Cooking Tips

First, let me apologize for my absence...we have been without phone, Internet, and cable all week- SO annoying!  I can blog via my phone, but it is much easier to on the computer, so I decided to wait.  :)  So I will be doing Wed, Thur, Fri, and today's blog posts this morning.

I went with my mom on Wednesday to one of my favorite restaurants Anna Lee's (see my post about it here)
for a "Tips of the Trade" cooking class.  If you haven't realized, we love going to cooking classes together.  This particular class was dinner, wine, and watching and learning "cooking tips".  The food was delicious, we got some yummy recipes, and learned lots of neat things!

Here are some of my favorite things I learned:
-Instead of using Pam to grease pan, keep a shaving brush in a jar with oil in it.  You can use it to grease anything!
-If you are measuring something sticky (peanut butter, molasses, etc), use said shaving bread to spread a little oil in your measuring cup before you measure you "sticky stuff" and it will slide right out!
-To make perfect crust on bread, dip it in water (the whole thing- unless it is already sliced) and then bake at 350 for 15 minutes.  It gives you absolutely perfect outside crust- really good on Ciabatta bread.  If it is already sliced, spray it with a spray bottle instead of dunking.

Yum, yum, yum!