I need all the help I can get in the kitchen, that’s no secret.
But I’m always a willing learner.
When some lovely bloggers and I met Fast Ed recently, he had many pearls of wisdom for me.
Here are some of his top tips, as scribbled down by me and then tested in my own kitchen.
Teach your boys how to cook. Any young man who can make a chocolate cake will never be lonely on Saturday night.
This made a big impression on my older boys and one of them whipped up a chocolate and beetroot cake almost immediately. It’s a win-win, the boys cook to impress the girls and I get to have a break. Sure am running with this one.
PS lads, washing up will improve your chances with women, and that’s a tip to last a lifetime.
Kids don’t have an ‘off’ switch when it comes to carbs. We’re overloading our kids with carbs and it’s not fair to them.
Ouch, that hurts. It’s so easy to feed children carbs, and I find it much harder to have them eating good quality protein, except at dinner. This did hit home so I’ve been packing yoghurts for after school snacks. Messy in the car though!
You can use zucchini in place of apples in most recipes as they aspirate the same amount of water.
Genius… the lesson here is that fruits and vegetables which expell the same amounts of water are interchangeable. Haven’t tried a zucchini crumble yet, but you never know…
Golden syrup is sweeter than caster sugar per gram, so use it to get more sweetness for less calories than normal sugar.
I didn’t know this, and have taken it to heart and have used golden syrup instead of sugar in a few biscuits with good success. The trick is NOT to lick the spoon, of course.
When using wholemeal flour, you need to use less than plain flour as it absorbs more moisture. It needs to absorb for a little while, so leave sitting on bench for five mins before baking.
Substituting wholemeal for white flour has been a bit of a hobby of mine recently, and this tip has explained why some biscuits, pancakes and cakes had turned out a bit dry.
Results are much improved now!
Have you been given any great cooking tips lately?
Thanks Ed, and thanks to the host of that lunch, www.eggs.org.au/