Cookhacker

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Now that know the best way to sharpen your knives (see previous post for the  Accusharp Knife and Tool Sharpener)…here is the best and cheapest way to keep them sharp. Every time you put an unprotected knife in a drawer you run the risk of ruining the edge. It just takes a little bump to bend or roll the delicate edge of a sharp knife, and although honing with a good sharpening steel is something you should be doing, as it will straighten out the blade’s edge, it doesn’t actually sharpen the knife. Over time the knife will start to dull, until one beautiful summer day while you’re futilely attempting to slice a tomato for a BLT, the knife slips off the fruit (yes, the tomato is a fruit…look it up) and lops off your entire thumb (ok…that’s a little dramatic, but I’m trying to make a point here). Of course, you can buy knife guards, but it’s exceptionally easy to make them at home. All you do is take some cardboard (the thin kind from a gift box works best, but any cardboard will do), cut a long strip that’s the length of the knife’s blade and a little more then twice as wide as the blade, fold it in half length-wise to fit the knife, and just staple evenly down the open edge. Slip this on whenever you store your knives, and they’ll stay sharp no matter how much they rattle around in that overstuffed drawer.

I love my knives and, as incongruous as it might sound, a sharp knife is a safe knife. When a knife is dull, more pressure is needed when using it and that increases the chance that the knife will slip and do some damage…a sharp knife is not only much easier to control, but it really adds to the joy of food preparation.

Sharpening a knife using a sharpening stone is best left to professionals. It’s a great skill to learn, but it takes a lot of practice as it’s tough to get the proper angles. The Accusharp Knife and Tool Sharpener is an inexpensive, safe and easy to use tool that makes knife sharpening a pleasure. It has diamond honed tungsten carbide sharpening blades set at the proper angle so you can’t make a mistake, and in about 10 seconds, you have a nice, sharp edge.

The are a lot of myths and facts about knife sharpening, but if you use the right knife for the job and you keep it sharp, you’ll find food prep to be a pleasure.

No need to go crazy buying knifes. I recommend starting out with a good quality 8″ chef’s knife (the workhorse!), a 3″ paring knife, a 5 1/2″ boning knife, 5″ Tomato/Utility Knife, an 10″ serrated bread knife and a honing (sharpening) steel. Just make sure you store them properly (I love my magnetic knife holder) and you should be ready to tackle any kitchen cutting job with ease.

It’s finally summer, so it’s time once again for the best breakfast ever…Healthy Fruit Smoothies. The great thing about the following technique is that you can substitute just about any fruits and juices that you like…it’s all good.  For this Hawaiian smoothie, I took fresh picked papayas and bananas, cut them into chunks and froze them overnight. To make the smoothie, put about a cup of frozen papaya chunks, a cup of frozen banana pieces, 6 oz. of your favorite blueberry yogurt (I use Dannon) into a blender and add about 3/4 cup of V8 Splash (available everywhere…I use Tropical Blend, but any flavor you prefer will do). Pulse the blender for about 30 seconds, and if necessary, give it a quick stir (make sure the blades have stopped!), and repeat a few times. If it appears too thick at this point you can take the top off the blender while it’s running (make sure all the fruit has been pureed before you do this or you may end up wearing some smoothie) and slowly pour in a little more Splash until you see a vortex begin to form in the center-you’ll know what I mean when you see it happen-and the Smoothie will have a perfect consistency. If you love peanut butter like I do, you can add a heaping tablespoon (I prefer chunky) and blend for a couple of seconds more…it’s incredible!  For convenience, you can buy bags of chunked frozen fruit just about anywhere. I love the Costco brand..it has peaches, strawberries, pineapple and honeydew and comes in a 6 lb. bag. The secret, though, to a really great smoothie is the frozen bananas (I always keep a baggie full of frozen banana chunks in the freezer)…that’s what gives it the amazingly creamy consistency.

A sharp, well balanced knife that feels good in your hand is a pleasure to work with and makes cooking that much more enjoyable…when the right knife is used properly, it really makes you feel very “cheffy”. I’ve already posted how to sharpen knives and keep them sharp, and the amazing chart below (which I totally copied from Kitchen Kapers) really helps you figure out exactly what knife to use (or buy) for the job at hand.

There is need to go crazy buying knifes. I recommend starting out with a good quality 8″ chef’s knife (the workhorse and the most important tool in your kitchen, imho), a 3″ paring knife, 5″ Tomato/Utility Knife, a 10″ serrated bread knife and a honing (sharpening) steel. Just make sure you store them properly (I love my magnetic knife holder) and you should be ready to tackle any kitchen cutting job with ease.

Style of Knife	Shape of Knife	Ideal Job for Knife
2 3/4″ Peeling Knife		For peeling of all round vegetables – potatoes, onions, etc.
3″, 4″ Paring Knifes		For paring, peeling and slicing small fruits and vegetables.
5″ Tomato/Utility Knife (Serrated)		For tomatoes, salami, croissants.
5 1/2″ Boning Knife		For separating meat from bone, cooked and uncooked. The smaller the size of the meat (or bone) the more flexible the blade should be and vice versa.
5″, 6″ Utility Knives		As the name indicates, for many, but not for all cutting jobs. Peeling, slicing, chopping, carving.
8″, 10″ Carving/Slicing Knives		For carving medium sized roasts and fowl, cutting large vegetables, fruit.
6″, 8″, 10″ Chef’s Knives		For chopping and dicing. The knife handle is rocked up and down with one hand while the fingers on the other hand rest slightly on the back of the blade, towards the tip.
8″ Bread Knife (Serrated)		For cutting bread or any other food of soft substance with a tough skin or crust.
5″, 7″ Santoku Knives		For slicing and chopping. Hollow edge allows air between blade and item being cut for extra thin cutting. Unique edge must be sharpened by professional.
Cleaver		For chopping through joints or bones.
10″ Sharpening Steel		For sharpening the knives. A sharp knife will provide maximum safety. Use the sharpening steel regularly, preferably every other time the knife is used.

It’s that time of year again…Girl Scout Cookies are on sale! For those of you that are still bummed out over the news last year that the Girl Scouts cut back on the varieties (it was huge national news…just check out The Wall Street Journal), there is help online. One of my favorite blogs, Baking Bites, has a great post on how to make your own. And if your favorite cookie isn’t covered in that post, check out Chow. Fijis, Slim Mints, Do-Si-Dos, Samoas, Tagalongs…they’re all there for the making. Even if your favorite wasn’t scratched from the line-up, you should give these recipes a shot. Not only do they taste better when you make them yourself, but you also get a wonderful feeling of accomplishment that helps negate that horrible feeling you get when you look in the mirror after gorging yourself on them. And after you’ve had your fill of Girl Scout cookies, check these out, the Best Chocolate Chip cookies ever invented!

Here is one of the all-time great Valentine’s Day recipes. I actually made these for the first time years ago, long before I really got into cooking, so although  it might look like it’s hard to prepare, it really isn’t…and it’s a lot of fun!

1. Get a few coffee-bean bags from your grocery store. You need bags that are lined with a plastic coating so when painted with chocolate, you can peel them off easily. Cut the coffee bags so they are about 3-5 inches tall.

2. Then, in a double boiler over low heat, melt 2-3 cups of semisweet chocolate morsels.

3. Lay the bag in its side and with a small pastry brush, starting at the bottom, paint the melted chocolate over the entire interior of the bag. Use plenty of chocolate to get a nice thick coating, which will make it less likely for the chocolate to break when peeling off the bag.

4. Stand the bags up and place in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. They can be left in there until you need them.

5. When the chocolate is nice and hard, starting in one corner, gently peel away the bag. Use a scissor to cut the paper off as you peel it…it just makes it easier.

6. Melt some more chocolate and dip strawberries, sliced bananas and whatever else your significant other loves into the melted chocolate. As an added touch, you can also melt some white chocolate and use that to drizzle designs on the dipped treats. Lay them down on waxed paper to dry and harden.

Then just fill the bags with the treats and your favorite candies and you have an incredibly impressive presentation for your loved one on Valentine’s Day. It sure sealed the deal for me!

The best way to keep bread is at room temperature. After 2-3 days, you should wrap the bread well, put it in a freezer bag and freeze it.  Never store any bread in the refrigerator, because the cold temperature (38º-40º) accelerates the crystallization of the starches, causing the bread to stale much faster. When I bake a bread, as soon as it cools completely, I cut it, freeze half immediately and keep the other half cut-side down on a cutting board covered with a clean cloth. When that’s consumed, I take out the frozen half, defrost it at room temperature or wrap it in foil and bake in a 450º oven for 10 minutes and it tastes just as good as the day it was baked.

Awhile back I wrote about how important it is to have a great scale, like the OXO Good Grips Scale, and to weigh ingredients for consistent results. As you’ve probably experienced, Americans seldom give weights in recipes, but in the UK, they almost always do. Well, over at Lifehacker, someone named Jesseg came up with an amazingly simple, yet inciteful, idea…when looking for recipes, search using google.co.uk, rather than google.com and the recipes you find will almost always have weights…just make sure you remember to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, or your stuff may never get done!

Everyone loves french fries, but deep frying at home is messy and the clean up sucks. These oven baked fries are just as tasty, a little bit healthier and way easier to make and clean up after than the deep-fried variety. The secret is the pre-soak that removes some of the starch and helps the fries to crisp up on the outside while staying tender and moist on the inside. Pair these with my Oven Baked Buffalo Chicken Wings and you have a great finger-licking good, faux deep-fried, quasi-healthy meal that everyone will love. If you prefer thinner, crispier garlicky oven baked fries, please click here.

Please click here for the printable recipe.

When you need to juice a lemon or lime, place it on a hard surface and roll it back and forth under your palm, applying pressure, for about a minute before juicing. The helps break down the cells and will result in more juice with less effort.