There's a wonderful website called Start Cooking (http://www.startcooking.com). The instructions begin, I believe, with "how to cook a grilled cheese sandwich," and move from there. The instructor moves with precise, clean movements so that you can always tell what she's doing. Her directions are simple, enunciated well, and to the point -- not a lot of cuteness or other distractions, like they often do on Food TV. The techniques are very basic, but everything that the instructor offers goes step-by-step and you'll wind up with an edible dish. It's a valuable tool for those who learn haptically and kinesthetically (primarily by doing, rather than by seeing or hearing), but get impatient when taught by people they know, who are right there to watch them make mistakes. ... View related article.
Bacteria thrive in sun tea. You might instead consider buying cold-brew teabags (I think they're put out by Lipton) and making the tea in your refrigerator, with the lemon and ginger or any other flavorings you like, instead. Or just make regular hot tea at double strength and add ice while it's still boiling hot. ... View related article.
The idea of the smell is the main objection most people seem to have, I've noticed. The thing is, the disposable pads have a far stronger smell to them, because you wear them for so much longer, four to six hours, in many cases. The cloth pads, you change every two to three hours, so the smell doesn't have a chance to build up. I've worn these while training attack dogs, and the dogs didn't behave any differently from the way they normally do. No one's ever noticed a smell on me or on my belongings -- and yes, I have friends that are honest enough to mention it if they did notice. It's no different from cloth diapers. ... View related article.
What they already eat is fine, if it's prepared properly.
* Pan-fry with a LITTLE healthy oil (olive, canola, sunflower, safflower, or flaxseed -- canola or safflower are best for frying), and unstick things from the skillet with broth or water instead of adding more fat. Better yet, bake, boil, steam, or roast meat and vegetables instead of frying.
* Use lots of herbs and spices and a little less salt.
* Sweeten foods with fruit juice, Splenda, or other healthy substitutes for sugar.
* Gravy should only be made with 1-2 tablespoons of fat and flour; the rest should be low-sodium, low-fat or non-fat broth.
* Substitute soy flour, or at least whole wheat flour, for up to 1/3 of the recipe's regular flour.
* Make each meal with one part protein, two parts starch, two to three parts vegetables (one part of this can be fruit).
* Save desserts for a weekly treat, not a nightly treat. Keep them simple: Sliced strawberries sprinkled with a teaspoon of sugar and garnished with a mint sprig, instead of a big fluffy cake or goopy sticky sweets. The same goes for heavy starches, like biscuits -- a weekend breakfast is great, but daily breakfasts should be maybe an egg, some oatmeal or whole-grain muffin or toast, and fruit.
* Use decaf or half-caf coffee and tea. There are coffee brands that sell half-caf already blended. If you can't find that, go to a coffee shop and have them custom-blend and grind the beans for you, or just switch to decaf outright.
* Beans are extremely healthy, as are the meats you mention.
* Butter and margarine contain the same amount of fat, unless the margarine is marked "lite," but butter contains only pure milk solids and salt, while margarine contains some chemical compounds that can be bad for the health, sometimes seriously. Talk to your parents and their doctor about whether butter or "lite" margarine would be healthier when the benefits are compared with the drawbacks.
* Potatoes, beans, peas, corn, brown rice, whole-grain pastas are excellent sources of complex carbohydrates. Corn, beans, and peas also contain other healthful nutrients. Stay away from white rice and processed grains; the whiter the food, the less fiber it contains, and less fiber means that the elderly (and everyone else) will have issues with digestive irregularity. Fiber-rich diets have been shown to contribute to a lower risk for certain cancers and other health concerns.
* Fresh is best, then fresh-frozen, then dried, THEN canned. This goes for pretty much everything except for canned beans, which lose nothing in the canning process, while gaining a great deal in the way of convenience. Other than beans and the occasional corn, try to drastically reduce your canned food purchases.
* When dealing with aging parents/grandparents, guests or children, the same is true: If you want them to eat healthily, YOU have to eat healthily. If you don't bring junk home, they won't have ready access to it. Don't keep "mama's stash," because it's no better for your own health than it is for theirs. ... View related article.
Peanut butter will keep for a long time before the jar is unsealed, but only six weeks (at most) once the seal is broken. If you want to keep your peanut butter fresh, use it up. If that means buying a smaller jar (with a slightly higher price-per-ounce), that's still cheaper than buying a huge jar and having to throw out half of it because it's gone bad. ... View related article.
In the US, butter is sold in 1-pound blocks or 1-pound boxes containing 4 sticks. One stick = 1/4 pound. In the US, 1 stick = 1/2 cup, but a "cup" in the US is not the same amount as a "cup" in the UK, so don't go by cups. If you want to be completely precise, 1 stick of butter or margarine equals 113 grams. ... View related article.
Fresh vegetables are less expensive if you can garden them, get them from a local farmer or farmer's market, or buy at a store that stocks only locally produced vegetables and fruit. Fresh vegetables and fruits are also what people need the most, and miss the most when they don't get them for a while.
Liven them up by varying your cooking method (boil, bake, roast, steam, stir-fry, soup, stew, slice, dice, whole), and by spending your money intelligently on spices -- even better if you can keep an herb garden in a window box or pots in the house.
Use meat as a flavoring for the vegetables, rather than as a full 1/3 of the plateful. Ground meats, or whole meats diced finely, can be spread throughout a large vegetable dish, satisfying a whole family on just half a pound. The same can be done with just a sprinkling of cheese; be sure to use a strongly flavored cheese, so that the flavor goes further and you won't need as much, parmesan and cheddar rather than mozzarella, for example.
Fiber makes you feel fuller, faster. Go for whole grains like brown rice instead of white, whole wheat instead of white bread.
Fruits are cheaper, healthier, and more satisfying than most prepared desserts, so fill your kids' lunchboxes with fruit snacks instead of cookies or muffins. I highly recommend getting a bento box from http://www.ichibankanusa.com (most are around $1.50 to $2.00 per single-tier box) and filling it in bento style: 2 ounces of protein/meat, 1/2 C starch such as rice or potato, and the rest with fresh fruit and vegetable. That's the proper proportion for a child's meal, and the proper amount as well. For an adult, pack two bento boxes, one just like the child's and the other with more fruit, for a healthy, weight-controlling lunch and snack, since adults need more food than children. In fact, do a net search on bento and see the creative, fun, healthy ways that people eat very cheaply when making bento.
Remember too that variety is the spice of life. You can serve cabbage four nights in the same week and no one will really complain, as long as you make very different meals with it. Cabbage soup, cabbage in your stir-fry or egg rolls, cabbage stuffed with rice and sauce and a little ground lamb or beef, cabbage cole slaw. Put leftovers in the freezer, or put the tiny portions in the kids' lunches, since tiny leftover portions are perfect for bento. ... View related article.
When each person has his or her own entree, the tip is easy to figure: 15% for standard service, 20% for exemplary service, 25% if you've just won the lottery and are too cheap to leave a $100 bill. ;)
If you share an entree, the tip should be about 30-40%. That's because it's just as much work for the wait staff to deal with two restaurant patrons when ordering one dish as when they order two. For that matter, if you go out and have only coffee, you should still leave at least $2 tip, because the person has to keep coming back to refill, and it's just as labor-intensive on the waiter as if you'd ordered an actual meal. ... View related article.
Thaw fish by putting it in a sealed container in the refrigerator for a day. However, I don't even bother thawing frozen fish, unless I want to batter and fry it. The Canadian Cooking Method for fish works just as well for fresh, thawed, or frozen fish. It goes like this:
1. Any variety of fish; 2. Any method of cooking; 3. 10 minutes per inch of thickness at the widest part of the fresh fish, or 4. 20 minutes per inch at the widest part of the frozen fish, 5. at 450 Fahrenheit.
Deep-fried crappie, boiled cod, broiled haddock, baked salmon, halibut stew... doesn't matter. Any fish, any method of cooking, this will work. I promise you, it never fails, and you can quote James Beard on this one.
