Avoid These Mistakes To Make Vegetable Recipes Perfectly

We all know that our food is incomplete without the use of veggies. These hold much of importance in cooking as these are used in almost every recipe that we make. Hardly any such recipe is there where it doesn’t make use of them. Here I have listed some of the common goof ups that we commit while making them.

These are listed here one by one:

• Skipping the basic cooking process of veggies:

Basic cooking is required for almost all of the recipes you can’t use them as raw. Yes it true some veggies are good when served as raw. Some of them give more nutrients when they are partially cooked and it also makes them tastier to eat.

• Preparing them in advance

I prefer to do things in advance like peeling and cutting the vegetables beforehand. This should not be done with veggies actually it makes them lose their nutrients and also freshness. Its better keep them in the fridge and then once you want to make them then only peel and wash them.

• Not cooking the Veggies properly

Don’t ever forget to overcook the veggies as it may unnecessarily spoil them. Carrots and peas take more time to cook rather than spinach so you need to take care of the timings. If you are making a mixed vegetable recipe then cook firstly those which take more time rather than the one’s which can be cooked easily this way you can end up into something quite good to eat .

• Not doing Caramalization of Onions

Onions are used in every recipe that we make in our daily menu. It’s better that you do the caramalization of onions properly to make them taste better. Take 30 minutes out in your entire recipe’s cooking time and then caramelize onions. Make sure that the onions are sautéed properly.

• Creating mess up in the pan while cooking

Mixing all of the ingredients together in the pan is again a great mess. Use of small pan and over flowing it with veggies doesn’t let them caramelize rather than they are steamed so make use of right amount of oil and go for bigger pans to come up with a good recipe

• Forgetting about the seasoning part

Skipping the seasonings of the vegetables is again a blunder. As proper seasonings adds flavor to your dish. Don’t forget to do that.

You know what I actually followed all these steps now I have come up with really good vegetable recipes. Otherwise in my family nobody liked to eat them as they always tend boring with same taste.

Now adding different flavorings, seasonings, and herbs helps me come up with great dish every day.

I put in some efforts to look out some of the best brands which can offer me some good tasty vegetable recipes. I came up with Knorr vegetable recipes and food vegetable recipes . Definitely you will love this and will avoid these mistakes in future to make perfect vegetable dishes. 

My St. Patrick's Day Celebration

Hello everyone again I have come up with something interesting to share. Yesterday it was St. Patrick's Day and everyone in my family was in high spirits for making preparations for the day. We do observe a holiday that day so kids were there at home. They were busy with their father in making the preparations for the small family get- together. It’s actually a small party which I do host that day at home. Fortunately my husband has much of the expertise in making the arrangements for this family event.

We stay in New Orleans, my grandmother-in-law is from Ireland so it is our family tradition to celebrate St. Patrick's Day every year. As usual I was in charge of the kitchen and solely responsible for serving mouthwatering dishes to the guests.

I simply checked on some of the top recipes in Google and shortlisted these 3 recipes for the main course section. For appetizers and starters I had planned to try something already tried and trusted. Now the challenge was to get details of these ingredients along with the recipe instructions just to make my recipe making process easy. I tried the following ones which are listed below:

Chicken Alfredo Recipe: 

I started to make this dish first as it was to be served in the main course and my husband likes chicken very much so I had to make this one good at any cost. You know what it took me only 15 minutes to make this dish as its recipe instructions are quite easy to follow. What all you need is skinless, boneless chicken breast, bell pepper, Knorr Pasta Sides and much more. I have mentioned the URL for the details of the recipe.

Source: Knorr.com 

Fox 10 St. Patrick's Day Party Foods & Recipes by Help from Hayley:

Out of all the recipes shown in the video here I tried Corn beef cabbage rolls with Guinness gravy dipping sauce. I wanted to follow my grandmother-in-law’s Irish tradition as I hardly knew about how to make the traditional Irish foods just to enjoy my party fully.

Honey Grilled Chicken with Citrus Salad: 

Source: Saveur.com.

Again I looked for another chicken recipe to add to everyone’s delight. This is actually a grilled chicken dish which was ready in just 30 minutes as half of the work is done by the oven as grilling is the most important task. If done properly it can make your dish delicious. It makes use of fresh orange juice and honey read rest of the ingredients from the list.

Once I was done with all three dishes, I felt so happy to serve them on the dinner table. I really felt not at all tired while making them and I fully enjoyed the dance with everyone.

I am telling you Google gets all the credit for making my St. Patrick's Day celebration a really memorable one.

Get Away with These Soup Slipups

It is a well-known fact that out of all the cooking recipes making soups is quite an easy task as it doesn’t need much of the cooking expertise. What it needs is a bit of patience and avoiding certain list of mistakes. We all know these are of utmost demand mostly in winters as they literally warm up your bones and make you feel energetic.  

Actually I myself do numerous mistakes while making soups so I thought why not to look for their solutions on the web. Below I have listed few of them which may be of some help to those who do encounter these mistakes while making soups just like me.

Don’t let the soup boil just simmer it:

Boiling literally makes your soup content completely dry and viscous just. Go for simmering it lets the flavors from ingredients to come out smoothly with a rich texture.

Don’t use much of the salt:

 Image Source: ei.isnooth.com

Don’t ever put salt at the beginning while preparing soups as you may end up with something which is too much salty hence spoiling it. Always add it in the end because simmering let’s all the flavors come out so you may need a pinch of it. This will prevent you from making an overly-salty soup. 

Use water instead of stock:

Image Source:irishamericanmom

Some believe that making soup in a stock is good but this is a misconception as sometimes if you haven’t checked the taste of the ready made stock it may spoil your whole soup recipe. But it is a proven fact that making soups in water lets its flavor of ingredients go well. Simply keep this in mind add the right amount of salt that too in the end.

Don’t add tomatoes at the start:

Acidic nature of tomatoes keeps beans and other vegetables go crunchy. So add them when last 20 minutes are left for your dish to cook.

Don’t overcook the vegetables:

Do saute onions garlic and then add water and beans, and also simmer it. Repeat this step with every soup recipe as these are basic ingredients which add flavor to every soup. Carrots should be added in last half an hour otherwise they come out soppy.

I hope the if you skip the above listed mistakes you can certainly end up with a soup that is worth serving to your loved ones and bring smile to them.

I generally like to prepare soups in the weekends and sit and relax in my balcony which is garden facing. I enjoy every sip of the soup with a view of my garden which is layered with rich blanket of green grass and beautiful flower beds.

Let me share my secret soups (just joking) from Knorr soup recipes and Delia Soups that I generally prefer to make as they easy to make and meet my taste buds.  

While Cooking Shrimp Recipes – Skip These GoofUps

Among the huge variety of seafood Shrimp is one of the most widely used as you can prepare many variant recipes using it as one of the main ingredient. It is the richest source of protein with cooking time which is far less in comparison to other meat types. In market it is available in many different forms such as frozen, raw etc. So it all depends on your choice and cooking expertise which one you want to try your hand at.

But beware it’s not that easy, but you can take this challenge simply by keeping the following listed points in your mind while cooking the shrimp recipe.

You may hardly get to read such tips anywhere else as I have tried to represent all of them in a much better way.

Read here one by one as follows:

Once Purchase Cook Immediately:

Image Source: nationalgeographic.com/

Shrimps are very delicate they lose their taste very soon. So after every purchase of the shrimp never ever wait for more than 24hrs to cook them. As they are available in far flung sea beach areas so already they are kept frozen during the transportation process. So if possible cook them immediately otherwise they may taste like Ammonia which means throw them into the dustbin. The one’s which are good to use for cooking taste like briny and are very fresh.

Amazing Recipe Made with Marsala Wine

Hope You had great Christmas and New Year holidays. You all must have enjoyed your favorite food with friends and family. Same here, together with my family members I enjoyed much and did lots of fun with friends in California. I like gossiping that is my hobby and sharing recipe ideas with my friends is mostly the topic of discussion. This New Year eve party my friends were discussing about simple and easy recipes which most of them had cooked and enjoyed eating. During the party I met a friend, Rob who was talking about Italian recipes with marsala wine. And he had made many mouthwatering dishes using marsala wine as one of the ingredients.  

So, after New-year’s  hangover I went through internet and browsed recipes for marsala wine. I was surprised to see thousands of recipes with marsla wine. I tried chicken marsala recipe on third day of new year. Taste was awesome. 

Check one of them which I have shared as below.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 Tbsp. I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!® Spread
• 1 package (10 oz.) white button mushrooms
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 tub Knorr® Homestyle Stock - Chicken
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup dry Marsala wine
• 1/2 tsp. fresh thyme 

Methods:

• Evenly coat chicken with flour.
• Melt 2 tablespoons Spread in 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and brown chicken, turning once, about 8 minutes. Remove chicken from skillet and set aside.
• Melt remaining 1 tablespoon Spread in same skillet over medium-high heat and cook mushrooms and onion, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are golden brown, about 6 minutes. Stir in Knorr® Homestyle Stock - Chicken until Stock is melted. Stir in water, wine and thyme. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low. Return chicken to skillet and simmer uncovered until sauce is thickened and chicken is thoroughly cooked, about 2 minutes.

Source: www.knorr.com/recipes/detail/11265/1/chicken-marsala

Like me, hope you also like this delicious recipe. Believe me marsala wine accelerates the recipe taste beyond limit. Over the internet lots of marsala wine recipes are available. Try and enjoy these Italian recipe. 

Dinner Ideas For 4

Easy Chicken Recipes for Dinner

Chicken is such a versatile meat many recipes can be made with it. I am a working mom out for the whole day; in evening I hardly get time to think about what to cook for dinner. So an idea came to my find why not to use variant recipes for making dishes with chicken that can actually make my life easy. So what I did, I shopped for chicken meat and other required ingredients during weekends. I kept the chicken in store ready in the freezer so as to maintain its freshness.

Now time to look for something never tried before chicken recipes.

Bored of the repeated chicken recipes I browsed internet for some new ones. I came across the following ones which have been mentioned here one by one. All of these are tried, tested and their taste is also good. Let’s check them here:

Hawaiian Honey Mustard Chicken:

Cooking chicken here with a difference. The sweet savory taste of honey adds a different flavor to his dish as it is so easy to cook blended with rich flavors.  It is made with the Honey Mustard from Big Island Bees. This is one of my favorites as I have added honey to chicken for the first time in my life. I am sure my kids will love this one.

Vegetable Recipes – Key to Healthy Living

Everyone wants to stay fit and fine but because of their busy lifestyles it becomes hard for them to cook something healthy. Vegetable recipes provide us an easy way to stay healthy even diabetic people are often advised to eat them. Vegetables are considered quite an easy thing to cook and are also enriched with nutrients if prepared properly.

As per WHO, in a day humans are advised to consume at least 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables. If they do not include vegetables in their diet they are prone to vitamin deficiencies and illnesses.  Vegetables can be taken in the form of normal meals for lunch or dinner, soups or juices. It is easy to make vegetable juices or soups as you can take all necessary vitamins and minerals just in a single drink. Rather than taking other dietary food supplements they provide us a good alternative.

Let me discuss here one such vegetable recipe called Mediterranean potato salad which I came across the internet while looking for something different.

If you don’t want this dish to be a low calorie one then you can simply swap the mayonnaise base for cherry tomatoes, roasted red peppers, olives and fresh Italian herbs.

Ingredients

• 1 small onion, thinly sliced

• 25g black olives, sliced

• 1 garlic clove, crushed

• 1 tsp oregano, fresh or dried & olive oil

• ½ x 400g can cherry tomatoes

• handful basil leaves, torn

• 100g roasted red peppers, from a jar, sliced

• 300g new potatoes, halved if large

Method

• Take a saucepan then heat oil in it, add the onion and fry them for 5-10 mins until they turn soft. Add the garlic and oregano and cook them for about 1 min. Now add the tomatoes and peppers, season them well and simmer gently for about 10 mins.

• Meanwhile, in a pan of boiling salted water for 10-15 mins cook potatoes until they turn tender. Drain it well, then mix with the sauce and serve warm and sprinkle it with olives and basil.

Source:bbcgoodfood.com

My kids are picky eaters and they do make faces when vegetable dishes are shared with them. I came across this article which explains how green leafy vegetables takes care of your kids good health .

Soup Recipes – Another Healthy & Easy Alternative

Soups can actually make a healthy dish and are great in many aspects. Just by mixing the ingredients together you can actually make a delicious and nutritious dish with perfect combination of ordinary ingredients. The soups have many health benefits which can help us to treat various cold and flu ailments. It is always best to make them at home and do not go for canned soups which are often sold in grocery stores. The canned soups do not have any real benefits as these are treated with a lot of colorants, preservatives and fillers which are not good for your health.

Tortilla Soup Recipe

However, there is a lot more which we can actually think about making soups starting from scratch. I am going to share here one such a soup recipe called Tortilla Soup. This is a spicy and hearty soup dipped over by cheddar cheese and crispy tortilla strips.  Actually soup can be made chunky with chicken and avocado, but the tortillas give it a slight thickness.

Servings: 4

• 6 tablespoons cooking oil
• 8 6-inch corn tortillas, halved and cut crosswise into 1/4-inch strips
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 large cloves garlic, smashed
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder, paprika & ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 1 1/2 quarts canned low-sodium chicken broth or homemade stock
• 3 cups canned crushed tomatoes in thick puree (one 28-ounce can)
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 cup lightly-packed cilantro leaves plus 3 tablespoons chopped cilantro (optional)
• 1 3/4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
• 1 avocado, cut into 1/2-inch dice
• 1/4 pound cheddar, grated
• Lime wedges, for serving

Directions

1. Take a large heavy pot, then heat oil over moderately high heat. Add half the tortilla strips and cook them for about 1 minute while stirring continuously. Remove it over a slotted spoon and then drain it on paper towels. You can repeat it with the remaining tortilla strips.
2. You can reduce the heat to moderately low. Now add the onion, garlic, and spices; cook them while, stirring, for 5 minutes. You can now the broth, bay leaves, tomatoes, bay leaves, salt, cilantro leaves to one-third of the tortilla strips. Bring it to a simmer and cook them, uncovered, for 30 minutes; remove the bay leaves.
3. Take a blender, puree the soup in batches; now pour it back into the pot. Add chicken, bring the soup back to a simmer for about 1 minute until it’s done. Stir in the avocado.
4. To serve, keep the remaining tortilla strips in bowls, then top with the cheese, and pour in the soup. Sprinkle with the chopped cilantro and serve with the lime wedges.

Source: foodandwine.com

Earlier also I had shared Soup Recipes – The goodness for 12 Months which contains recipe information about many different types of delicious and aromatic soups such as classic pumpkin soup, pureed sweet potato soup, French soup recipe etc. Try any one of them they are quite appetizing! 

Appetizer Recipe – Appeals to Everyone

There is a wide range of appetizer party recipes available from where you can get ideas to choose from with appealing flavors. At times you can make your own alterations to make it an excellent choice of your guests. You can make appearance of your appetizers as per your elegant themes such as caviar or brie cheese.

Recently while looking for recipes for appetizers I came across this article which explains How Fruits can be used to make dip recipes served as appetizers. It explained to me fruits such as apple, cherries, bananas, blueberries can also be used to make good party dip appetizers

So I have come up with an appetizer recipe using Apple as a main ingredient.

Apple-Blue Cheese Chutney Recipe

Yield: Serves 10 (serving size: about 3 1/2 tablespoons)

Total: 1 Hour, 10 Minutes

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons canola oil & brown sugar
• 1/4 cup finely chopped shallots & golden raisins
• 2 1/2 cups finely chopped peeled Braeburn apple (2 large)
• 1 cup apple cider
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme, divided
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper & kosher salt
• 1/2 cup (2 ounces) crumbled blue cheese

Preparation

1. Take a small saucepan then heat oil over medium-high flame. In this pan add shallots; sauté them for 1 minute then add apple and next 4 ingredients (through vinegar); bring it to a boil.

2. Reduce heat, and simmer, uncovered, 25 minutes or until most of liquid evaporates till the time apples turn tender.

3. Remove pan from heat; stir in 3/4 teaspoon salt, thyme and pepper. Cool it to room temperature. Gently stir in blue cheese. Sprinkle with the remaining 3/4 teaspoon thyme.

Note:

Make-ahead tip: Prepare and refrigerate the chutney up to three days ahead; bring it to room temperature before serving. For a prettier presentation, you can top crostini with chutney, and sprinkle the cheese on top instead of stirring it into the chutney.

Source: www.myrecipes.com

Appetizers are favorites of everyone as they really do increase your appetite before jumping on to your main course dish. During weeknights I hardly find time to make them but with some easy recipes which I have found over the web now I can easily make them every alternate day.

Till then Happy Cooking! Enjoy Eating!