By Tom Lingle

Taking a knife skills class will dramatically change the way you cook and bring more enjoyment in the kitchen. Learning how to choose knives for purchase, how to choose knives for specific tasks, how to care for your knives, and applying proper cutting techniques will open up a whole new world of culinary possibilities. Learning to properly prepare ingredients and save time in the kitchen will result in better-finished dishes. Cook the dishes you have never dared to prepare, and dazzle your diners in the process.

Your knife skills instructor will show you different knives, how they are made, how to hold them, and what tasks each knife is best suited for. You will learn about the different metals that knives are made from and how the quality of knives makes a huge difference in the cutting results. The best knives make the best tools and it is always easier for a beginner or a seasoned professional to achieve the best results by owning and using the best equipment. For a beginning cook or aspiring chef, learning cutting skills properly, from a professional, right from the start in your cooking career is the perfect approach.

Learning to care for your knives, how to keep them sharp, and how to wash and store them is paramount to having good cooking results each time you enter the kitchen. Your knife skills instructor will go over the various equipment and techniques available to sharpen your knives. You will also be taught how to handle and use them to avoid damaging them, how to keep them in the best shape by properly caring for them, and how to put them away after each use so they maintain their peak usefulness.

You will learn detailed cutting techniques for a large variety of every day cooking ingredients. Basic cutting techniques for ingredients such as meats, poultry, fruits, vegetables, fish and shellfish are the foundation to more advanced techniques and specialty cutting, as well as approaching the ingredients in ways never before imagined by non-professionals. For example, once you know how to chop, dice and mince a bell pepper for speed and size of ingredient required, you can move on to a julienne cut for visual appeal, or learn how peeling the bell pepper and removing its skin presents the pepper in a whole new light. Learn how each cut presents the ingredient in a different way, shape, texture and flavor, and affects the finished dish.

The importance of knives to the sophisticated home cook or professional chef cannot be overstated. Don’t wait any longer, have some fun and learn knife skills at a local cooking class today.

A cooking class is a great way to make new friends, learn new culinary techniques, and jazz up the food that comes out of your kitchen. Find a cooking class today. http://www.localcookingclass.com

Article Source: Tom Lingle – Cooking Class – Knife Skills

Considering the busy lives everyone leads these days, it is no wonder why the number of people who eat at home is declining. Because of busy lifestyles, it’s easy and can be necessary to buy fast food, frozen foods and concession stand foods. It takes time to prepare and cook a meal. Most people just do not have several hours to spend in the kitchen in the evenings. The stress of going into the kitchen and trying to figure out what is for dinner with a hungry family depending on you is too much for most individuals.

The average family of four can easily spend $75 per week or $300 per month eating out five meals a week. Eating at home will allow the family to spend less money on food and more money where it is needed the most. Below you will find ten easy tips to get you started on the road to eating at home again without the stress of long hours in the kitchen each day trying to plan a meal and then preparing it. The intent is to get you through the day, satisfy everyone and prepare easy, nutritious, time saving meals. The idea is to set aside one day a week and cook all of your meals for the week on that day. Then the rest of the week, with some quick preparations, a good home cooked meal is ready quickly and stress free.

1. Choose one day a week to do all of your meal planning, shopping and cooking. On this day you will need to purchase all of the ingredients you need to prepare all of your meals and then of course, prepare the meals and store them appropriately. Once you have accomplished this you will not have to squeeze these things into the other days in the week.

2. Plan meals that can be frozen or will stay fresh in the refrigerator for a week. There are many containers that you can purchase that can go directly from the freezer to the oven or microwave.

3. Choose ahead of time two meals that will make enough food to provide leftovers during the week. This will allow you to cook only five meals on your cooking day.

4. Choose some meals such as casseroles, soups or chilis with ingredients from most of the food groups so there is no need to prepare side dishes each evening. On nights that you do prepare side dishes, make enough food so you will have some leftover for other nights of the week.

5. Plan meals that can be prepared in 15 minutes or less. It is perfectly acceptable to use convenience, packaged foods such as minute rice, microwave macaroni or ready to eat dinner rolls. Make sure you read the labels and choose the foods that are the healthiest for you and your family.

6. Make certain you have freezer space to store your prepared ahead meals. It is a good idea but not necessary to use a separate freezer for this purpose, if possible. Most foods can be frozen in freezer bags as well which will free up space in the freezer.

7. Make use of your crock pot or slow cooker. One pot meals are easy to prepare and can have a variety of ingredients that will be cooking slowly throughout the day while you are doing other things.

8. Get the family involved. You can have your children help cut up vegetables or add spices. This can help save time and also helps to encourage the children to try new foods.

9. It is not necessary to “reinvent the wheel” each day or even each week. Repeat meals that your family really enjoys. This saves you time during your meal planning and makes the family more excited about helping out in the kitchen. Feel free to consult cookbooks and visit the Internet for meal ideas that are easy and quick to prepare.

10. Reward yourself for sticking to your eating at home plan. It can be difficult at first to refrain from grabbing fast or frozen food so planning family rewards can be just the incentive you need to encourage everyone to stick to the plan.