All Food Recipes

In August 1976, Tom Miller, a University of Colorado student, pushed a peanut to the top of 14, 110-foot Pikes Peak with his nose. It took him 4 days, 23 hours, 47 minutes and 3 seconds.

Prisoners in a California jail recently went on strike for more peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. They won.

Caught without shaving cream on a camping trip, Sen. Barry Goldwater once shaced with peanut butter. “It’s a darn good lotion,” he says, “if you don’t mind smelling like a peanut.”

Particularly now they have a former peanut farmer in the White House, peanuts are on their way to be coming a national obsession. Americans munch, on average, nearly five pounds of peanuts a year-twice waht they are 15 years ago-more than half of this being gobbled up as peanut butter. Underground gourmets slather the “people’s pate” on tuna-fish or livermurst sandwiches, chili beans, meatballs, hot dogs, grilled hot corn, apples, bananas, celery, carrot sticks, pickles and pancakes.

As a buttery spread, the peanut has flown to the moon on space shots. In soup, it is served at New York’s elegant Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. As an oil, it is a base for everything from penicillin to axle grease, metal polish, and hundreds of other products, in cluding dynamite, Scientists have even found a high-pressure, high-temperature method for convering the peanut’s carbon content into industrial diamonds.

Last October, the National Peanut Festival in Dothan, Ala, drew 300,000 peanut enthusiasts. During the festival parade down Dothan’s main street, a concrete mixer spewed thousands of peanuts to the cheering throng. But the high point was a white Plymouth sedan with a gasturbine that ran on peanut oil. Even resist an occasional rendezvous with peanut butter.

(more…)

Where do you get it?

Niacin is essential for the manufacture of enzymes that provide cells with energy. Niacin is involved in the release of energy from food and helps to promote growth and development. it is also essential for hormone production and healthy brain and nervous system function. The recommended dietary allowence is 15 mg.

Supplements are commonly available in the forms of nicotinic acid and niacinamide.

popular sources of niacin
200 g chicken  10.25 mg
100 g salmon  9.6 mg
200 g green peas 4.5 mg
1 medium potato  3.6 mg

Can’t cook, can’t bake? You can still make an ice-cream cake that could make your reputation as a hostess.

Transfer your ice cream into a pan. Press it with a spatula to pack it in. You can line the top (which will be the base when you turn it out), with crushed biscuit, or layer with different ice-creams. Cover with waxed paper or plastic wrap, so you don’t get icicles, adn leave in the freezer for at least eight hours.

To remove, peel off waxed paper and overturn on a cake board. Place pan under running water for a few minutes to loosen the ice-cream and it will slide onto the board.

Here’s when you have to work quickly. Spread prepared whipping cream (try Pour N Whip) over cake. The cream insulates the ice-cream. Then stick nuts, or sponge fingers around the sides, top with grated chocolate, fruit, etc. Return the cake to the freezer to firm up. To serve thaw for 15 minutes, dip knife in warm water and you’ll get neat slices.

Nothing could possibly be simpler to cook than plain boiled rice; even a boiled egg requires more finesse. But you can cook rice in Indonesia in as many different ways as potatoes in Ireland, so the matter is worth condsidering in some detail. Ideally, rice should be boiled and then steamed. The first process requires an ordinary saucepan, the second demands a streamer with a perforated basket. The traditional Javanese dandang is large copper vessel with a narrow waist; the kukusan, a woven bamboo container which holds the rice, is conical in shape and sits on the sloping sides of the dandang, just above the level of the water. These elegant pans are still made in java, and possibly in some other parts of Indonesia, though copper has been largely replaced by tin and aluminium. Many people, however, now use a deep straight-sides pan with a metal basket hung inside it. These can be bought easily enough in Holland, though I have not yet seen one in London. They are very light and easy to clean, and if not allowed to boil dry too often will last for many years. If you relly eat a lot of rice, you may find it worth while to buy an alectric rice cooker. These are imported from Japan and are sold mostly in Chinese and Japanese shops. They are not cheap, and though they are certainly very convenient and efficient I have never felt much need for one. If on the other hand you cook rice only occasionally, you may not want any special utensils for it at all-and in that case you will find that you can cook rice to protection in any thickbottomed saucepan. The only slaight disadvantages are that this method requires more care, and a little rice is usually lost.

(more…)

The bumblebees are all abuzz;
Recent studies have found that honey contains many of the good-for-you antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables (generally, the darker the honey, the higher the concentration of antioxidants). Nature’s sweetener also has trace amounts of vitamins, over refined sugar, which has no real benefits.

Honey is also a sweet deal for people on the go. A great pick-me-up, honey has been shown to provide quick bursts of energy, help prevent fatigue and enhance athletic performance. Stir a spoonful into a glass of water before your daily workout.

And if you’re unfer the weather, honey may help soothe an irritated throat. Swallow a dollop as you need it, or add it to a cup of hot tea.

- Softened is not a reliable guide for ripeness. Instead, with peaches and nectarines, look for a deep colour at the stem end. If there’s any green showing, the fruit isn’t ripe. A strong sweet smell is a good indicator of ripeness.
- The skin colour of plums will darken and lose its glossy appearance when they are ripe.
- Choose apricots that are yellow all over and just a little soft when pressed.
- Store fruits in the lowest drawer of the fridge if you’re not ready to eat them. Leaving them out at room temperature ripens them quickly.

It’s nice to serve dessert and coffe away from the dinner table. Guests like to feel reposed, stretched on the sofa in the living room surrounded by sweet music. The glow from a Christmas tree adds a romantic feel to the post-dinner wind-down.
Rather than serve individual portions of, say, pudding, offer a platter of finger dessert, which your by now-extremely-grateful guests will be able to indulge in at their  own time. Also if there are those who would rather skip dessert, they can opt out inconspicuously.
A favourite of this writer are waffle sandwiches filled with whipped cream and fresh fruit. In keeping with the said colour theme, strawberries and kiwi fruit pair well. Flavour your whipped cream with a little Grand Marnier.

Nutrition Dogma says eat your vegetables raw. But a study from the University of Arkansas suggests that cooking carrots can actually boost their nutrient value.

Food scientists found that blanched, pureed carrots had 34 per cent more of the antioxidants called phenolics than the raw root. Antioxidants protect the body by neutralising free radicals; these rogue molecules can damage cells, leading to chronic disease such as cancer.

How did the cooked carrots come out ahead? Heating softens the fibrous root, allowing more phenolics to be released from cell walls.