Cooking Tips: Skewers

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Summertime means lots of meals cooked over the grill. And with the variety of fresh vegetables available right now, almost everything can be cooked over the grill. Skewers can help you stabilize cut up vegetables and meats so they don't fall through the grates of your grill. Use two skewers instead of one to stabilize the food even more. For metal skewers, check out twisted or square skewers to help keep your food in place and prevent slipping. If you prefer wooden skewers, keep the foods closer together so there's no space between them. You'll also want to soak wooden skewers in water for 30 minutes before threading on the food to keep the skewers from catching fire on the grill. And to keep from over-cooking one food and under cooking another, put foods with similar cook times on the same skewer.

Cooking Tip: Vinegar

Cooks use vinegar to make pickles, deglaze pans, marinate meats, and add tang to vinaigrettes, sauces, and even desserts. Vinegars are made by adding bacteria called Acetobacter aceti to diluted wine, ale or fermented fruits or grains. This creates acetic acid, which gives the liquid a a sour flavor. Unopened, most vinegar will last for about two years in a cool, dark pantry. Once opened, vinegar should be used within three to six months.

But which vinegar should you use? Many cooks prefer old-fashioned white vinegar for pickling. It allows the flavors of your spices and main pickling ingredient to take center stage.

Vinegars add flavor when creating a vinaigrette, so choose something with a little more flavor than the neutral white vinegar. At the very least, use a white wine vinegar. But the flavors and types of specialty vinegars, like balsamic, sherry or raspberry, are as varied and diverse as can be. Cider vinegar is made from apples and is a good choice for fruity vinaigrettes. Balsamic vinegar, sweet, dark and aged in specially treated wooden casks, is one of the most sublime vinegars you can find. Another interesting choice, especially for Asian-flavored vinaigrettes, is rice vinegar, which is made from fermented rice.

Cooking Tip: Cooking with Onions (Plus a special recipe)

When you are prepping onions are you crying like you're watching a Hallmark commercial? Tony Tantillo (The Fresh Grocer) swears by his method of storing onions in the refrigerator to keep you from crying over your onions. It's the unstable sulfur compounds that causes this reaction and colder onions seem to help with this problem. Most people will tell you not to store them in the refrigerator because of the moisture, but if you are like me (and, I love to cook with onions) then you won't encounter this problem.

As a special bonus with today's tip, here's a great salad so you can put this new onion chopping method to work!

Amy’s Summer Salad

2-4 tomatoes, sliced and then quartered

1 small onion sliced thin

1 package of mozzarella

1 avocado

1 jalapeno

Arrange sliced tomatoes, onion slices mozzarella and avocado on a medium sized platter.

Seed and dice your jalapeno and sprinkle evenly over top. Drizzle with lime vinaigrette below.

For Lime Vinaigrette:

3 to 4 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions

In a jar with a lid, shake together remaining ingredients. Pour desired amount of vinaigrette over salad just before serving. There will be leftover dressing.