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Cracker meal adds flavor
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Though you can bread food in anything from regular breadcrumbs to rice flour to crushed cookies, we're partial to cracker meal for more delicate foods like fish or vegetables. They add mild, not overwhelming flavor and a solid crunch. Cracker meal is especially good when you're frying shrimp or oysters for a po' boy, or try it with sliced okra. Or, use it as you would breadcrumbs, when stuffing foods like winter squash.
Use those beet leaves
Don't discard the leaves of beets. When you get a bunch of beets, cut the tops off — beets last longer in the fridge with the tops removed. Stick the tops in a plastic bag in the crisper; they'll be good there for a few days. When you're ready to cook them, cut away any overly thick center stems (they'll be too tough to eat). Rinse them repeatedly, and then rinse them some more: drop them in a big bowl of cold water, swish around, and lift out. Replace the cold water and repeat until water is clear; beet greens have a lot of grit on them.
You can either treat them like you would spinach — for example, sautéed with a little bit of garlic — or treat them like collard greens: long-cooked on the stovetop. They're full of vitamins and minerals, and bring lots of flavor to the table.
Cleaning metal bowls
To properly clean a stainless steel or copper bowl, pour in 1/4 cup white vinegar and 2 tablespoons coarse salt and thoroughly rub into the surface. The salt acts as an abrasive, penetrating into the little pockets of the metal where fat likes to hide; the vinegar lifts the fat out of those pockets. All you have to do is rinse with water, air-dry, and you'll know your egg whites will whip up perfectly.
Odd name for a vegetable
Lambsquarters, also known as wild spinach and pigweed, is a vegetable that grows like a weed (which it technically is). It looks like spinach, but with pointy leaves with a slightly white tinge to them. It's super-nutritious both raw and cooked; simply pluck leaves from thicker stems, wash well, and quickly steam or sauté.
— For more information, visit www.foodnetwork.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.
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