Holidays Cooking Tips

Holidays Cooking Tips This holiday, everyone can afford to take some time and be thankful for something. But what we can’t afford to do is waste a whole bunch of time, money and food this holiday season. And while I’ve got tons of great holiday cooking tips and methods for you, I think there’s one that I can give you that’s really going to make a difference, one that can save you a lot of time, money and food. And do you shop by eye, and when you go to the grocery and you look down in the cart and you go that looks like enough potatoes or at the end of the meal, there’s grandma push it on you. “Hey, eat it, it will go to waste.” If it will go to waste, why did you cook it for? The best thing that I can tell you this holiday season is to start your holiday shopping with a calculator, not with your stove. Figure out a concerted written plan for your portioning and preparing. As the owner of a catering company, I’ve catered events for a thousand people. The difference in over production is the difference in profit and loss. The same is true for your household but it’s also the difference in the time that you spend. Don’t you want to be part of the meal and not be the caterer of this year? You can save time and money by starting with standard portions. So let’s consider that the average adult eats about 10 to 12 ounces of food, 280 grams or so. That’s the total what they can eat. Of this, consider protein, your turkey or ham, your protein product maybe five ounces. Consider vegetables maybe at two ounces. Consider your starch at three to four ounces and so on. Make a list of all the items you’re going to prepare and assign a basic standard portion to it. Also consider that the number of people you serve is the multiplying factor. So multiply the number of people times the portion to get the final finished product that you need. Now this is the final finished product and don’t forget about trim loss and a cooking loss. And what I mean by this is, if you have a potato, you peel the skin off the potato and throw it away, that doesn’t go with final cooking, that is trim loss. But you’re going to add butter and milk and so on to the potato as well. Final weight of finished product. Also, if you’re going to make two kinds of potatoes, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, mashed, baked, they’re not going to eat four ounces of each of three kinds of potatoes. You can adjust your production downward to save time, money and leftovers. When you get to your turkey, about a pound per person is average. You’re going to get 20% cooking loss as the turkey shrinks. You'll get 40% trim loss. You don’t eat the bones and other things that you throw away. This will give you about your five ounces per person that you want. You love leftover turkey, make it ten ounces, I don’t care. Make it 30 ounces and whatever you would like but start with a concerted plan. But do you like leftover string bean casserole? Nobody likes that. It’s all mushy the next day. Serve your production downward. Here’s another great idea, maybe for the first plate, do plate up. What we call plate up in catering, you make the first plate for them and give them standard portions. Then, they can come back for seconds. This avoids the buffet line where people heap more potatoes than they will possibly eat on their plate. Do plate up. This one tip will save you time, will save you money, will save you leftovers, time wrapping the leftovers, money throwing it out and all of these things and I’ve got a great bunch of tips for you that’s going to reduce your holiday stress this year. Go to this website right here that’s on top of my head for more tips to reduce your stress and have a great holiday cooking success this year.