COOK RICE EASILY

Although some exceptions (such as risotto), some suggestions to cook rice:

1º. -1 measure of rice needs 2 1/2 to 3 measures of water (or a liquid mixture as water and wine/milk/chicken broth...)
- The water measure depends not only on the rice quality (long grain or short grain) but with the same amount of rice you'll need less water if you use a small saucepan instead of a large one.
-The saucepan must have a lid.

2º. - All spices, olive oil, butter or seasonings as salt and pepper, must go into the water before the rice.
3º. -Bring the water to a boil and only than add the rice and at this stage it must be the first and last time that you can stir the rice.
(If for any reason you need to add some more water, it must be very hot).

4º. -After adding the rice, wait until it boils again, cover pan, low the heat, let it cook for 15 to 20 minutes (major grains of rice need more time to cook) .

5º. -After turning off the heat, still with the lid on, let it steam at least for 5 minutes.

-There are others ways to cook it but this is the easiest one and many ingredients can be cooked at the same time with the rice.
-If you want a whiter rice, add into the water a few drops of lemon juice.

ONIONS SECRETS

After peeling an onion don't let it stay for a long time in contact with air, it quickly absorbs all air impurities, becomes dehydrated and loses it's good properties.

But we can use this onion ability, to absorb the smell of paint.
So when we do wall painting at home, we can put some water and onion slices in a open container and this way we can rid faster of the toxic smell of paint.

When you use raw onions in salads and want to soft its taste, put them into cold water for 45/50 minutes or into white wine vinegar for 20/30 minutes (in this case, pass them by cold water, after taking them out off the vinegar).

CLEANING INSIDE THE FRIDGE

First empty and turn off the fridge.

Instead of using strong detergents to clean it, use a soft cloth and warm water with a few drops of white wine vinegar.
The white wine vinegar will disinfect and remove all the bad odors.

FRYNG IN VEGETABLE OIL

When you fry food in vegetable oil and it begins bubbling too much, add an old wine cork to prevent it to spill out of the frying pan.

After the food is golden brown, take it out and let it rest over towel kitchen paper to remove the excess fat.

MARINADE FOR (chicken,turkey,fish ) FILLETS

If you want a different and delicious taste, submerge your fillets ( before cooking) into a marinade for 3 or 6 hours and put them into a covered container in a cool place.

Marinade for 5 or 6 thin and small fillets ( chicken, turkey, pork or fish ) Mix together :

1 cup of milk
1 tablespoon of sea salt
1/4 tablespoon of ground black pepper
4/5 garlic cloves pealed and sliced
1/2 tablespoon of ground nutmeg( if you can, buy the nutmeg seed and grate it yourself, the flavor is better)
1 lemon juice
2 bay leaves (cut each one into 2 or 3 pieces)

After taking the fillets out of the marinade, you can fry them with some olive oil and butter or even better :

First coat both sides of the fillets with flour, then with beaten eggs and then use bread crumbs and with your hand stick them well to your fillets.
At this stage they can be frozen, preferably wrapped individually to use some days later.

They must fry (floating) in vegetable oil (medium heat) till both sides are golden brown.You can see previous post "Frying in vegetable oil".
If they are frozen, fry them immediately after taking them out of the freezer.

Fish fillets can be coated this way or coated only with flour and beaten eggs .
(This way they can't be frozen)

To cut meat easily

If you want to cut raw meat easily, put it first in the freezer for 10 to 20 minutes, depending of its size.

You'll get nice slices as a professional.

Why not save some money?

When you don't use all the fresh ingredients you bought to cook a meal or even after it, you have leftovers as: one or two slices of roast meat, slices of fresh bread...and other precious things, don't let them "die" in the fridge or rotting in the kitchen cupboard.

We already can find frozen vegetables, frozen fish or meat in food stores, 99% of our fresh ingredients and leftovers can be frozen, to use later so, why not save our money?

On the day we have no time to go shopping or an unexpected visit shows up for dinner; one carrot, one fish fillet, one "lonely" potato, all of them together can become treasures of a tasty meal.
Peel, slice and put them into small freezing bags well closed, but please don't do as some people I know, they have "prehistoric" bags in the freezer.

Some years ago I had no time to cook as often as today, leaving home to work at 6 AM and get home around 9 PM, I only had time to cook on the weekends so instead of leaving small amounts of food or ingredients to shrivel and rot, I got the "freezing habit"and the challenge was, two or three weekends later, to do one of the meals with what was already frozen.

By the way, the soup I've already posted, was one of those days when a flu forced me to stay at home, and almost all of its ingredients were frozen, including the bread(but in this case don't put the water over the ingredients like it says in the recipe, wait for the water begins to boil and only then add the frozen vegetables).
Of course olive oil, sea salt and some other small, but important things, must not ever be missing at home.