Holidays are near - What's your favorite family dessert that satisfies your sweet t tooth?
Those sound delicious ... Pumpkin Pie ,Pecan Pie and Apple Pie with lots of whip cream.
What holiday tradtions does your family have?
I love your holiday tradition. It sounds so comforting and wonderful. Don't feel sad about Christmas Eve - it is yours for the making. If you like, you can borrow one of our favorite traditions from that day: The family gathers over platters of sandwiches (hot or cold), party mix, hot punch and each one opens a single gift of their choosing. (We save the big exchange for Christmas morning.) After we visit for awhile, then we meet at a church (we don't necessarily go to our own - we like to visit a different church each year) for a Christmas Eve candelight communion service. (Service times can vary, so please call ahead to find out for sure.) If we're really fortunate, we find a church that has special music that night (a children's choir or handbells, etc). It's a marvelous way to celebrate - we don't feel like it's Christmas without that. Favorite Christmas treat: It's very simple, but it makes our home smell wonderful and is something very soothing and comforting to have on hand: the hot apple cider I mentioned earlier. You can't go wrong with this combination of ingredients, and there's no real formula - this is a flexible recipe and the amounts can vary depending on your personal taste: Take 1 gallon of apple juice, 6-8 ounces of cinnamon red hots, and anywhere from a splash up to half a gallon of orange juice, combine in a crockpot and heat until the cinnamon hots are melted. You can keep this simmering in your crockpot all day if you like, and it's so nice to set this out with a cheese-ball and crackers or some ready made shortbread cookies - it doesn't have to be elaborate. It's just a nice place to nibble in between visits and meals. Hope you have a wonderful holiday too!
Do male chefs often cook for their family at home?
I do yes. I pretty much cook every meal. i work offshore. So I have a whole month at home with my family. I cook breakfast for me, my wife and daughter everyday. In the afternoon, my daughter and I, who is nearly three will cook lunch together and make biscuits or bread. ( i refuse to raise a child that does not know what a carrot is or doesn't know how to cook). This isn't everyday, some days she is in nersary. Then I always cook dinner, it's not always of a restaurant quality, because frankly who wants to eat like that everyday. Plus my wife told me it ruins it for when we do go out for a meal together because it's never as good
Do you always have bread, crackers, cake or cookies at home?
No.I have never been able to keep cake or cookies in the house. I just gobble them up. If I buy more, I'll gobble those too. So I can't keep them in the house unless I want to weigh 300 pounds.Crackers are almost as bad. My favorite crackers are crisp, delicate, buttery, and fragrant with sesame or rosemary or whatever the cracker is flavored with. My least favorite crackers are tasteless and tough and not worth eating even with any amount of good stuff put on them. So usually when I buy crackers, I get or make a few of the good ones and eat them all right away.Now, bread isn't really meant to last. When I lived in Japan, next to a bakery, I'd buy a small loaf and use it over the next two or three days. You really don't want to have bread beyond that, unless you specifically want stale bread. (And Japan is so humid that usually it goes moldy before it goes stale.).So if I wanted to have bread on hand, I'd just have to buy it frequently, like cake. And it was expensive enough that I didn't want to do that. Sometimes I did keep it on hand in the freezer, but normally I just bought it when I wanted bread.Now that I live in the States again, I'm becoming addicted to Chorleywood-process bread, which is as light and fluffy as angel food cake, and as sweet as brioche. It only comes in very large loaves, and it takes a very long time to go stale. So I end up taking a week or so to get through a loaf, and I guess I have it on hand more often than not.However, I think of bread kind of like meat: There are lots of types of it, but it goes bad, so you should buy the type you want when you want it rather than trying to keep it on hand.
Small baking business out of my own home? Questions! Help!?
It does not matter who you sell to, the minute you charge someone for your food, you become a retail food outlet and in most jurisdictions, you must have a health department inspection. Beyond the inspection and permit, you will also need a business license. Having said that, each jurisdiction has different rules or what will pass an inspection. In some places, you can get away with a normal kitchen as long as it meets the criteria, in other places, you have to install a commercial kitchen (which can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars). Start by contacting your health department and have them send whatever information they have on commercial kitchen permits and inspections. remember, you can probably get away without the permit/inspection for a while, but once people start hearing about your food, word will eventually get back to the health department and without the proper permits, you can/will be shut down and face possible fines, etc.
How can I make use of my cooking talent?
Hi:) I love cooking. I really think I'm a great cook and everybody says so. When we have family gatherings everyone asks if I'll be cooking, and when we have a party at home or if a friend of mine is having one, I'm always asked to cook something. I especially ADORE baking. Cakes, muffins, cookies, brownies, everything. Everyone loves my cookies and when we invite guests at home I'm always asked to cook my special chocolate fondants (lava cakes). I'm always open to new ideas and always look for new recipes to try, and for some reason the recipes I tried always turn out to be succesful from the first try. I was asked to cook the desserts for our school's Halloween party and I found 4 new recipes and they all turned out amazing from the first time. I always think in professional ways. I mean, I always think of how to make money, not just for the sake of making money, but to make use of what you can do. And, I really think I could make use of this talent of mine. We've got the equipment I need at home, there are so many sites I can take new recipes from and I have the talent and potential. So why not do something with it? I would love to cook, or just bake cakes or something for lots of people. I'd love it if lots of people could try what I can do. Thing is, I'm 14, and I obviously can't open my own store. Isn't there any way I can make use of my talent and sell my food, or maybe just the baking stuff(muffins, cookies etc) I can cook to lots of people, without having to open a store or a bakery? Like from home or something?
I want to start selling home baked cakes in Mumbai. How do I start with it?
Making delicious cakes is a Art and finding people who can buy those cakes is more difficult than making a art and you can not do both at once .So lets concentrate at what you are good at .i know a few good home bakers in Mumbai from whom we order cakes for our office party or at any occasion .The best part is the cakes are so delicious that we have now left ordering from Monginis ,Ribbons and Balloons .The secret here is the freshly made to order cakes . It really doesn't matter to the customer if the cake is little costly than other branded store because of quality and the taste we get from Home Bakers is a class apart.A lady who makes cakes for us is having a website of her own .she told me rather than setting up a cake shop and investing 5–10 lacs + Rent its better to operate from home as people needs cakes and look at taste rather than your shop.To start a home bakers needs to have a website of his own from where he can receive orders and a little bit of digital marketing to make people know in your city that you exists. Distributing some pamphlets in news paper also helps to get initial ordersthere is a company called Dinomeals [1]which can help you set up a online cake shop to operate from home and they also market your products locally so that you start getting orders the only part left with home bakers is o make delicious cakes and deliver it .the money you make is all yours and don't have to give commission to anyone.Once you acquire some good customers your Home baking business grows with word of mouth .The passion and Confidence to serve people what you have is the key to any business.Footnotes[1] Dinomeals Online Food Ordering Solution
Feeding family cheaply?
Try things like : #1-Roasted turkey tenderloins with whipped potatoes and fresh veggies. Fruit for dessert. #2-Fresh fish of your choice, rice and a salad. #3- French toast with syrup and fresh berries. #4-Nachos with refried beans,cheese, olives, salsa,sour cream cheese. #5-a pasta meal. #6-meat balls or meat loaf.pasta and fruit. #7-Home made soup[ chicken, chowder, chili,tomato, onion ] and a cake, cookies or pie for dessert. #8-BLT's with fruit. #9-roasted chicken with sour cherries,veggies and sweet potatoes #10-Grilled cheese and fruit #11-make your own pizza night and a salad. #12- meatball samwiches[ leftover meat balls ] #13-quiche, salad and ice cream #14-Fill your own baked potato- sour cream, veggies and such,ice cream. Good luck
Ideas for gifts for my German host family?
I like the recipe idea for Britta, but make sure to bring measuring cups, too. I veto the book idea for Burkhard, because it seems unlikely that he will speak English, and if he does, it probably won't be very good. Since you are from Pennsylvania, maybe you could bring him a beer glass from Rolling Rock or Yuengling or something? A Steelers t-shirt? For Julia, maybe something peanutty, but not peanut butter? Reese's cups, etc. I second the "bring PB for yourself" thing. For Johanna and Jana, since you don't really know much about them, I also agree with the "tourist kitsch from your area." Maybe you could bring them t-shirts with your high school's logo or the logo of a local university? German schools typically don't have logo t-shirts, so it's a really popular thing for exchange students to bring back from an exchange year, and establishes them as sort of trendy (just like wearing stuff from European universities is sort of trendy here). They will probably speak at least some English, so consider bringing them some copies of magazines like People or fashion magazines. I taught at a girls' Gymnasium for a while and my students loved looking at American magazines. For Janina, how about your favorite toy from when you were 5? A lot of (Germanized) American games are available, but not all of them. Just getting an Ami version would be super cool for her, even if she's got the German one already. For the family in general, consider bringing a nice book of photos of Pennsylvania. Someone at the local book store will probably have some ideas for good ones. If you're thinking of bringing food, Oreos, Doritos, Pop Tarts, and Old El Paso dinner kits are huge treats. Hope this helps, and have a good Austauschjahr!