Cooking Tips

1. To make any chocolate cake or brownies so much more rich and moist, try adding 1/2 cup of sour cream, and then a packet of Jell-O instant chocolate pudding!

2. The following is for my friend Debby who is looking for tips for her effort at a new book. I license her to full ownership of it and claim copyright here.

COOKING RICE made easy! When cooking rice, there is usually a problem of getting the amount of water to rice ratio down. And all too often, the even measures are too much or too little, making it hard to regulate the quantity.

But there is an easy way to get this problem solved. This works for parboiled rice especially well, and oriental rice.

Take your size appropriate cooking vessel. Into it pour your desired quantity of rice. Then pour in cold water making sure that none of the kernels are floating. Shake the pot to make sure that the rice is leveled across the bottom and pour in enough cold water to get to the point where when you stick your pointing finger straight into the water, the water only goes as high as the first knuckle when you can just touch the rice. That is my measure for parboiled. I used slightly less for the oriental rice, but it wasn't much less. This method works for me every time. And since most fingers are about the same length at that spot, this should work for you too.

Bring the rice to a boil for a few minutes and then turn it down to simmer in your covered pot. You can also add seasonings to your rice when cooking. We use soup stock powder or onion powder. Soy sauce applied directly to the water will give it a mild flavor as well.

When the rice is cooked, stirring in a little butter makes it so that the rice does not stick together. You might want it stuck together, but we like ours loose.

Even though I own a nice rice cooker, I never use it anymore since this will get the job done much better. What you do to it after is up to you.


Side note: scorching will be a problem for those using electric stoves unless you use one of those wire star spacers between the element and the pot.

(tip 2: Mike Summers)

3. Garlic Tip: If you take some fresh garlic cloves and put them in a cup on a kitchen window sill in dirt. water them they will grow like green onions, I take a pair of scissors and cut them down about 1/2 way ( they keep growing) and I'll hold them over a salad or what I'm cooking and snip them off in little pieces! It's fresh garlic and doesn't get the smell on your hands!

(tip 3: Tdemex)