Food Prep - Page 40

March 20, 2018

World’s largest pizzas commercially available

While many pizza restaurants max out with 20-inch pizzas, with a few outliers straying into the 30-inch territory, there are few in the world bold enough to make pizzas that rival the size of the people eating them. But even then, most of those pizzerias will only make them a few times a month for special food challenges. Only a select, crazy few pizza joints in the world will make humongous pizzas at the whims of their customers – although they may require 48 hours notice. Here are the top five biggest, commercially available pizzas in the world.

March 20, 2018

Meat cuts to avoid as the price of beef spikes

Talk about a grill buster. Just in time for summer barbecue season, the price of beef is skyrocketing, which is putting out the flames of meat lovers everywhere. A ground beef burger costs $3.26 a pound, up from $2.99 a year ago, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Steak averages $4.81 a pound at the store and ground beef $3.51 — historically high numbers, according to economists. The spike is caused in part by high feed costs because of several droughts that have led to the smallest number of cattle in the U.S. herd since 1952. Last year’s drought — the worst in U.S. history — dried up grazing grasses and sent the costs of corn and soybeans, both used in cattle feed, soaring. The current drought in the Southwest continues to wipe out the feed and make it very expensive to raise cattle. Overall, beef prices have trended up each month since 2011 on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' consumer price index and experts don't expect prices to go down through two of the most popular grilling holidays: Father's Day and July 4. There are ways to take the sizzle out of your wallet, such as picking less-expensive cuts such as flat-iron steak or a flank steak. But here are the top luxury cuts that you may want to avoid all together:

March 20, 2018

9 gut-busting treats to hit a store shelf near you

Just when you thought it was safe to start your summer diet, snack and candy makers are trying to tempt your taste buds with a slew of new sweet or savory or just plain strange new treats. Whether it's with unique chip flavors --such as blue cheese, dill pickle or barbecue ribs -- or the most mouthwatering chocolates, companies that specialize in munchies are competing for your appetite and your food budget. The hottest trends in palate pleasing goodies were recently on display at the Sweets and Snack Expo in Chicago, where buyers sampled the latest confections and product innovations. Here's a look at what's coming soon to a store shelf near you:

March 20, 2018

10 messiest dishes to make

We all take chances in life, especially with our cooking. Whether it’s using a sharp blade or handling scorching-hot liquids, sometimes we put ourselves at risk when whipping up a great meal. Not only can cooking be dangerous, but it can be messy, too. No matter how many years you went to culinary school or how obsessive-compulsive you are about cleanliness, there are some recipes that are just going to get downright messy. Like breading chicken for example, because no matter how many times you try to remember to use your right hand for dry ingredients and your left for wet, you’ll always end up with sticky and chunky gunk stuck to your fingers. Or meatballs. How else are you going to mold that ground beef into perfect, neat little balls without diving in hands first into that ground beef and getting it all over your hands and under your finger nails? And don’t get us started on mincing garlic, because the day someone figures out a cure for sticky-minced-garlic-hands syndrome is the day we are happy cooks. Despite all of the whining, this rant isn’t meant to turn you off from cooking, especially cooking these dishes. We couldn’t live without these dishes, not only because of the way they taste when they’re done but because they’re some of the most creative and therapeutic recipes we like to work with. This is meant to celebrate these messy recipes in all of their glory, and to tell you that, hey, it’s OK to get a little messy sometimes.

March 20, 2018

Hungry Girl’s best summer salad recipes

Summer is here, so it’s the perfect time to get reacquainted with all the beautiful and beneficial produce your grocery stores and local markets have to offer. Since May is National Salad Month, we asked one of our favorite celebrity foodies, Lisa Lillien, creator of the Hungry Girl food brand, what people can do to pump up their salads this season. “Salads sometimes get a bad rap because they’re considered boring diet food, but don’t be afraid to get creative,” Lillien said. “Throw in chopped Fuji apples, jicama, grape tomatoes, even strawberry slices,” she said. Here are a few salads that can spice up your summer:

March 20, 2018

Top 10 kitchen tricks from expert cooks

Simplifying strategies, tips, and techniques—from the Real Simple test kitchen to yours.

March 20, 2018

Dress your burger: make your own special sauce

Let’s take a moment to think about some of our favorite burgers and why we like to eat them. For those of you who are lucky to live on (or travel to) the West Coast, you may say In-N-Out’s beauty is the two thin patties of 100 percent American beef smashed together with fresh tomato and lettuce on a homemade bun. For all of you East Coasters, you may believe that Danny Meyer’s custom-blend burger topped with gooey American cheese is that much more incredible because of that incredibly long line you just waited on. And there’s even the McDonald’s Big Mac (we know there’s some of you out there who love it), which has some unyielding power over us when we wrap our hands around one in the late-night drive-thru lane. But all three of these burgers have one very important thing in common — a special sauce. For the McDonald’s patty, the sauce is nameless and is slathered on your burger every time; at Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack location, it gets a name (Shake Sauce) and comes without asking on their Shack Burger. And lastly, at In-N-Out, it’s called their Animal Sauce, and it's not even listed on the menu (but thankfully the majority of America knows to order it, anyway, and you can now buy it packaged and bring it home). With grilling season upon us, we want to make sure we have everything in line to prepare the perfect burger — from the beef blend to the bun, right down to the sauce. In order to craft our special sauce, we took a look at some of our favorite ones mentioned above, as well as some new versions we came across during our journey to find the 50 of the best burger recipes. To help us with our recipe, James Beard Award finalist Andy Husbands, barbecue guru Chris Hart, and food write Andrea Pyenson (also known as the authors of Wicked Good Burgers) gave us a few pointers that are important to remember when concocting an original recipe. This list of tips is meant to inspire you when you make your own special sauce at home, or even when you’re trying to replicate one of your favorite store-bought kinds.

March 20, 2018

Best back-of-the-box recipes

Here at The Daily Meal we value preparing a homemade meal every night, but that’s not often the case for everyone. For some people, the thought of standing over the stove exhausts them, and peeking into the takeout menu drawer seems like a much simpler alternative. Whether it’s a busy lifestyle or the concept of making something "from scratch" is intimidating, there are things that hold some of us back from getting into the kitchen. But a home-cooked meal doesn’t have to be intimidating, and thankfully for us, some of our favorite store-bought food products feature easy, delicious recipes on their packaging that make use of the products we've already purchased. Did you know that you can get homemade gumbo from a Campbell’s Soup can or that you can serve a prize-winning meatloaf with help from Quaker Oats? All of these recipes take minimal time and average skill to execute, and they highlight some of our favorite brand-name foods in ways we never thought of before. Best of all, they’re homemade. From appetizers and main dishes to dessert, these are some of our favorite back-of-the-box recipes that are sitting in your grocery store’s aisles waiting to be put to use. To make these recipes even more unique, we’ve added our own twist to each one so that you can make these recipes your own. So stop letting the kitchen intimidate you and take some help the best back-of-the-box recipes. Before you know it, takeout menus will be a thing of the past.

March 20, 2018

10 best kitchen supplies

Real Simple tested the top gadgets on the market and came up with these kitchen-worthy winners.

March 20, 2018

15 cakes you would never know were cakes

Sometimes looks can be deceiving. We'd all love our asparagus to taste like chocolate cake, right? Well, now you can have your veggies and cake, too. Here is a list of 15 fabulous cakes that look just like other, healthier meals. (Take a closer look. You won't believe these are really cakes.) So if you're going to cheat yourself and binge on cake, try these. Those around you will have no idea your calorie intake has skyrocketed. Happy snacking.