Share Here!
  • You are here:
  • Home »
  • Author's Archive:

All posts by Sabrina

Just How Many Tablespoons Are There In 1/4 Cup Or In 1 Cup?

So, you can’t find your cup measuring cup or you just need to know, how many tablespoons are there in 1/4 of a cup?measuring cup

 

tablespoon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Short answer: There are 4 level tablespoons in 1/4 cup, so a full cup has 16 level tablespoons.

This measurement applies to dry ingredients like flour, salt, and sugar. The same principle applies to wet ingredients, but these liquid ingredients are probably easier to measure with a measuring cup. If you don’t have one then now you know that you’ll need 4 level tablespoons.

Keep reading for a lot more information and to skip to any section in particular, use the table of contents below or click to hide it.

Continue

How Long Does Salmon Last In The Fridge Before It Goes Bad?

The last thing that you want to eat is spoiled salmon. It has a limited life when stored and it is important to understand “how long does salmon last in the fridge”?

whole pink salmon

We will clarify that question and many others you might have about storing salmon.

Continue

How To Reheat Pizza: It’s Not So Simple So Try These Five Ways

You may have some leftover pizza in your refrigerator but don’t want another cold crusty pizza slice if you can wait just a bit.

Cold Pizza Ready To Reheat

This time with a little patience, you’d like to restore your pizza’s flavor to what it tasted like when it was a freshly baked pie, at least as much as possible. So how to reheat pizza? Which way to reheat pizza works best?

There are several popular methods used for reheating pizza, some more well-known than others and some that are just not good.

We’ll explore five methods to reheat pizza and let you know what we found out in doing it because knowing how to reheat pizza can save your taste buds from the very muted flavor of cold pizza.

Continue

What If You Need A Chicken Broth Substitute? Here Are 10 That Should Work For You

Chicken Broth

Chicken broth is a healthy, tasty, and essential ingredient to many meals but sometimes you need a chicken broth substitute. Broth is a pantry staple that should always be on hand to improve the flavor profile of your cooking.

Chicken Broth

Chicken Broth

It can also be hard to make from scratch so we will take a look at a few alternatives to make life easier while still keeping your cooking healthy and delicious.

Continue

Wolf Coffee Maker: Does It Live Up To The Wolf Name?

Wolf Gourmet Programmable Coffee System

If you are looking for a quality gourmet coffee maker, the Wolf Gourmet Coffee Maker is a good option. Don’t just take our word for it. The many positive reviews reinforce this point. It is a top seller and highly rated by many happy customers.

Wolf Gourmet Coffee System

Credit: Wolf Gourmet

Let’s take a closer look at this popular coffee maker with a heavy-duty design. It brews a great cup of coffee and is an easy and efficient system to use.

Continue

What Are The Best Microwave Air Fry Combo Ovens In 2023?

Confused about microwaves with or without air frying functions or even trying hard to find microwaves that also air fry? This review selects the best microwaves with air fry functions for several different categories to help you decide which air fry microwave is the best one for you.

Continue

Is The Philips 3200 LatteGo Automatic Enough For The Price?

The Philips 3200 LatteGo is a fast and efficient fully automatic espresso machine and is also one of the more moderately priced fully automatic or super automatic espresso machines on the market.

Philips 3200 LatteGo Version

Credit: Philips

It’s a great option if you want a quality coffee drink with minimal hassle and fuss and it’s nice to know that Philips is a trusted longstanding brand.

Continue

Vitamix Blender Ideas: Need Some Ideas About What Your Vitamix Can Do?

Now that you have a Vitamix blender or even if you’re considering one and want to know what you can do with it, these Vitamix blender ideas should help.

Some of these ideas may even surprise you or maybe just remind you about the many things that you can make with a Vitamix.

Here Are Some Liquid-Based Foods That You Can Make In Your Vitamix:

  • Soup – You can make hot soup from a cold start with some broth and your choice of soup ingredients. It takes about six minutes to make from start to finish. The soup heats up over that time from the friction of the blender blades with your food ingredients and that heat gets transferred into whatever soup broth you’ve put into the blender.
  • Milkshakes – One of the first things you might think of to make with your Vitamix is a milkshake. The difference is the creaminess that comes with the “Vitamix Vortex”. Many loyal Vitamix users swear by the quality of the shakes they make with Vitamix machines. Just add milk, ice cream, ice, and almost any other ingredient to your blender and blend to your desired level of thickness.
  • Ice Cream – You can make a simple version of ice cream by adding milk to milk to some sugar, ice cubes, and vanilla extract. Experiment with additional ingredients like fruit, peanut butter, and nuts (for real ice cream making options, you can check out our review of Cuisinart ice cream makers here).
  • Smoothies – Many people just make smoothies with their Explorian blenders because they love the creaminess of the blend that the Vitamix blender blades give to their favorite smoothie recipe. The possibilities are almost endless starting with ice cubes and some kind of juice followed by frozen fruit. You can stop there or keep going with herbs, liquid or powdered vitamins, supplements, etc. Many people also opt for leafy greens and other vegetables instead of fruit, and with or without fruit as the base of their smoothie.
  • Sorbets – You also have a lot of different sorbet options that you can make with your Vitamix E310. The options are almost unlimited and based on whichever fruit options that you want to use. Just start with frozen fruit and blend until you reach your preferred sorbet thickness
  • Juice – Whole food juicing is one of the first things that Vitamix did with its blenders starting in the 1930s. Basically, blend your chosen fruit or even some vegetables and blend until it’s been “juiced”. There will be residual pulp, but it’s good fiber. If you really want to get rid of the pulp you can always manually strain it.
  • Sauce – All kinds of savory sauces are available for you to make with your Vitamix. One favorite is Tomato sauce.  Another favorite is Hollandaise sauce (see our Hollandaise recipe here). Sauces, savory or sweet, are something that professional chefs usually use their blenders for, and chefs really like Vitamix
  • Dips – A great dill dip starts in a Vitamix. Add some mayonnaise, parsley, onion, sour cream, dill weed, and salt. Blend it all together until the consistency is right for you. Avacado dips are really fun to make in a Vitamix blender also, especially since you can use the Pulse button to control how coarse or smooth you want your dip to be. Play around with your blender to find your favorite thickness.
  • Salad Dressing – Oil and vinegar are the usual starters to start a salad dressing, followed by almost anything, eggs, mustard, anchovies, lemon juice, strawberries, blueberries. apples, etc, etc. Mix and match to even invent a new one. Keep experimenting.
  • Baby Food – Your Vitamix blender is a great way to make your own baby food. The best thing about making your own baby food is that you get to choose the ingredients that you give to your baby to eat. The next best thing about it is that you can choose how thick or thin to make it based on how long you blend your baby food and how much liquid (water) you add to start. Use the Pulse button (see below) to give you the most control in making the baby food that you know your baby will enjoy.
  • Food Prep – You can also use your Explorian blender for chopping and other food preparation if you just don’t feel like using your cutting board to do it manually.

These dry goods blending ideas will work with your standard Vitamix blender container, but if you’re going to be doing a lot of dry goods blending you should consider buying the dedicated Vitamix dry goods container (you can see them in our review of the Vitamix 750 here or in the E320 here). The dry goods container is designed to more efficiently blend dry goods, and also keeps any stains from coffee, nuts, and other dry goods in a dedicated dry container rather than your “main” or standard wet Vitamix container.

 

Here Are Dry Ingredient Foods You Can Make With Your Vitamix Blender:

  • Nut Butter – Blend a creamy nut butter out of whichever nut you choose with your Vitamix. Just add some oil to your choice of nuts into the blender and blend on high speed until you get the consistency that you want for your own nut butter. You’ll have to use your tamper to keep your ingredients from getting stuck.
  • Ground Coffee can be made with any coffee beans you want, but beware that over time some kinds of beans may stain the blender container.
  • Non-Dairy Milk – There are a lot of non-dairy milk options to choose from based on your choice of ingredient. A lot of people like to make almond milk with their Vitamix blenders. To make almond milk, just add water to raw almonds and blend to your preferred level of consistency. You should also use raw almonds for almond milk (or other nuts) and soak them in water, at least overnight for best taste.
  • Dough –  Add flour, yeast, and salt and blending to your container and blend them together on “High” speed. Then add some hot water and olive oil and use the Pulse button to blend until a ball of dough forms. Then take that dough ball out of your blender and let it rise in a covered bowl for as long as your yeast requires.
  • Flour – Use your Vitamix blender to make flour from grains or nuts by blending at high speed until your flour is finely ground. Make sure to start with enough whole grains or nuts to clear the blender blades.
  • Batter – Use your Vitamix to make pancake or waffle (or other) batters that are super-whipped and would require a lot of hand mixing to get the same amount of air in the batter.
  • Ground Spice – Throw in whatever spice you want to grind into your E310, and make sure you use enough whole spices to give your blender blades enough spices to process.

You can also tweak some of these Vitamix blender ideas to come up with new ones as parts of recipes you may make regularly or something really creative, have fun.

Can You List 13 Types Of Espresso Drinks Including Those Made With Milk?

Do you know how many types of espresso drinks there are?

It’s hard to name more than two or three straight espresso drinks, and when you add milk-based espresso drinks, maybe you can add to that a Latte and maybe a Cappuccino.

This list of espresso drinks, both straight and milk-based, including photos, thanks to Breville and based on drinks that can be made in their espresso machines (see our review of the Breville Barista Express here), naming them all will also give you a lesson in Italian vocabulary.

The first set of drinks are Espressos, simple straight shots of Espresso.

Can You List 13 Types Of Espresso Drinks Including Those Made With Milk? 1

 

Ristretto – Italian for “restricted” is a single shot of espresso but with only about half the water of a single espresso shot. The Barista Express does this by interrupting the extraction process after 15 seconds.

 

image of single espresso

 

Single Espresso – A single shot of espresso is also known as a “short black” and with the Barista Express you can have one 1 ounce shot in

about 20 seconds.

 

image of double espresso

                                      

Double Espresso – Also known as “double-shot”, the Barista Express will give you 2 ounces of espresso as quickly as 30 seconds.

 

 

image of macchiato

 

Macchiato – Macchiato is Italian for “marked”, as in a mark made with textured milk, about 2 teaspoons, on the surface of the single shot of espresso that you use to make this drink

 

 

image of Americano

 

Americano – Italian for “American”, this drink adds hot water to a double shot of espresso to fill up your glass and make the equivalent of a cup of coffee.

 

 

image of Breville coffee

Weak, Strong & Regular Coffee – Combine espresso with water to make a version of coffee with your Breville Barista Express to make coffee. To make a “weak” coffee, use 1/2 shot of espresso, for “strong” coffee, use 2 shots of espresso, 1 shot too for “regular” coffee and add hot water from your

 

The next group of drinks is all made with heated milk, from your steam wand. With practice, you’ll be able to swirl your milk perfectly into a creamy aerated texture to pour into each of these drinks and top off with artistic micro-foam.

 

image of Piccolo

 

Piccolo – Italian for “small”, the Piccolo is steamed milk added to a single espresso shot and topped with foam, which is similar to a latte but with noticeably less milk, so it’s stronger.

 

 

image of a latte

 

Latte– Italian for “milk” when used in a phrase like “caffè e latte” or coffee and milk, which is what it is, or more precisely, it is a shot of espresso combined with steamed milk. You could say that a latte is a Piccolo with about twice as much milk, but most people don’t know what a Piccolo is, while most do know what a Latte is.

 

image of caffe mocha

 

Caffe Mocha – Or “Macaccino” is a chocolate-flavored latte. It is flavored with cocoa powder or even liquified chocolate added to the espresso shot, then combined with steamed milk. Usually, a caffe mocha is topped with additional cholate, cocoa powder usually.

 

image of a flat white

 

 

Flat White – A espresso drink blended with steamed or foamed milk served with cup and saucer. A flat white has one shot of espresso like a latte does, but with less foamed milk to fit inside the smaller cup, so that the coffee to milk ratio is higher than in a latte.

image of cappuccino

 

Cappuccino – A espresso with foamed milk, often more foam than in a Latte, and not as much foamed milk, Cappuccinos originated in Italy and is said to have been named for the brown hoods of Friars Minor Capuchins according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. Cappuccinos are typically served in cups and saucers.

 

The next two drinks are desserts made with espresso from your Breville Barista Express.

image of iced coffee

 

Dessert Iced Coffee – To make one version of an iced coffee, start with a single or double espresso into a blender, then add cold milk (about 6 ounces), vanilla flavoring, and 1 scoop of ice cream and blend. Tweak it from there, combinations are just about infinite.

 

image of a dessert affogato

 

Coffee Affogato – Italian for “drowned”, affogato can be any liquid poured over food, to “drown” it. As a coffee dessert, pour 1 or 2 shots of espresso over ice cream, then garnish with nuts, or anything else.

Note – all coffee drink photos above, Credit: Breville USA

We hope you found this list helpful, if nothing else it’s a good test of skills to run by your local barista to see if they can make any of the more obscure drinks the next time you’re in your favorite coffee bar.

 

What Are Best Portable Electric Stoves, Cooktops & Best Burners in 2023?

Portable burners, cooktops, or portable electric stoves can be used in a wide variety of applications, such as camping, catering of functions, or for use at home. We take a look at the best portable electric stoves.

Many brands and styles are available, with an option for just about every need and type of cookware. Setting up your portable burner or portable electric stove is as easy as finding a flat surface within reach of a suitable electric outlet (or gas in one model we review).

Some offer basic warming and cooking of small batches at a cost-effective price, while other electric burners can handle large pots and heavy loads. It is therefore important to consider what you’ll be using the burner for and we will help you to decide in this review.

Continue

1 2 3 7