8/29/11
Guide to Spotting Food Spoilage
8:27 AM | 
Postedby
Kartika Christensen
Cooking in a proper and healthy manner is only one half of the work; selection of fresh and good-quality ingredients is also important! Most people tend to ignore the fact that food kept for long periods in the fridge has lost the healthy nutrients necessary for the body, because they still appear fresh!
Food spoilage can be caused by two factors, namely natural decay and contamination by micro-organisms.
Here are some tips to knowing when your food is no longer fit for cooking:
Moisture Loss
Moisture loss mostly occurs in fruit and vegetables, especially one with large amounts of water, but it also occurs in other foods like meat, fish, and cheese due to evaporation of water from the surface. This is easily spotted by appearance and texture. Colorful food will appear discolored and has dry skin.
Browning
Enzymes inside the fruits and vegetables may cause browning or discoloration when exposed to air. Freezing these fruit/vegetable pieces helps slow down the cell-degradation process, but it’s better to not keep the halves.
Moulds
Moulds are tiny vegetations just visible to the naked eyes. They grow from spore cells, settle and multiply on certain foods such as meat, cheese, fruit and bread stored in damp conditions. Moulds remain active at low temperature but will be destroyed at a temperature of more than 70 degrees C. It appears as fluffly mass, mostly white in colour.
Bad Smell
Food may look fresh after a few days of storage, but do not only rely on one sense! Smell it, is it acidic? Rotten-smelling? The bad smell mainly comes from microorganism contamination such as bacteria, and at this state the food may cause digestive problems.
So what’s the best way to keep your ingredients fresh?
Arrange your fridge as such so that you know which fruit/vegetable/meat was stored first. I, for example, always arrange meat/vegetables from the left to the right by the order of storage.
When it comes to food, it’s never a good idea to buy in bulk unless you’re planning a feast. Besides, food is not a fashion item and it is rarely labeled ‘buy 1 get 1 free’ or such. Buy ingredients according to your needs, while taking the frequency of shopping into consideration. Experts suggest you store fresh ingredients for a maximum of 3 days.
Store your fresh ingredients in a vacuum plastic bag or tupperware for maximum length of storage and minimum risk of contamination.
Always look at the expiry date of factory-made ingredients or bakery products. Pick one with a later expiry date
Well, there you go, some tips to know when not to use expired/bad/spoiled food. Hope this helps! Enjoy your food and stay healthy!
Always look at the expiry date of factory-made ingredients or bakery products. Pick one with a later expiry date
Well, there you go, some tips to know when not to use expired/bad/spoiled food. Hope this helps! Enjoy your food and stay healthy!
Label:
8/28/11
Healthy Chicken Kebabs!
Servings: 4
Ingredients:
4 skinless boneless chicken breast (diced)
1 red bell pepper (combine with green or yellow ones, if you like), diced to 2-inch wide pieces
1 onion, diced the same way
Kebab skewers (made of bamboo or stainless steel)
Barbeque sauce:
Mix and simmer the following ingredients for 15 minutes:
3 tablespoon of soybean sauce
½ cup of water
½ cup of apple vinegar (or squeeze 2 lemons)
1 tablespoon of yellow mustard
2 teaspoons of garlic powder
½ teaspoon of cayenne
A pinch of salt and black pepper
Preparation Steps:
Preheat the grill to high heat
Thread the chicken, bell pepper and onion pieces onto the skewers
Oil the grill gate lightly and place kebabs on the prepared grill
Turn the kebabs frequently and brush it with barbeque sauce for 20 minutes.
Serve garnished with celery or chopped green onions.
The Right Way of Preparing Instant Noodles
Phew! After being soooo busy with work-business-work-business (it’s ultra-hectic, you guysss!), I was finally inspired create put a new blog post. This ‘revelation’ occured to me on Sunday night, during the holiday season in Indonesia, where we couldn’t find any food vendor (everybody is rushing to their hometown for the holidays! Literally, they look they’re evacuating from an impending disaster....) and were forced to eat.... omg, instant noodles!
I hate to admit that I used to be a big lover of it, and so did my family. This was before a doctor told us how bad instant food and canned/processed food are. Did you know that 95% instant noodle consumers never knew the proper way of preparing it, A.K.A, they never knew they SHOULDN’T (this is important, people!) to dump the cooked noodle water into which the chemical food hardener/preservatives dissolves.
This chemical ingredient does not only make the overall food tastes artificial... (blech!) but also increases the risks of cancer, gastrointestinal problems, and bloated belly!
Now I know even the most up-scale people have not missed an instant noodle session (I mean, how else would it be the best-selling mass-produced food products ever, right?), so I’ve come up with some tips to prepare your instant noodle without jeopardizing your health!
Preparation Steps (The Healthy Way)
- Even if your instant noodle comes with a styrofoam bowl, i strongly suggest to use a food-grade container.
- Boil 3 glasses of water and wait until the water is fully bubbling, as this will be used for the instant noodle soup, and it will also ensure that all preservatives/hardener in the noodle dissolve within 3-4 minutes of cooking time.
- Pour the ingredients into your bowl, and add a cup of boiled water from the pan.
- Start cooking your instant noodle by simmering it in the boiling water for 3-4 minutes (I like mine for 5 minutes). Note: How do you know if an instant noodle is ready to eat? Easy! The water it boils in should be deep yellowish and the noodle itself should be loose and slippery when you try to pick some with ur fork!
- After the noodle is cooked, dump the cooked water slowly down the sink, or simply use a stainless steel sifter to take the noodle without the water, into the bowl.
Et voila, you have a much healthier bowl of instant noodle at your disposal!
(for the record, I am strongly against instant and processed food >_<)
7/30/10
I HAVE RETURNED
Summer Day Yoghurt Apricots
4 servings
Nutritional info: 250 calories per serving
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 lb of fresh apricots, halved and pitted
- 2 tbs of light brown sugar
- 9 oz of non-fat vanilla yoghurt
- 6 tbs of strawberry puree
- 1 1/2 lb of fresh apricots, halved and pitted
- 2 tbs of light brown sugar
- 9 oz of non-fat vanilla yoghurt
- 6 tbs of strawberry puree
Preparation:
1. Prepare grill for cooking. On a charcoal grill, open vents on bottom of grill and on lid.
2. Arrange apricots, cut sides up, in a roasting pan and sprinkle with brown sugar, patting and pressing with fingers to help evenly adhere.
3. Cook apricots in pan, covered with grill lid, without turning, with low heat until sugar is melted and apricots are softened (about 5 minutes).
4. Serve apricots with yogurt on top, and pour some strawberry puree. Yum Yum Yum ^_^
This recipe is good for dessert after lunch on a hot, sunny day :D
5/16/10
Rise and Shine Blogger Template
Rise and Shine is the third Blogger Template that I've created. :) It was based on two column layout and has both top and footer navigation menu. I've also already embedded so many useful Blogger hacks on the template such as pagination, read more button, related posts, avatar comments, Back to Top Button, Google Buzz and Twitter retweet button and Social Bookmarking Buttons. Special thanks to AllBlogTools.com for these useful Blogger hacks.
Click here to download this template in XML format.
Click here to download this template in ZIP format (images included).
Click here to view the demo template
Template Installation Instructions
- Download a template and unzip.
- Go to the Layout section in your blog (Dashboard → Layout → Edit HTML ).
- Supports your previous template (Download full Template).
- Find and upload your template.
- Enjoy your new blog design.
To Customize the Template
For color and the font size, some Blogger templates offer an option to change it from the Dashboard (Dashboard → Layout → Fonts and Colors). Here you can see the result directly in the template.
Major changes in the templates needed to know at least a little CSS and HTML. A quick way to modify a template is change the images in the CSS code, for others with the same dimensions. That is the process to change the header of a design, for example.
Additionally, some templates have their own settings instructions and customization, refer to the same download page of your template.
To edit the top menu and the footer links, you could edit it through the menu directly from the Dashboard (Dashboard → Layout → Page Elements).
How To Activate/Edit the Rise and Shine Template Embedded Features (Jquery Image Gallery, Retweet Button, Light Box, etc)
- To learn how to activate the Lightbox, you can learn it from here.
- To learn how to activate the Jquery Image Gallery, you can learn it from here.
- To edit the retweet button, you can simply go to Dashboard → Layout → Edit HTML then check Expand Widget Templates box. Find this code your_twitter_user_name and then replace it with your own Twitter username.
- To edit the pagination style, you can learn it from here.
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