Food

If you’re passionate about creating delectable desserts and pastry masterpieces, you’ve come to the right place. In the world of pastry, precision and technique are key, but there’s always room for creativity and innovation. Whether you’re a seasoned pastry chef or just starting out on your culinary journey, mastering the art of pastry making requires dedication, practice, and a few insider tips. 

In this blog post, we’ll share seven practical tips to help you achieve pastry perfection in your kitchen.

Start with Quality Ingredients

The foundation of any great pastry is high-quality ingredients. Choose fresh, seasonal fruits, premium chocolates, and pure extracts for the best flavor and texture. 

Invest in top-notch flour, butter, and eggs, as these are the building blocks of most pastry recipes. Don’t skimp on quality when it comes to ingredients – your taste buds will thank you.

Measure Accurately

Precision is key in pastry making, so always measure your ingredients carefully. Invest in a digital kitchen scale for accurate weighing, especially for ingredients like flour and sugar. 

Use measuring spoons and cups for smaller quantities, and level off ingredients to ensure consistency in your recipes. Taking the time to measure accurately will help you achieve consistent results every time.

Master the Art of Pastry Dough

Pastry dough forms the base of many classic desserts, so mastering the art of dough-making is essential for any pastry chef. Whether you’re making flaky pie crusts, buttery croissants, or delicate puff pastry, pay attention to temperature, handling, and technique. 

Keep your ingredients cold, work quickly but gently, and give your dough time to rest for optimal texture and flavour. Enrol yourself in a pastry degree offered by the best culinary training institution.

Understand the Science of Baking

To truly excel in pastry making, it’s important to understand the science behind baking. Learn about the role of ingredients like flour, butter, and leavening agents, and how they interact with heat to create the perfect pastry. 

Experiment with different baking temperatures, mixing methods, and ingredient ratios to fine-tune your recipes and achieve the desired results.

Embrace Creativity 

While mastering the basics of pastry making is important, don’t be afraid to get creative and experiment with flavors, textures, and presentation. Incorporate unique ingredients, try new techniques, and put your twist on classic recipes. 

Some of the best pastry creations come from thinking outside the box and pushing the boundaries of traditional baking.

Practice Patience and Precision

Pastry making is a labour of love that requires patience and attention to detail. Take your time to follow recipes carefully, and don’t rush the process. 

From rolling out dough to piping delicate decorations, every step of pastry-making requires precision and finesse. Practice your skills regularly, and don’t get discouraged by setbacks – every mistake is an opportunity to learn and improve.

Pay Attention to Presentation

They say we eat with our eyes first, so presentation is key when it comes to pastry. Take the time to plate your desserts beautifully, paying attention to colour, texture, and balance.

Experiment with garnishes, sauces, and decorative elements to elevate your creations and wow your guests. Remember, the final touch can make all the difference in creating a truly memorable pastry experience.

Friends, do you plan or have planned to pursue a degree to become a pastry chef? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Texan BBQs are the best! There is nothing like gathering your family and friends together for a good old-fashioned Texas-style BBQ. But if it’s your first time hosting one, you may be wondering how to go about arranging it. Don’t worry; this blog post will give you all the information you need to throw the perfect Texan BBQ for your loved ones.

1) Choose Your Menu:

A Texan BBQ is only complete with the classic dishes. Select main items such as burgers, ribs, brisket, pulled pork, and sausage. You are talking of pork; what about delicious bbq pork buns just as an appetizer? If you are feeling adventurous, why not try some recipes that take advantage of the local produce, such as Texas chili con carne or Frito Pie? You could also include some lighter sides, such as coleslaw, potato salad, and beans.

2) Choose your Grill:

When it comes to Texas BBQs, nothing beats a charcoal grill for flavor. Opting for one with an adjustable height grate will allow you to cook both low and slow types of meat, like brisket, at a low temperature over many hours and still be able to cook up burgers in minutes using direct heat from the burning coals.

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3) Prepare the Sauces:

No Texan BBQ is complete without a selection of sauces. Sweet and smoky BBQ sauce is ideal for adding some extra flavor to your meat. However, you could also make a hot chili sauce or an all-purpose rub. Make sure you have enough dipping bowls and bottles of sauce so everyone can customize their plate.

4) Gather Your Supplies:

Gather your supplies for a Texan BBQ with thought and care. You will need charcoal, lighter fluid, wood chips for smoking, and butcher paper. Remember the tongs and a wire brush for cleaning the grates afterward. Remember to bring seasonings, spices, rubs, sauces, and marinades that go along with the main dishes you plan to cook. Ensure you have enough plates and utensils for everyone as well as napkins. Lastly, consider some fun decorations such as festive banners or a Texas-themed tablecloth to give your BBQ an authentic feel!

5) Set Up Your Grill Area:

Set up your grill area carefully to ensure your BBQ is a success. Start by finding the perfect spot in your backyard, preferably one that’s shaded. Then make sure you have plenty of space around the grill to allow for movement and safety. Once you have that sorted, spread out some butcher paper to protect the ground and create a space to keep all of your grilling supplies close at hand. Finally, light charcoal in an old steel can or fire pit and wait until it’s glowing red before adding wood chips for smoking. Your guests will be impressed with an authentic Texas BBQ experience!

In conclusion, throwing a Texan BBQ for your family and friends is a great way to create lasting memories. With the right menu, supplies, and setup, you can host the perfect Texas BBQ in no time. So gather your loved ones around the grill, fire up the coals, and enjoy. Happy grilling!

Cooking for the family requires a lot of meal planning, which is sometimes not easy when you have fussy children to cater to. 

However, with these simple tips, it will be a lot easier to plan meals efficiently and ensure that you will cater to everyone’s needs. 

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Make the vegetable part fun

It is common for some children to say that they dislike vegetables, which is often because they know it is good for them. Therefore, it is a good idea to make the vegetables more fun. This will encourage them to eat them and make mealtimes more pleasant as you won’t have moans or tears when the children are told that they need to eat their greens.

For instance, instead of using standard broccoli, you could create easy broccolini and add some herbs to it to make it taste different. The different appearance and taste will maybe not even have them realize that it is the same vegetable that they usually kick up a fuss about. 

Add something that they love

To ensure that everyone in the family is satisfied with their meal, especially the children, it will always be a good idea to add something that they love. This could mean adding their favorite sauce to the table or cheese to the top of their dinner. 

Ensuring that there is something on the menu to cater to everyone, or at least those who are fussy, will make sure that mealtime is as peaceful as possible. It will also ensure that your family trusts your cooking and that you will always cook something nutritious yet yummy.

Make the food colorful

Making food colorful and vibrant is always bound to excite anyone that eats it. Even adults love colorful and fun food. 

Therefore, it can be a great excuse to ensure that everyone eats their 5 a day if you make the plates as colorful as possible. 

You can even make your dinners more colorful with alternative ingredients, such as courgette spaghetti as opposed to standard spaghetti. The more colorful it is, the more fun dinner time can be. 

Play music

Should your dinner times often be a time where you and your family like to sit and unwind (with minimal conversation) then you make the experience more relaxing by playing some ambient music. 

Likewise, you can make it more fun and playful with music for the times that you want to make dinner time more exciting. Should you be cooking a world cuisine, you could play music from that country. 

Make conversation

Should you and your family like to have conversations over dinner to catch up, then you can make family meal times more meaningful by doing so. 

You could take it in turns to start a conversation and from there, allow the conversation to ebb and flow and make the dining experience more intimate and engaging.

Change the table setup

If your meal times can sometimes feel dull or too repetitive, then it will help to change the table setup. This could mean changing the centerpiece so that you have something different to look at and talk about. Or, you could change where everyone sits. 

It can be common to sit in the same places at dinner. Therefore, you can mix things up and make them exciting by changing the seating plan every so often. 

Eat outside

When the weather is nice, there is no better reason to eat outside. You and the family do not always need to stay cooped up inside to eat dinner.

Instead, you could cook your meal on the BBQ or simply all take your dinner outside to sit and eat around the outside table. 

Ask people to join in when you cook dinner

You might it boring to cook alone. Or, your family might be restless while you are cooking. To combat these issues, you should ask people to join in with you when you cook. It is a great way to introduce new flavors and skills to your children. Although they might not be able to help with the chopping or cooking itself, they can fetch things for you and try the sauces before you marinate the food. 

Asking family members to get involved can enhance the experience and ensure that everyone gets an opportunity to have their say in what should be for dinner. In time, people might even offer to cook, which means you will get to sit down and relax for once. 

Please note: We received this Dinnerly meal kit for review purpose. All opinions expressed are my own. Thank you!

Do you love quick, delicious, nutritious meals? If so, you’re in for a treat.

Today I’m sharing my experience with Dinnerly, a mail order meal delivery subscription service. Dinnerly was created for people who appreciate budget-friendly homemade meals at home, but don’t want to spend a fortune in doing so.

Dinnerly features quality ingredients but are able to keep their costs low by implementing several simple living approaches. Including offering subscribers digital recipe cards, fewer filler ingredients with each dish, foods that require less processing, and simplified, recyclable packaging.

All without costly, gimmicky marketing campaigns. All savings that are passed directly onto their customers. Perfect for frugal foodie customers like myself!

First impressions

The Dinner boxes we received came delivered quickly to our home. The boxes themselves were very sturdy and made of post-recycled materials. Including the boxes foam cushioning and also came with reusable ice packs.

On each box, you will find cute, family-friendly insignia and on the inner box flaps, meal planning checking guides. The other flap has info on how to contact customer service and where to access more service information too!

The kit I received, a Family Box, that contained enough ingredients to prepare three meals, had a retail value of $68.99 Family Box. The box will feed approximately 2 adults and 2 kids for each meal.

I also appreciated that in the box was a reminder to “keep digging” in the box to find the dairy and turkey products in the bottom of the box. As this will help to make sure you quickly locate these perishable goods and safely get them chilling in your fridge!

The Cost

The Dinnerly service is very affordable, in terms of meal delivery services. With the average meal costing under $30.00 for each meal, along with $8.99 shipping. With the overall cost in the ballpark of $30.99 Two Person Box (3 recipes for 2 people) or $60.99 Family Box (3 recipes for 2 adults and 2 kids).

Considering that many families buy these kits to help jumpstart healthy meal planning at home or for entertaining, this cost can be less than what you might pay in-store.

The Products

Each box I received contained pre-portioned ingredients to cook three 30-minute meals. With each kit containing only 6-7 ingredients, excluding seasonings, per meal. Perfect for one ingredient meal planning at home.

While I am a plant-based eater, I did opt for one box that contained organic ground turkey. This was purposely selected as my family was entertaining the weekend the box was scheduled to arrive for out-of-town non-plant-based friends.

So for those who do buy meats and dairy products, I wanted to mention that Dinnerly features quality ingredients like antibiotic-free poultry and free-range ground beef. Perfect for family-friendly meals such as tacos, spaghetti, stir-fry, chicken wraps, or lettuce cups.

In each box, we received kale, butter leaf lettuce, ground turkey, parmesan cheese rounds, sherry vinegar and olive oil bottles, plum tomatoes, fresh garlic, and ginger, as well as jalapenos, baby Bella mushrooms, three red onions, rice, polenta packets, and two bags of rigatoni pasta.

Shipping

Currently Dinnerly delivers to most of the United States. Including California, Mississippi, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho, with expansion to midwest and southern regions expected by the end of August 2017. UPDATE! These states are now included: most of Texas, Illinois, Georgia, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida.

The Recipes

As Dinnerly doesn’t include paper recipes, I downloaded my three recipes to my iPad so I could reference them while cooking. As I normally use a tablet while cooking in the kitchen, this was natural and almost second hat to me.

I was impressed with how few ingredients were needed for each recipe. As each of the recipes I received is suggested to serve two adults and two children, I knew we would have more than enough for our family of three and weekend guests.

The first meal my husband and I made was the Turkey Stir-Fry Lettuce Cups with Jasmine Rice. The meal was super easy to prepare and was a favorite of our guests.

I appreciated the low-carb, low-gluten aspect of this dish. I could see it lending itself to a myriad of family styles and palettes!

The second meal we prepared was the Spinach Pesto Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes. This was my favorite meal. It was super quick to make and creamy and oh so delicious! The recipe lends itself well to being roasted in our convection oven. The device we use most often in the deep south during the warm weather season.

The third meal we prepared was the Roasted Mushrooms and Kale with Creamy Polenta. This meal was also quick to make, delicious, and was so plentiful in ingredients that we had leftovers to serve alongside the next day’s brunch!

Last impressions

Dinnerly is by far the cheapest meal kit I’ve ever tried. At only $5.00 per person, per meal, these meals, while not pretentious in nature, were full of organic, quality ingredients, that are simple to make, and were all received well by my family and friends.

While you aren’t able to swap out weekly meal opinions with this service, I have a hunch that each meal you receive will be just as tasty as the next!

My only gripe? Some of the recipe’s ingredient lists differed slightly from the ingredients we received. Such as menus listing cremini mushrooms while we received Baby Bella mushrooms. Small nuances that made no difference to the quality of the final meal, but are worth mentioning.

I also wanted to mention that I have a video on my main YouTube channel sharing the step-by-step creation of each of these recipes that you can take a look at if you are considering buying this subsection too!

Friends, what do you think of Dinnerly? Would you subscribe to this box? Let me know your first impressions below! And if you are a current Dinnerly subscriber let me know about your previous kits too!