The Professional Chef |

While throwing your child a birthday party is high on any parents list, most people don’t want to spend a fortune for the celebration. Depending on the time of year and your budget, there are some great options for the location of the party (other than your home). If you do decide to throw a party outside your home, be sure to include your child in the location decision. If the child is young, you may want to bring them to the location prior to the party so that they can get comfortable and excited about the upcoming event. Most kids look forwarding to opening their presents at the end of their party. So whatever option you choose, make sure you set aside a special place where all the party goers can place the birthday gifts.

1. Town Park Shelter. Many local communities offer rental shelters at the parks where they have picnic tables, grills and play equipment for the kids. The older children can go play while the adults hang out. The food doesn’t have to be gourmet, instead keep it simple and easy like barbecuing hot dogs or burgers or a couple baked lasagnas with salad. Follow up with a fun birthday cake from your local warehouse club, grocery store or your own kitchen.

2. Fast Food Restaurant. Both McDonald’s and Hardees offer kids parties that include a party hostess, food and cake at reasonable prices. The other great thing about these restaurants is that many have Playlands or plastic ball pits so that the kids can be entertained while the adults chit-chat and relax a bit.

3. Children’s or Science Museum. If you have a larger budget, a local science or children’s museum can be a great place to hold a birthday party. Some places have party hostesses and provide some supplies, so just check what they provide in your city. You may only need to bring a birthday cake and presents.

4. Movie Theater. Many towns have inexpensive or dollar show theaters that will rent out the entire theater or give you big group discount as well as discounts on snacks and soda. Some theaters will let you bring in some of your own snacks and a cake so just check and see what can be done at your local theater by speaking with the manager.

5. Neighborhood Club House. If you live in a planned community, chances are that you have a club house in your neighborhood or apartment complex. Often these rooms are either free or can be rented for a nominal fee by residents. The club house would likely give you more room than your home, but it would still be close enough that you could set up the birthday party relatively easily.

6. Local Fire Department. Often times, local fire departments have rooms that they will allow local residents utilize for free or for a nominal fee. Some fire departments will even give the children of a private birthday party a tour of the department and let them try on some of the firefighters’ gear and get their photos taken. These pictures make great keepsake gifts for all the children.

With holiday expenses running higher each year it’s good to know that printable Christmas party games can help to make an occasion festive without breaking the bank. Holiday printer paper might help to make the games even more decorative or just red and green sheets can be used. If special holiday paper is purchased it could also be used for invitations and craft projects. White paper is often easier to read and may actually be the best choice considering the graphics. Quiet games like word searches and word scrambles can help to amuse children when adult supervision is distracted to other areas of concern.

These word games can be found for free on the web. All that is needed is a simple search of the net and some very good party websites will pop up with free printable puzzles. A website called, www.PartySuppliesHut.com has 600 word puzzles pre-made and available to print out. There happen to be at least three easy to find Christmas word puzzles on this site. However it may be found that creating one’s own puzzles themed after the Christmas holidays is a better idea.

The holidays can be very exciting but with the allure of the season’s many joys comes the very likely possibility that youngsters will become over stimulated. When this happens there are many adverse consequences in terms of negative behavior. With the use of quiet activities this negative behavior can potentially be curbed and harmony can return to the home. This very affordable option can also give adults and children an opportunity to interact on a level that may be more suitable than other activities.

Why do we resort to barbecuing only a few times a year.  Sure, it’s tough to get old smokey, or your Big Baby Double Barrel DIY Smoker rolling in February if you live up in the hinterlands, but man!  Should we not do all we can to keep the smoke ring alive for as far into the year as we can? 

Now, it’s easy for me to say this, as I live down here in the Orlando, Florida area.  The warm climate and vast number of barbecue restaurants – Brock’s Smoke Hut in Winter Haven, FL is one of my personal favorites – definitely helps keep BBQ on the Brain.

If you’re jonesing for a BBQ fix, but bad weather has you down, you might want to check out a cool little gadget I came across just recently surfing the net.  It’s called the Plek 66, made by a company called Rocal – out of  Barcelona, Spain – and it’s so cool. 

The Plek 66 barbecue is ideal for lofts, houses and places where space and design play an important role. Designed for those seeking a new concept in functionality.

What can I say – I’m a gadget fan!  Think about it, you can get this baby going just about anywhere!   Very practical and designed to occupy little space, the Plek 66 barbecue folds to a thin rectangle when you’re not using it. Unfolded, you’re presented with two grill grates, a big container for storing charcoal and ashes, and two useful side shelves. Put this baby on the floor of your nice warm cozy spot and get to barbecuing!  What’s not to like? 

Of course, I’m not saying that the Plek 66 is your most practical choice.  But since when have Barbecue Gear and being practical ever mixed company?  Shoot, I bet there are more than a few out there who could reverse engineer this bad boy and post the instructions on their favorite Barbecue Discussion Board!

Although barbecuing is the typical way most of us cook outdoors, cooking with a smoker is gaining in popularity. Even though the smoked heat method takes considerably longer than your basic charcoal grill, cooks say that the distinctive taste of smoker cooking is well worth the wait.

Smoker cooking is a form of cooking where the smoke from burning wood prepares your foods. Heated hard wood chips, such as mesquite, hickory and oak are placed in a smoker, which not only cook the food, but also add a unique flavor from each wood type. The typical wood smoker has a separate fire chamber, which allows the heat and smoke to pass through the food being prepared. In smoker cooking, food never comes in contact with an actual flame as it does with charcoal grilling. As such, there are no dripping oils, bursts of flames or charcoal burnt food.

Cooking with a smoker allows for a whole range of flavor opportunities. The type of hard wood chips you choose will provide the unique flavor for your smoked food. Hickory typically provides a heavy, smoky flavor to foods, and is often used when smoker cooking a turkey. Wood chips made from apple or pecan trees produce a lighter smoke flavor and will produce foods with a light, slightly sweet smoked taste, often used with a white fish fillet.

Patience and allowing oodles of time to prepare a meal is the key to successful cooking with a smoker. Foods cooked with heated smoke take considerably longer to cook than foods slapped on the barbecue. Depending in the size of the food you are preparing, and the temperature you are cooking, smoker cooking takes hours longer than typical grilling. A four pound piece of meat that will cook in 45 minutes on a barbecue will most likely take at least two hours in a smoker. A four pound chicken will need about four hours in the smoker before it is done. The best way to tell if meat is thoroughly cooked is to use a meat thermometer. Chicken that is thoroughly cooked has a temperature of 165 degrees.

There are endless possibilities when smoker cooking food. Any type of meat, poultry or seafood can be prepared for cooking by a smoker. Experimentation will allow you to find the perfect wood chip for each of your favorite meat types. Rubbing spices on your meat prior to smoker cooking, as well as adding sauces while meat is being prepared adds even more flavor to your food.

Steaming vegetables is also ideal for cooking with a smoker. The cooking with smoke process seals in not just the taste, but the nutrients as well. Smoker cooking is the simple way and tasty way to add more veggies to your diet. Many of your favorite recipes can also be prepared via cooking with smoke. Chili is a smoker cooking favorite for many cooks. Your smoker will most likely come with a cookbook filled with new recipes to try.

So when you have the time and are yearning for food with that unique smoky flavor, consider smoker cooking for your next meal.

Delicious Halloween cakes are easy to make. In fact, you will find many different recipes for Halloween cake that taste great and look scary.

You can turn a simple cake into a Halloween cake by decorating it in a special way, usually with yellow and black frosting. You will find many great Halloween decorating ideas online and offline in recipe books and guidelines.

One of the most popular Halloween cakes is the “Spider Web cake.” You just bake and frost your favorite cupcakes and put them on a plate. Weave a spider web with frosting by using black licorice and your Halloween cupcakes are ready to be served.

Similarly, you can prepare “Vampire” or “Frankenstein” cakes. There are several web sites that provide information about preparing “creepy” cakes.

One should remember that Halloween cakes are relished not merely for their taste but for how they look. This look should be unique. There is no single rule that needs to be followed. One can be innovative and give a unique look to a Halloween cake, but the tradition is that the cake must look creepy. Some fun ideas for Halloween cake decorations are gumdrops lined up like worms, marshmallows with black licorice in the centers to look like spooky eyes and goofy eyes made with marshmallows with raisins for eyeballs.

There are several companies that offer readymade Halloween cakes. Some help you in choose the creepiest cake by providing you with certain images that can be “drawn” on the cake after you purchase it. These cakes can also be ordered online.

Jerk is one of the most popular styles of Jamaican cooking. It is used for cooking meat, traditionally pork or goat, but nowadays chicken and fish as well. All jerk dishes are spicy, even fiery, but they can be very tasty and are appreciated by many spice lovers.

The main secret behind the flavor of jerk is in the preparation of the meat. This is done by marinading the meat in a mixture of spices known as “Jamaican jerk spice”. Ideally, you should marinade the meat over night in the ‘fridge and then cook the following day. Rather than just letting the marinade soak into the meat, I would suggest making some light cuts in the surface of the meat, and rubbing the marinade into these as well as the meat generally.

As already mentioned, Jamaican jerk spice is a actually a mixture of several spices. It gets most of its flavor from two particular ingredients, namely Jamaican allspice (also known as “pimento” or “pimenta”) and Scotch bell peppers. Jerk spice also usually contains several other spices such as garlic, cloves, cinnamon and thyme, and is usually mixed with chopped onions and/or scallions before being applied to the meat.

The best way to cook jerk chicken is over a charcoal barbecue grill. Ideally, you should place some pimento wood or berries on the grill – but if this is not possible you can put some hickory or apple on the coals instead. Of course, barbecuing meat is not always possible, for example during the Winter or if you live in a city – in that case, you can instead roast the meat in a normal kitchen oven, and still get good results.

It is said that the pineapple originated in the Caribbean Islands from a shipwreck. The pineapple carried by an ill-fated Spanish ship was washed ashore. It was carried onboard, because the Spanish explorers ate it to prevent scurvy – a disease that causes Vitamin C deficiency.

The pineapple upside down cake was first recognized in 1924, in a fund-raising cookbook and again in 1925 in a Gold Medal Flour ad. In 1936, Sears Roebuck added it to its catalog; making is a familiar staple of American culture.

A pineapple upside down cake begins with a layer of sweet pineapple that is syrupy and glazed in butter at the bottom of a heavy skillet. This is topped with a cake batter and baked. After baking, the creation is flipped over, producing a beautiful upside down pineapple cake.

The most popular batter used in a pineapple upside down cake is a buttermilk mixture. It can be baked in a skillet or a square cake pan. The cake pan tends to hold more fruit if it is square, and it is easier to flip the cake in a square pan.

Basic ingredients include pineapple rings, butter, maple syrup, and light brown sugar, pitted cherries. The cake is made with butter, sugar, eggs, buttermilk, maple syrup, vanilla extract, flour, salt, baking power, baking soda and cinnamon.

Believe it or not, the pineapple upside down cake is a favorite of many to serve on April Fools Day. Some serve this tasty treat with ice ream and/or whipped cream. Keep in mind that although pineapples are a favorite, the upside down cake can also be made with other fruits including pears, cherries, applies, etc. The cake is best enjoyed when it is served warm.

The history of barbecuing dates back long before the United States was founded, and tract houses with backyard barbecue grills spread across the suburban plains. It is said, even though some disagree, that the Taino Indians of Haiti were the first to use a form of barbecuing over open fire. In years to follow, English Settlers along the Atlantic Coast had their own barbecues. It is said in the year 1733, a gentleman by the name of Benjamin Lynda wrote in his diary, Fair and hot; barbecue at the Browns, which indicates social gathering was established at that time.

Today barbecuing is far reaching and especially grand sized in Texas, where a pit for fuel might be dug ten foot deep. Barbecue grills tend to be small in comparison and portable, fueled by charcoal, propane, or electricity. The smaller charcoal grills are best suited for two to four people, the thing with charcoal is the wait, sometimes twenty minutes or more before the coals are ready for grilling. Many barbecue purists argue that charcoal gives the food a better taste than the gas grills. There may have been some truth to this in the early days, but with the gas grills of today the food picks up flavor from the drippings on a cover over the burners, called a flavorizer bar, much the same as from the charcoal. I think most would agree once they got used to it, that you would be hard pressed to tell the difference, all other things being equal.

Once you decide to purchase a gas barbecue grill, several things should be considered. Size will depend on how often, and how many, you will be grilling for. The three or four burner models will handle almost any grilling to be done at home for the average family. If there is a side burner on the grill it will come in handy for completing all of your cooking outdoors. A couple of other things to consider are how well the grill is made. Some of the cheaper grills are made of very thin material, and will only last a few years. The burners on the cheaper grills suffer the same shortcomings, and will not last long if the grill is left outside. You might want to take a look at stainless steel barbecue grill with the cast iron, ceramic, or stainless steel burners. These will last much longer, and should give many years of trouble free use if well taken care of. Be sure to get a custom grill cover too, as this will keep your purchase looking like new for many years to come.

You might also want to add a few items such as a cooking glove, long handled fork, and maybe a long handle spatula. A grill brush for cleaning will also be helpful. Another item to consider is an extra propane bottle. It is a wise purchase since you will only run out of gas when you are using your grill. Also worth noting is that all propane and natural gas grills can be hooked to a permanent supply line if desired. Check with your local gas company for assistance.

If grilling is new to you, you will find yourself cooking outside more than you ever imagined. I personally cook outdoors on many occasions year-round. There is just nothing like a home cooked meal on your new barbecue grill. Happy Grilling!

What exactly is in those boxes of instant stuffing mix? Secret ingredients that only large food companies are allowed to buy? Are they cooked in some special way that we can’t hope to imitate in our home kitchens?

Hardly. In fact, you can use common ingredients you probably already have to make a stuffing that’s just as good as the ones you make from commercial mixes.

You’ll need:

Bread – two slices for each person A few teaspoons of butter, margarine, or oil A little clear soup, such as chicken bouillon A pinch or two of dried thyme A sprinkling of your favorite seasoning – we like Club House Garlic Plus Optional – one onion and three sticks of celery for every two people

Stale bread is good for this, unless, of course, it’s started to go moldy. If it’s not stale, put it in the toaster for a short time, just until it starts to get crisp, not browned. You can use bread straight out of the freezer. You can trim off the crusts, but you don’t have to. Either way, cut each slice into about 16 squares.

If you’re using the onions and celery (I recommend you do, but your kids might not like them), chop them into very small, thin pieces. Melt the butter and fry them in it until they’re just softened. Then add the bread squares.

If you’re not using the vegetables, just put the bread squares in the melted butter. Once they’re in there, stir to keep them moving. Put in the thyme and other seasoning now.

When the bread begins to brown, put in a little of your clear soup. It’s impossible to say how much – every batch of stuffing is different. Just add it, little by little, until the stuffing holds together.

Bouillon or other soups made from dried mixes are good for this. You should make them with a little less water than the package directions say. Canned or homemade broth can also be used, though I haven’t tried these. You might have to add a little salt to them.

Taste to see if there’s anything else you want to add. Then the stuffing is ready to go into your turkey. If there’s too much for the turkey, just put it into a baking dish, cover it, and cook it along with the turkey for about 45 minutes.

This is fresh, homemade, and as tasty as anything you can make from a stuffing mix.

There are many different opinions and techniques for smoking a rack of ribs. The
best way to find out what works for you is to practice and experiment with different
available recipes, or new recipes you come up with. No matter what recipe or taste
you are looking for, the key to turning a plain rack of ribs into a tender, juicy,
perfectly smoked rack of ribs is “Low and Slow.” This means low temperature
(225-250 degrees F) and al long time (about 5 hours for a 5 lb rack).

When I prepare a rack of spare ribs for smoking, I usually prepare the ribs the night
before I am going to smoke them to let the rub soak in to the meat. This will give
the rub plenty of time to work. A rub is basically a blend of seasonings that is
applied to meat before smoking. You do not have to use a rub, but I recommend it
because it will add flavor to the meat. How much flavor depends on your rub recipe,
but that is another story.

The rack of spare ribs referred to in these instructions weighed 5 pounds, and was
smoked using indirect heat (225 F) for about 6 hours.

FRESHNESS

When I choose a rack of ribs for smoking, I make sure that the meat has not been
previously frozen. Sometimes choices are limited, but fresh meat will have a better
flavor, and it will be very tender when smoked correctly. If the ribs have been
frozen, as most have, no biggie. Make sure your thaw them out in the refrigerator.

TRIMMING THE RIBS

When you purchase a rack of spare ribs, there will be a membrane located on the
underside of the ribs. Most people have different opinions regarding removing the
membrane or leaving it on. I remove the membrane with a sharp knife, or I have my
butcher remove it for me. If you are new to removing the membrane, you may ask
your butcher to remove it for you the first time, and maybe he or she will even show
you how to remove it. You can also leave it on because if the ribs are cooked
correctly, the membrane will pretty much dissolve while cooking.

If you choose to remove it, begin by trimming it away from the bone on one end of
the ribs. You can either continue cutting it off, or if you get lucky, you can grab it
with a pair of pliers, and pull the whole membrane off at one time.

When trimming the fat off of the ribs, make sure you leave a little. There will
probably be an excess amount in some places. Just trim it down until it looks right
to you. The fat will render, turning into oil, and it will help to keep the ribs moist.

SEASONING

Prepare your rack of ribs the night before you are going to smoke it, allowing 15 or
so hours to let the rub soak in.

Coat the ribs with a thin layer of olive oil before applying the rub.

Season both sides of the ribs with your favorite dry rub. There are a few listed on
thesmokerking.com. If you decide to make your own rub, remember, the goal is not
to overpower the taste of the meat with seasonings, but to add to the flavor by
correctly blending different seasonings together that will enhance the flavor of the
meat.

Some people like to marinade their ribs, but I have had the best results with using a
dry rub.

COOKING

Remove the ribs from the refrigerator about 45 minutes before cooking them so
they are closer to room temperature.

I smoke the ribs at a consistent temperature of 225 degrees F for about 1 hour per
pound, but usually no more than 6 hours.

Place the ribs bone side up in the smoker. I use a rib mop sauce that has no or very
little brown sugar, and no tomato products in it. These two ingredients will burn
before the meat is done, and produce bad results. It is best to apply a finishing
sauce or glaze towards the last 30-40 minutes of smoking.

A great mop sauce that I use is to mix 2/3 cups of Apple Cider Vinegar and 1/3 cup
of olive oil in a spray bottle. Shake the bottle and spray the ribs down about every
45 minutes. The Apple Cider Vinegar will help tenderize the meat, and make the
ribs a little sweeter.

When applying the finishing sauce, turn the ribs over so that the bone side is down,
then apply the sauce. Do this during the last 30 minutes of cooking.

The ribs are done when the meat retracts and exposes the edge of the rib bones by
about 1/2 inch or so, and basically each rib section will tear apart with ease. The
internal meat temperature will be about 180 F when done. An instant read
thermometer is a must have for checking the doneness of the meat.

After a while, you will develop a feel for doneness.

Using different types of wood will produce different smoke flavors in the meat. I
usually use mesquite, apple, and charcoal. Too much mesquite can add a strong,
smoky flavor to the ribs, so use it sparingly. Hickory and oak are also some of the
commonly used woods for smoking ribs.

SERVING

Let the smoked rack of ribs rest for about 10 minutes before cut into it.

Cut down the middle of each strip of meat between each rib bone. Add your favorite
sauce, and enjoy.