Cool Summer Soup Recipes A Food Processor

Cool Summer Soup Recipes A Food Processor: Summer is coming and so is the hot weather. Nobody likes to cook in the heat of summer. A really hot meal on a hot day is almost as unpopular. It could be that a cool, easy to prepare summer soup is just what you need.

Below are 3 recipes for soups that can be made in your food processor or blender. If you have the ingredients on hand, none of them take more than 10 minutes to make. They are all delicious, nutritious, and really refreshing on a hot day. While the recipes all suggest you use a food processor, you can get very good results by using a blender or hand blender too.

Cool Summer Soup Recipes A Food Processor

These are all very simple recipes, so don’t be shy to modify them and get a taste that your whole family can enjoy.

Here are the recipes.

Summer Vegetarian Soup

This is great tasting soup with a touch of Italy included. It is super easy to make and very healthy. It is particularly good on a hot summer day

an avocado – skin and pit removed of course

4 Roma tomatoes – they may not be quite juicy enough (see below)

Basil to taste (Thai basil is really good in this)

4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

Summer Vegetarian Soup Process

How easy is this soup? Simply throw everything into your food processor and mix until it is smooth. If you find that it is more like a smoothie than soup, simply add more liquid (or swap one of the Roma tomatoes for another more juicy variety). Pour into bowls, garnish as you wish (minced chives are nice) and enjoy.

Cool Summer Soup Recipes A Food Processor

Sensational Salsa & Black Bean

This soup is a very simple soup that takes just a few minutes to prepare. It can be served hot or cold, but always benefits from being heated.

Roughly 4 servings

Sensational Salsa & Black Bean INGREDIENTS:

2 normal sized cans of black beans (any brand is OK, but try for low salt)

1 1/2 cups soup stock (Just use chicken, beef, or vegetable bullion)

1 cup of your favorite salsa (chunky makes a heartier soup)

1 teaspoon cumin (best to use fresh ground in the soup and you can sprinkle seeds on top too)

1/4 cup of sour cream

1-2 green onions chopped fine

Sensational Salsa & Black Bean Process:

Put the beans, salsa, cumin, and soup stock into a food processor (a blender is OK too). Puree the mixture until it is creamy in texture. Pour the mixture into a mid-sized pot and heat on low-medium until it is completely hot. This allows the flavours to merge. If you are going to serve it cold, move it to the fridge to cool off till it is time to eat. To eat it hot, simply serve into bowls and garnish with the onions and some of the sour cream.

Cool Summer Soup Recipes A Food Processor

MANGO SOUP

Mangos are simply divine. They are great as a fruit, mixed into drinks, added to salads. They also make a really good cool summer soup which is explained below.

MANGO SOUP Ingredients:

1 large RIPE mango (it will be soft, no squishy, to touch)

2 cups chicken soup stock (make your own or use bullion if you must)

1 TBSP lemon grass (available in most Asian markets, it looks like long greenish reeds when you buy it)

1 TBSP ginger – Freshly chopped is best

Ground chili peppers to taste

1 cup yogurt (2% plain is best)

2 TBSP cilantro (chinese parsley) chopped fine

MANGO SOUP Process:

Chop mango and put in food processor. Mix briefly and then put in the ginger, lemon grass, chili and 1/2 cup of soup stock. Mix again till everything becomes very smooth. Move the soup into another bowl (be sure it is large enough) and mix in first the rest of the stock, and then the yogurt. This is best served cold, so put in fridge till you are ready to eat. Then put into bowls and serve with the cilantro as the garnish.

As the temperature starts to go up give these soups a try. They are all very simple and will add a new delicious and healthy dimension to your summer diet.

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Kitchen Equipment And Their Uses

Kitchen Equipment And Their Uses: A basic kitchen needs a selection of pots and pans, some basic gadgets, and a collection of common spices and condiments.

Pots and Pans:

A minimum set includes a small frying pan, a one-quart saucepan with cover, a two-quart saucepan with cover, a large frying pan with cover, and a large pot (for spaghetti, stew, pot roast, or homemade soup.) If you are cooking for more than one person, get two each of the frying pans and saucepans. Covers are optional for the frying pans, but try to get a cover to fit at least one.

Good quality pans spread the heat evenly so that food does not burn in area of the pan and stay undercooked in another. The bottom of a good pan sits flat on the stove. Cheap pans wear out fast and cost more in the long run. Stainless steel pans with a porcelain coating or a copper bottom are excellent. Stay away from aluminum pans. They get bent out of shape easily and do not last. There have also been some health warnings about cooking in aluminum, but no real proof of any danger.

Kitchen Equipment And Their Uses

When using pans with a non-stick coating, turn the heat up only as far as is necessary, and only use wooden or plastic tools. Wipe the pan clean in soapy water. A plastic or nylon net scrubber can be used, but never use steel wool pads. If you do not burn the food onto the pan, and you wash it while the food is still fresh and moist, it will be easy to clean. If you have birds as pets, you may want to avoid non-stick coatings. If you use them, be sure not to overheat them. The coating can release fumes that can kill a bird.

Kitchen Equipment And Their Uses

Some other useful tools are a slow cooker, a wok (for Chinese cooking), toaster, microwave, blender, food processor, electric mixer, and an electric knife. There are also bread machines available at reasonable prices that produce a fresh hot loaf of bread rapidly. Most machines also have a delay setting to allow one to place the ingredients in the machine hours before the bread is needed, so the machine finishes just in time for dinner.

Basic Gadgets:

You will need some wooden spoons. Get a selection of sizes and handle lengths. These are always handy and they will not damage your non-stick coatings. Unlike metal tools, they do not get too hot to handle.

You will also want a collection of spatulas in different sizes and shapes. The lightweight spatula that will flip an egg may not be strong enough for a hamburger. Sometimes a narrow spatula is all that will fit in a pan, and sometimes a wide one is needed to get under whatever needs to be turned or lifted.

Kitchen Equipment And Their Uses

Whisks come in various sizes. They are very handy for mixing lightweight ingredients quickly, and are easier to get out and later to clean than a blender or mixer.

Get a good set of knives. Cheap ones make the job of cutting more difficult and they wear out fast. With the knives, you will need a good cutting board. A cutting board provides a flat working surface and protects your counters. Plastic cutting boards are easier to clean than wooden ones. Never cut vegetables that will be eaten raw on a cutting board that was used to cut raw meat unless you thoroughly clean the board first.

Kitchen Equipment List And Their Uses

You will also need a selection of measuring tools. Measuring cups for dry ingredients and measuring spoons come in sets. Get a set of each. You will need a measuring cup for liquids, too. A one-cup measure is probably sufficient, but two-cup and quart measures are also useful. If you want to be precise in your measurements for dietary requirements, buy a food scale and measure your portions until you get used to the sizes and can estimate accurately without weighing everything.

A lot of canned products are now being packaged with pop tops, but get a good can opener for the others. There are some electrics that sell for reasonable prices and do a good job, but get a manual one too. When the power goes out, it can be frustrating not to be able to open the cans.

Spices and Condiments:

Salt and pepper go without saying. Some dried minced onion peps up a lot of recipes. Garlic is available fresh or in dried, chopped form or as a powder. Caution: make sure you know the difference between garlic powder and garlic salt. Garlic powder makes great garlic bread; garlic salt makes VERY salty garlic bread.

Oregano or “Italian Seasoning,” gives an Italian flavor to anything. A bay leaf cooked in stew brings out the flavor of the other ingredients. Paprika is a red powder used mainly for appearance, but it has been linked to some health benefits. If you like things hot, try sprinkling some cayenne pepper or chili powder on your food.

Large Kitchen Equipment And Their Uses

Basic condiments include ketchup, mustard, relish and mayonnaise. There are all sorts of mustard varieties available. You can probably find traditional yellow mustard, Dijon, spicy brown, honey, and hot Chinese mustard, just to name a few. Explore your local market and see what looks good. Be adventurous, but buy the smallest size, so you do not have a lot to discard if you do not like it.

Other condiments to try are steak sauces, barbecue sauces, tartar sauce, and various stir-fry sauces. Read the labels. If sugar is one of the first few ingredients, forget it. Ingredient labels list the ingredients in descending order. The main ingredient is first, then the others, with the least one last.

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Best Ways To Cook Rice

Best Ways To Cook Rice: Rice needs to be thoroughly washed. A good way to do this is to put it into a colander,  in a deep pan of water. Rub the rice well with the hands, lifting the  colander in and out the water, and changing the water until it is clear; then drain. In this way the grit is deposited in the water, and the rice left thoroughly clean.

The best method of cooking rice is by steaming it. If boiled in much water, it loses a portion of its already small percentage of nitrogenous elements. It requires much less time for cooking than any of the other grains. Like all the dried grains and seeds, rice swells in cooking to several times its original bulk. When cooked, each grain of rice should be separate and distinct, yet perfectly tender.

Steamed rice.

Soak a cup of rice in one and a fourth cups of water for an hour, then add a cup of milk, turn into a dish suitable for serving it from at table, and place in a steam-cooker or a covered steamer over a kettle of boiling water, and steam for an hour. It should be stirred with a fork occasionally, for the first ten or fifteen minutes.

Boiled rice (japanese method).

Thoroughly cleanse the rice by washing in several waters, and soak it overnight.  In the morning, drain it, and put to cook in an equal quantity of boiling water, that is, a pint of water for a pint of rice. For cooking, a stewpan with tightly fitting cover should be used. Heat the water to boiling, then add the rice, and after stirring, put on the cover, which is not again to be removed during the boiling.

Best Ways To Cook Rice

At first, as the water boils, steam will puff out freely from under the cover, but when the water has nearly evaporated, which will be in eight to ten minutes, according to the age and quality of the rice, only a faint suggestion of steam will be observed, and the stewpan must then be removed from over the fire to some place on the range, where it will not burn, to swell and dry for fifteen or twenty minutes.

Best Ways To Cook Rice

Rice to be boiled in the ordinary manner requires two quarts of boiling water to one cupful of rice. It should be boiled rapidly until tender, then drained at once, and set in a moderate oven to become dry. Picking and lifting lightly occasionally with a fork will make it more flaky and dry. Care must be taken, however, not to mash the rice grains.

Rice with fig sauce.

Steam a cupful of best rice as directed above, and when done, serve with a fig sauce. Dish a spoonful of  the fig sauce with each saucer of rice, and serve with plenty of cream. Rice served in this way requires no sugar for dressing, and is a most wholesome breakfast dish.

Best Ways To Cook Rice

Orange rice.

Wash and steam the rice. Prepare some oranges by separating into sections and cutting each section in halves, removing the seeds and all the white portion. Sprinkle the oranges lightly with sugar, and let them stand while the rice is cooking. Serve a portion of the orange on each saucerful of rice.

Rice with raisins.

Carefully wash a cupful of rice, soak it, and cook as directed for Steamed Rice. After the rice has began to swell, but before it has softened, stir into it lightly, using a fork for the purpose, a cupful of raisins. Serve with cream.

Rice with peaches.

Steam the rice and when done, serve with cream and a nicely ripened peach pared and sliced on each individual dish.

Browned rice.

Spread a cupful of rice on a shallow baking tin, and put into a moderately hot oven to brown. It will need to be stirred frequently to prevent burning and to secure a uniformity of color. Each rice kernel, when sufficiently browned, should be of a yellowish brown, about the color of ripened wheat. Steam the same as directed for ordinary rice, using only two cups of water for each cup of browned rice, and omitting the preliminary soaking. When properly cooked, each kernel will be separated, dry, and mealy. Rice prepared in this manner is undoubtedly more digestible than when cooked without browning.

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Cooking Utensils And Their Uses

Utilizing the best cooking utensils can make the adaptation between a wonderfully deliberate gastronomic dinner party and an awkwardly made excuse-for-food. Or so the celebrity chefs who are sponsored by the most important kitchenware agencies would have us trust. The question we novice cooks have to ask is, 'Do the right tools really make all the difference?' 'Does the way you chop, slice, dice and dish out your meat and two veg bodily affect the flavour?'

Ok, granted, if you lack the correct utensils, it could be tricky to empty your pasta without picking up a couple of 3  degree burns, and you might discover these curly radishes to precise your salad bowl tough to pull off, but is there certainly an optimal shape and size for food intended for the human mouth? To get a short answer to this question, we want to take a look at Chinese language food.

Cooking Utensils And Their Uses

Chinese language recipes emphasize the importance of presentation. Eating is a sensory experience. If the food looks, smells and even sounds good (think of sizzling woks wheeled to your table in a very good restaurant) we're salivating even before the first morsel gets wherever near our mouths. Chinese cooks have long understood that your senses are connected. Your senses all lead to the same place - your brain. And iit's your mind that makes the final assessment.

Cooking Utensils And Their Uses

As innumeraable sponsored-up-to-their-eyeballs grasp chefs will fall over each other to let you know, how you practice your greens and present your dishes could have a big affect on the way your meal will style Any other definitive feature of Chinese cooking is the manner the vegetables and meat are reduce. There are strict guidelines about the size and form of the food on the plate. Each dish must be simple to handle - it should invite you to select it up... yet then again you'll have to use chopsticks.

Cooking utensils, it would appear, really can transform an earthly meal right into a feast... if you know how to use them. Possessing the correct set of knives to chop and cut, nip and tuck, is one thing; owning the skills to use them is another. However, to develop your method, you need to own the utensils in the 1st place. You must start somewhere, and leafing via a kitchenware brochure at the behest of some celebrity chef or different is as good an area to start as any - the best location to start is from the recipe. In any case, the recipe is what you are interested in, and what you and your family is going to grow to be dining.

Cooking Utensils And Their Uses

What makes a cook into a master chef? The salient element is their ability to shower their creations with loving care and attention, as anyone who has study  an Isabelle Allende novel will testify. After you have your tools and skills, the possibilities for experimentation and gastronomic exploration are boundless. And you'll guess there's a specifically designed set of cooking utensils to cope with any culinary creation you would possibly dream up. For the majority folks, one appliance can be adapted to cope a diverse wide variety kitchen duties, yet for the specialists there is aa specific device for each and every kitchen task.

Thiis apparently trivial distinction between both ways of thinking about cooking could have a profound impact on your meals. Take an onion, as an example. In line with the experts, it should be sliced a particular way to enhance the flavor, although, as we have learnt from the Chinese language, the visible result is at least as big a factor in determining how the food will taste.



Regarded in this way, cutting the onion 'after the book' becomes as important as, say, the quantity of oil you add to the pan. It would seem that using the right kitchen utensil within the  chef's area is imperative. In short, prepping your constituents by following someone's mealtime master plan can transform the arrival and flavour of the ultimate dish. Get thiis right and you are now not a cook. You are a chef

Choosing the proper Utensil

Selecting the right set of cooking utensils is dependent on the content material of each individual recipe. Tips for cooking utensils are quite often offered within the  cooking book or on-line recipe web page and, traditionally, they are aaccompanied by clear directions to help you choose the correct utensil for the right activity. Cooking utensils, it would seem, do have a central role to play. Your family is sure to have fun with the excellence of your cooking if it is ready with ability and loving care, but if not, they may reach for an entirely distinct set of utensils.

There are a number of firms that produce best cooking utensils, yet on stability, it is better to start from the recipe book and increase a collection of what you need as needs occur before you begin leafing in the course of the pages of sleek catalogues.

Knife Safety In The Kitchen: Don T Use That Kitchen Knife Until You Know How To Care For It

Knife Safety In The Kitchen

When using a kitchen knife, or any sharp object, remember to put safety first. Although it sounds obvious don’t run around with a sharp knife in your hand, don’t point a knife at anyone and always cut away from yourself not towards yourself. Also, don’t use your finger to see how sharp the blade is. Yes, I know some of you reading this article have been guilty of this at least once and have found out that the edge of the knife was indeed very sharp because you cut yourself on it!

Knife Safety In The Kitchen

Another important safety tip is to never use the knife for other than its intended purpose. No, a sharp kitchen knife should not be used as a makeshift screwdriver or as a device to try and pry open a locked door that you can’t find the key for. Nor should it be used to pry apart a stack of frozen hamburger patties. You could easily cut yourself if the knife slips and you are also in danger of breaking the tip of your knife off. Also, don’t use your kitchen knives to cut the tops off plastic jugs or to cut cardboard boxes unless you want to almost instantly dull your knife. Use a scissors or utility knife for those jobs.

Knife Safety In The Kitchen

When you buy a kitchen knife you get what you pay for so invest in the best quality knives you can afford and buy them from a reputable dealer. A fully forged carbon knife is the highest quality knife you can buy. High carbon stainless steel knives are also pretty good. Regular stainless steel knives aren’t as good and won’t last you as long but any knife will last longer if you take care of it properly (and most people don’t care for their knives the way they should). What should you do to properly maintain your knives? Below is a list of 6 important knife care tips.

1) Never ever, and I repeat NEVER, put your knives in the dishwasher. The harsh chemicals from your dishwasher detergent will pit your knives and the dry cycle will also damage your knives. In addition, if the sharp edges of your knives bump up against anything else, like your plates, it will damage and dull your knives. Instead, as soon as possible after using your knives, wash them by hand with a mild detergent and hand dry them. Don’t allow the knives to drip dry because moisture will dull your knives and will damage the wood handles of knives.

Knife Safety In The Kitchen

2) Always use a cutting board. Don’t cut on your countertop. Not only is cutting on your countertop bad for your countertop, it’s bad for the blade of your knife too. And never use a glass cutting board. Glass cutting boards may be pretty but they are also pretty horrible for a knife. It’s a quick way to dull and ruin a knife.

3) Regularly use a honing steel to maintain the edges on your knives, but learn how to use the honing steel properly. To learn the right technique, ask the dealer where you buy your knives to sell you a good honing steel and to also show you how to use it.

Kitchen Knife Safety Tips

4) Have your knives professionally sharpened. Although there are lots of knife sharpeners available for in-home use, I don’t recommend using them. It’s too easy to permanently damage your knife. Instead use your honing steel regularly and take your knives to a professional for sharpening a few times a year. If you take care of your knives properly you won’t need to get your knives sharpened more than a few times a year depending on how much you use your knives.


5) Don’t store your knives in a drawer with lots of metal objects, such as your kitchen utensil drawer. The edges of your knives will get banged against the other metal things, damaging and dulling the edges of your knives. You can still store your knives in a drawer, but don’t have that drawer crowded full of other items. Just keep your knives in that drawer. Another option is to use a wood block to store your knives.

Knife Safety Rules

6) Use the correct knife for the task at hand. Don’t use your serrated bread knife for chopping and dicing. Don’t use your boning knife to slice your bread. Instead, use a chef’s knife (also called a cook’s knife or a French knife for chopping, slicing and dicing. Use a paring knife for peeling and trimming, and for cutting and slicing small items. A utility knife is great for slicing meat and cheese. A boning knife is for cutting meat and poultry. A fillet knife is a great for cutting fish. And, as you would expect, a bread knife’s best use is cutting bread.

With proper use and care, your knives will last you a long time and will help make your kitchen cutting tasks easier and more enjoyable.

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