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published in New Orleans, Louisiana Facebook Twitter Newsletters Enter your keywords Menu Home Subscribe Order Magazine Subscription Newsletter Archive Recipe Collections Louisiana Recipes Finder Sensational Salads Seafood Gumbo: Leah Chase and John Folse Louisiana Seafood Boil Favorite Holiday Recipes Holliday Desserts & Cookies Events Calendar Louisiana Festivals & Events Kitchen Tips See List of Tips Contact Us User Login/out Collectors Set Free Recipes by email Email Name State Every week you’ll receive new recipes. See archive Kitchen Tips Reconstitute Dry Mushrooms To resconsititute dry mushrooms add boiling water to a bowl and soak the mushrooms for 20-30 minutes. The resulting broth is very flavorful and can be used in soup preparation or beef stew. Saving Overripe Fruit Tightly wrap, label, and freeze overripe fruit (bananas, peaches, strawberries, etc.) and use it later in breakfast breads and muffins. You usually want really ripe fruit for those recipes anyway. Salt Differences - Kosher Salt, Sea Salt, and Table Salt There are two types of salt: salt mined underground from deposits, and salt collected from evaporated seawater. In both cases the salt is primarily sodium chloride, but flavor differs depending on the minerals present in the earth or water from which the salt was taken. Individual salts also vary... Keeping Knives Sharp Longer The best knife blocks have slots that allow your knife blades to rest on their sides, rather than their edges; the slots are horizontal rather than vertical. If yours has vertical slots, get in the habit of inserting your knives with the sharp edge facing up; over time, you’ll take less edge off... Extending the Life of Salad Greens To save time, wash big bunches of salad greens at once. Use what you need, thoroughly dry leftovers, and wrap in paper towels. Place the wrapped greens in a large plastic bag or storage container; refrigerate for several days. The paper towels will ensure the greens last longer. How to Keep a Sauce Warm If you make a sauce that you need to keep warm while you finish cooking a dish, store it in a thermos or insulated beverage cup. Fill the container with hot water first, allow it to heat, empty, dry it out, and pour in your hot sauce. Filling Zip-top Bags To easily fill zip-top bags, stuff the bag into a wide-mouthed pint or quart jar. Fold the top of the bag down over the sides of the jar and spoon your soup, sauce, peas, or whatever you’re working on into the bag. Fold the top back up, remove from the jar, and seal. To ’burp’ the bag, leave a... Jerusalem Artichokes AKA "Sunchokes" These tasty knobby roots are neither from Jersualem nor are they artichokes. They do taste like globe artichokes.They are a type of sunflower. They have an outer skin like a potato so when you prepare them scrub them well. They can be peeled or cooked in their skin, are delicious sauteed, baked,... Minimizing Tears while Chopping Onions Most of the enzymes that cause eyes to tear up while chopping onions are actually in the root of the onion. Leaving it intact while chopping will minimize the tears. Cut the top off the onion and slice it in half through the root. Peel, and place flat side down on a cutting board, minimizing cut... Making beautiful meringue-topped pies To get that beautifully mounded look to your meringue pie, do this: top the outer ring of the pie with just enough meringue to cover by 1/2". Mound the rest of the meringue in the center of the pie, and spread out and downward to meet the edges, leaving it thicker in the middle. Use the back of a... When is Fried Chicken Done? If the fat used for frying is at the appropriate temperature for your cut of chicken, it wll sizzle as the chicken is submerged. That’s caused when the chicken begins to shrink and push moisture out into the hot fat. You’ll see tiny bubbles at first; as the chicken cooks, the bubbles get larger. If... What to do with leftover tomato As if. But- if you do find yourself with half a tomato left over, don’t let it go to waste. Dice it, sprinkle it with a little salt and the vinegar of your choice, and store it, covered, in the refrigerator for a few days. It’s a great addition to salads, or as a tasty little lagniappe on the... Soup Stock Scum When the wind blows at the beach you’re sure to see a lot of foam on the water’s surface, called spume. Nothing more than bubbles reinforced with a lot of protein. Why do we mention that here, you ask? Because it is basically the same thing that rises to the surface of your simmering stock (called... Always Slice Skirt Steak Across the Grain Skirt or Flank steak have long meat fibers. When you cut with the grain you will be chewing those long fibers for a long time. So, take a very sharp knife and cut thin slices across the grain. These shorter fibers will chew easily and fall apart in your mouth - something we refer to as tenderness.... What is Cake Flour? Cake flour is made from soft winter wheat. It has 8 grams of protein per cup, compared to 10 to 12 grams in all-purpose flour. Less protein means a more tender cake. It also means more starch is available to swell and stabilize the cake. Cake flour is more finely milled which helps batters come... What is a Boysenberry? Horticulturist Rudolph Boysen created this hybrid berry in 1923 by crossing a Raspberry, Blackberry and Loganberry. It is shaped like a large raspberry, has a purple-red hue and a sweet-tart flavor. When buying, chose those berries that are firm and uniform is size and discard any shriveled... Foolproof Pizza Toppings Whether you bake or grill, the trick is for the toppings and the dough to cook in sync. Keep the following in mind. Cook meat and veggies before topping: Pizza doesn’t bake long enough for most raw meat and vegetables to become tender. Better to use slices or crumbles than chunks. Pick the... How Meat Tenderizers Work The use of plants to tenderize meats dates back to the native peoples of what now is Mexico; they wrapped meat in papaya leaves. Papaya contain enzymes that break down the collagen - the connective tissue that makes meat tough. Pineapple has similar properties. These enzymes, papain (from papaya)... Vinegar Useful For More Than Salads Adding a tablespoon of vinegar to poaching water will help eggs to set. When steaming broccoli, try adding a couple of tablespoons of vinegar to the water, the evaporating acetic acid will help to set the color. If you’re stuck with some wilted salad greens, just add a bit of white vinegar to the... Testing Baking Soda and Powder To test baking soda for freshness, add 1/4 teaspoon baking soda to 2 tablespoons vinegar. To test baking powder for freshness, add 1 cup hot water to 2 teaspoons baking powder. Both should immediately begin to hiss and foam up. If not, discard the container and replace it with a new one.Tip... Nuts To You Peanuts are the most consumed nuts in the US but aren’t really nuts - they’re peas. True nuts grow on trees. Brazil nuts, pecans, chestnuts, almonds etc. Cashews are native to South America but are now grown prmarily in India and are "kin" to mango. The cashew comes from a tree with an odd little... Freeze Your Lemons Lemons freeze easily. Place into your freezer singly and when frozen, combine in a plastic ziplock bag with other lemons. Pull out as needed. Cooking With Fresh Versus Dry Herbs In general add fresh herbs toward the end of cooking so they won’t lose their potency. Add dry herbs at he beginning so they have time to rehydrate in the moisture of the dish (especially true of bay leaves). Oregano, thyme, rosemary, tarragon, sage and fennel are best candidates for drying as... Correct Placement of Pizza Stone Like to make home made pizza. If so, you know your oven simply doesn’t get hot enough and the best way around this is using the hottest setting on your oven dial and a pizza stone. A pizza stone is designed to soak up radiating heat like a sponge. Now, most recipes call for placing the stone as low... Stop...