Their “Keep It or Toss It?” engine lets you type in a food and find out how long it should stay fresh in the fridge or freezer – and, most importantly for personal chefs, it differentiates between raw and cooked foods, which many other resources like this don’t.  For instance, I typed in “pork tenderloin” (I’m plagued by spoiled pork) and found that all cuts of pork will stay at their best quality when frozen raw for 4-6 months, but once cooked, are best eaten within 2-3 months.   (And it always notes that food properly stored at 0 degrees Fahrenheit will keep indefinitely, in terms of being safe to eat – it’s the taste and/or texture that will suffer past the recommended dates.)

Another cool thing:  the “Your Questions Answered” section, where it addresses such often-pondered questions like “Can You Safely Drink Milk After the Sell-By Date?” (sure, for up to a week usually) and “I Left Pizza Out Overnight – Is It Still Safe to Eat?”  (they say no; I say yes provided you sizzle the hell out of it in a covered skillet til it has reached 165 degrees to kill off any nasties…or maybe I just hate wasting pizza, and having never had food poisoning am willing to risk it – until I get food poisoning, after which I’m sure I’ll change my tune.)  They source their data mostly from US government sources, research studies and food manufacturers, and they do a nice job of balancing an abundance of caution with a healthy dose of common sense.

For personal chefs, this expiration date info is great to point clients to, in case they have questions about the expiration dates on meals you prepared eons ago that they’ve just discovered in their freezer. And the “3 Ways to Defrost Food Safely” is worth referencing too, so they know it’s not just you telling them the best way to thaw meals is overnight in the fridge.  (And I guarantee that food-obsessed people will be unable to tear themselves away from the site without reading the entire “Your Questions Answered” section.)

The post Do food expiration dates matter? appeared first on TaylorMade Meals.

Look no further – your roadmap is here!

Cook for A Living: Becoming a Personal Chef

is my brand-new ebook, based on my 12+ years of experience as a successful personal chef and teacher, consultant and mentor to many others.

Buy the book!

In this easy-to-read, 40-page guide, you’ll learn:

• The skills and training you need to be a personal chef
• What to do first (well, second. First, buy my book!)
• How to find and follow your state & local regulations
• How to choose a name and business entity
• Ways to handle your bookkeeping
• What about insurance?
• Pricing is everything  – how the heck do you know what you’re worth? (Hint: a lot)
• How to find clients (and not go broke giving discounts to friends and family!)
• Marketing to get your new business off the ground

and the proverbial much, much more!

I’ve been at this game a long time – since 2004 – and I still love it.  I mean LOVE love it, like I whistle while I work, smile on my way out the door and thank my lucky stars that I get paid to do something fun, special, creative, productive, and delicious. Let me tell you how, so you can love your work too!

Cook for A Living: Becoming a Personal Chef

is a 40 page PDF, easy to download and quick to read on any device.

Your future is waiting – buy the book today!

Buy the book!

(Clicking the “buy” link will let you securely purchase the ebook. Once your purchase is complete, a link will be emailed to you to download the PDF. Thanks for your interest!)

The post Want to be a personal chef? My new ebook tells you how! appeared first on TaylorMade Meals.

I was just pounding some chicken breasts and thinking that for years, I didn’t know that this was a crucial step in getting evenly cooked breasts – as in, cooked all the way through, not overdone skinny end and underdone scary-pink fat end. (Another great help for perfect chicken breasts is brining, but that’s for a different day). Every time you cook chicken breasts, you should pound them to an even thickness. It just takes a few seconds, and you don’t even need a meat mallet – just use a small heavy pot, a rolling pin, a large heavy can of tomatoes or soup, a wine bottle…anything heavyish and with a flat side.   I don’t even own a mallet, being of the Alton Brown, no-unitaskers mentality, so I use a pot.  Anyway. Put the breasts in a plastic bag, or on a cutting board and cover them completely with plastic wrap, (but then you have to be sure to thoroughly clean and sanitize the board, unless you also put plastic wrap under them, so really, just use a zip-top bag! Press all the air out so you don’t explode the bag though.)

Whack them gently a few times on the fat ends with the flat underside of the pot, until the whole breast is about the same thickness. It takes maybe 3 or 4 whacks a piece – that’s it! (Based on my experience, kids really like doing this part). If you have a recipe that calls for pounding them to a certain thickness, then it may take a bit longer to get them 1/2″ or what have you all the way through. Then continue on with however you’re going to cook them, knowing that they will be cooked evenly all throughout, so when you take their temperature with your instant-read thermometer – which you are always doing, RIGHT?? – to be sure they’re at 160 or above (shooting for 165 after a few minutes rest, as the temp will rise 5 degrees or so), they will be the same temperature throughout. Bon appetit!

The post Whack that chicken appeared first on TaylorMade Meals.

And you can also make use of the trimmings, greens and odds and ends.  From Julia Moskin’s terrific New York Times article, “That’s Not Trash, It’s Dinner” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/dining/thats-not-trash-thats-dinner.html):

At Your Disposal

Before you throw away your vegetable trimmings, consider some alternative uses:

CARROT, CELERY AND FENNEL LEAVES Mix small amounts, finely chopped, with parsley as a garnish or in salsa verde: all are in the Umbelliferae family of plants. Taste for bitterness when deciding how much to use.

CHARD OR COLLARD RIBS Simmer the thick stalks in white wine and water with a scrap of lemon peel until tender, then drain and dress with olive oil and coarse salt. Or bake them with cream, stock or both, under a blanket of cheese and buttery crumbs, for a gratin.

CITRUS PEEL Organic thin-skinned peels of tangerines or satsumas can be oven-dried at 200 degrees, then stored to season stews or tomato sauces.

CORN COBS Once the kernels are cut off, simmer the stripped cobs with onions and carrots for a simple stock. Or add them to the broth for corn or clam chowder. (Chefchick’s note: toss them in a freezer bag to save them until you feel like having chowder this fall.)

MELON RINDS Cut off the hard outer peels and use crunchy rinds in place of cucumber in salads and cold soups.

PEACH LEAVES Steep in red wine, sugar and Cognac to make a summery peach-bomb aperitif. (According to David Lebovitz’s recipe, the French serve it on ice.)

POTATO PEELS Deep-fry large pieces of peel in 350-degree oil and sprinkle with salt and paprika. This works best with starchy potatoes like russets.

YOUNG ONION TOPS Wash well, coarsely chop and cook briefly in creamy soups or stews, or mix into hot mashed potatoes.

TOMATO LEAVES AND STEMS Steep for 10 minutes in hot soup or tomato sauces to add a pungent garden-scented depth of tomato flavor. Discard leaves after steeping.

TOMATO SCRAPS Place in a sieve set over a bowl, salt well and collect the pale red juices for use in gazpacho, Bloody Marys or risotto.

TURNIP, CAULIFLOWER OR RADISH LEAVES Braise in the same way as (or along with) collards, chards, mustard greens or kale.

WATERMELON SEEDS Roast and salt like pumpkin seeds.

The post Use Every Last Bit of That CSA Share appeared first on TaylorMade Meals.

BUT, natural peanut butters can be messy. The oil tends to separate from the peanut solids and rise to the top of the jar, requiring it to be stirred back in to the solid mass below. Invariably this leads to spillover and drips and and an oily mess. Somewhere out in the world I came across this tip that REALLY works: when you bring the PB home from the store, place it upside down in your cabinet and leave it overnight. When you open it, the peanut butter has magically self-mixed itself! No oil spills. Love it.

The post Brilliant cure for natural peanut butter oil spills appeared first on TaylorMade Meals.

So here’s the tip: buy your peppercorns in those small jars with the grinding mechanisms right on the jar. (Yes, you should be buying peppercorns, and not ground black pepper in a can. How else are you going to achieve steakhouse-like perfection when you’re tossing your ribeyes on the grill this summer??) Move your peppercorns to your regular pepper grinder – like this one – and then use the empty grinder jar for cumin, coriander, fennel seed, red peppercorns, mustard seeds, dill, fenugreek, allspice, cloves – any type of seed spice. Start with your most-used (or most wish-you-used) whole spice, and then every time you buy another jar of peppercorns, that’s another whole spice you can keep in a grinding jar. Totally brill.

Tips like these make me happiest, because it takes something you’re already going to buy anyway, and turns it’s packaging into something you can use to address a different actual need. And by having easy-to-grind whole spices at the ready, it makes you juuuuust that much more likely to try that great curry or cake or what have you. It’s all about being prepared, so that when inspiration strikes or the mood just hits you, you can look to what you have on hand instead of having to make a shopping list. Enjoy!

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