Monday, December 12, 2011

Cooking Games and Candy


Candy is definitely delicious, and it’s a bit of a challenge to make at home, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use candy in all of your various creations! Candy is an excellent way to decorate a cake and to try out new cookie ideas. If you’re ready to get serious about holiday baking, bring along some candy as well to include everyone in the holiday cooking games.

Your holiday cooking games will likely start with a few friends coming over to join in the fun of the holiday baking. The ingredients will be laid out all over the counters and there is plenty of room for everyone to join and be part of the party – especially the younger kids.

The youngest members of the party are the perfect decorators! Just pass on the candy for the cooking games to the kids and they can spend hours making new designs on the top of the cupcakes and finding fun ways to embellish cookies and just about everything else you create on your day of cooking games. Just realize, of course, that more than a bit of that candy may disappear into the mouths of some of those hard working children.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Cooking Games and Fudge


One of the best cooking games I’ve come across lately was the box of fudge. Once upon a time you had to assemble the ingredients for fudge all by yourself. There were boxes and bags of ingredients and then you had to dig out the old family recipe so that you could figure out how to make the actual dessert. Now, however, there are boxes of fudge ingredients that you can easily make at home in a single sitting. These cooking games are simple, but they taste identical to the fudge recipes that were so tedious to make before.

Using the box of fudge, you’ll start by pulling out the various ingredients and checking to be sure that everything is there. Then, simply follow the instructions to melt the chocolate and blend the ingredients together to make the smooth fudge batter. Finally, you’ll press the fudge in the paper tray provided in the box and your cooking game will be complete – all you need to do is chill the fudge and then eat it to your heart’s content.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Cooking Games and Thanksgiving


The fun of Thanksgiving isn’t just the food, it’s the many conversations we have over the food as you enjoy it. If you’re going to sit down to Thanksgiving cooking games, don’t over think the experience. You should be able to make the food in a way that is stress free and fun to be sure that you can enjoy the whole day – not just the meal itself.

Start with the preparations a few days ahead of time. You’ll want to ask family members to help if possible with some of the dishes so that it doesn’t all fall into your lap the day of the big meal. Side dishes, breads and salad are easy to cook up at other homes and can arrive the day of the meal leaving you with the main course. Of course, having friends and family members over with you to help prepare the meal had some fun side benefits as well. Think of the fun you’ll have in the kitchen as you whip up some great meals and some even greater conversation at the same time.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Cooking Games and Comfort Foods


As winter approaches, it is absolutely time to start thinking about comfort foods. You should be firing up your crock pot right not to make a batch of chili. Or maybe you’re more into baking and you have plans for hot bread and brownies later. Cooking games are a great way to relieve some of the stress that builds during the countless hours you spend indoors in the winter, while giving you something important to work on as well.

This is your time to start perfecting some of your favorite cooking games. Work on finding the perfect balance of color and frosting in your cupcakes. Try adding some new nuts or candies to your brownies and cookies to see if you get a great new flavor. All of those recipes you’ve cut out of magazines? Let’s give them a try! The holidays are a great time for old favorite and an opportunity to try out some new ones as well. Bake up a storm this holiday season and you’ll be bringing comfort not only to yourself, but to all of your coworkers, friends and family members as well. Enjoy!

Monday, October 17, 2011

Cooking Games and the Crock Pot


The crock pot is a great way for busy people to play cooking games. Start with a collection of ingredients and then combine them all together to make up a delicious dish ahead of time. You can cook large cuts of meat easily in the crock pot by just dumping it in the pot with your seasonings and spices and then you walk away. Head off to work and when you get home you’ll find your main dish for the day finished. All you need to do then is create the side dishes in just a few minutes and your meal is complete.

Crock pots don’t just cook meat. You can make any number of soups, dips, side dishes and even casseroles in the pot. Some crock pots even have multiple compartments you can use to cook different items at once. Those allow you to walk into your home at the end of the busy day and have a full meal ready to go. What could be better at the end of a long, hard work day than to see the fruits of your cooking games bubbling up and ready to be served.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Cooking Games and Bread


If you’ve never made bread from scratch, it’s one cooking game you definitely to try. When you make bread, you’ll feel closer to your ancestors who had to make bread themselves every single day, day in and day out. Bread was the primary sustenance of the early settlers and even the more recent ones. Today we walk into the store to buy a loaf or two, but just a few decades ago you were more likely to find a loaf of homemade bread than a store bought one.

Bread takes a few hours to make, but it’s the sort of thing you can do in bits around other parts of your day. You’ll start by mixing up the bread dough with a spoon and then by hand. You’ll have to knead the bread dough to get the last of the flour into the dough and to work out any air bubbles. Once you’ve mixed it, the bread will rise for about an hour. Then, you’ll punch it down and it will rise again in the loaf pans. Finally bake your bread, and you’ll be able to enjoy the results of the cooking games immediately.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Cooking Games and Recipes


It’s hard sometimes to buckle down in the kitchen and get any cooking done. If you’re not a natural cook, playing cooking games can seem a bit foreign initially, but this is certainly not a reason to stay out of the kitchen. You need to jump in there and learn how to cook and pretty soon, if you have some solid recipes and you’re pretty good at following directions, you’ll see a dramatic difference in how well you can play cooking games, regardless of how much cooking you’ve done it the past.

Cooking games offer countless hours of fun, and in addition to just having fun cooking up desserts, breads and entrees, you’ll also be creating something you can enjoy eating. How much fun is it to settle down with a slab of cake that you created that morning? It’s even more rewarding to make a sandwich out of bread that you baked than the store bought variety. Learning to cook will also teach you just how many things you can make that don’t cost much to create – an excellent way to stay on a budget.