "Breadmachine flour" is high in protein and helps the yeast form more gluten, making it ideal for bread in or out of a breadmachine. For super-stiff and coarse Italian bread, substitute in some 'pasta dura' flour, and don't use a loaf pan.
• Kneading: with the ball of dough in front of you, put the heels of your hands on the dough and push into it, like you want to push the dough away from you. Rock your hands back and do it again. Don't let go with your right hand: grab and turn the far end of the dough 1/4 turn to the left, then fold it back on itself, put down your heels and push again. The idea is to work the whole ball of dough--the turning gives you new dough to massage.
• Again, you can make the oven into a warm place by turning it on low for 5-10 minutes. Other options are on top of a radiator on low, or in a strong beam of sunlight.
• Buns--a recipe for one loaf will usually make 1 dozen dinner rolls. Put them on a greased baking sheet spaced a couple inches apart, as they will swell and touch each other when you rise them the second time.
• Optionally, brush the top of the loaf with milk if you want a soft finish, or with egg for a hard shine. If you want to sprinkle any seeds or stuff on top of the bread, do it now.

Warnings

• When the bread comes out of the oven, don't try and cut it immediately, you will likely crush the loaf, or at least tear up the soft inside. It will set in 30-60 minutes. A few clean dish towels draped over the top will keep it warmer, but make sure air can circulate, so the crust doesn't get soggy.

easy resipe

Let’s face it. You don’t always have five hours to prepare a gourmet meal. In fact, most of the time it’s hard to even find an hour to throw something together.

Here are some fast, easy tricks, tips and techniques to save you time and energy.

Buy a salad mix: Those pre-made mixtures have come a long way. They’re not just lettuce anymore. Dressing, toppings such as almond slivers and dried cranberries, and more make it look like you really spent some time. Open the bag and you have salad.

Prefreeze your Chicken Breasts: It’s always good to have some chicken in the freezer. They’ll thaw in minutes and you’ll have a nice meal ready for the family.

Frozen bread dough: There’s so much assortment these days. From crescent rolls to biscuits to the traditional dinner roll, they’re all available and you’re house will smell delicious while they’re baking. Who has time for yeast anyway?

Frozen fruits: Will save you money and time by allowing you to have strawberries in the middle of winter. Yum.

Shredded cheese: Most recipes call for cheese to be shredded anyway so why not buy it preshredded?

Canned stock and broth: Who really has 24-48 hours to make stock from scratch? Not worth it at all.

Shelf pasta: It’s a really quick simple meal when you’ve got nothing else to make. Also it lasts forever, so you don’t have to worry about it going bad.

Salad dressings: Paul Newman is doing us all a favor by having his face on so many different varieties of salad dressing, plus his version won’t spoil as fast and probably costs less.

Artichoke hearts: As much as I love a good fresh artichoke the work you have to do to get that little heart is sometimes not worth it.

Tomatoes: Canned tomatoes are awesome and lots of recipes call for them nowadays instead of the fresh kind. Plus you can buy them in so many sizes and types.