Millions of burgers will be grilled July 4th. But we eat burgers every day. How can you make them special for your July 4th celebration?
Use a large star cookie cutter to create an Independence Day cheeseburger.
Using white Cheddar or other white cheese, cut out the stars. Place them on waxed paper for easier removal.
When assembling the cooked burger, place the red tomato slice immediately underneath the white cheese.
Now we’ve got red and white, but where does the blue come from?
Tint pickle slices with blue food color! Add one drop of color at a time until you get the desired result. Place a pickle slice on the center of the cheese star or put a few slices between the tomato and the cheese.
Everyone will be tickled red, white and blue with your presentation.
As fond as people may be of potato salad with mayonnaise, there are many great potato salad recipes waiting to be made. One we like from the Idaho Potato Commission—people who know how to cook with potatoes—includes a red wine Dijon vinaigrette that means no cholesterol, a heart-healthy fat and a potato salad that stands up better in the heat.
The recipe is enlivened with green beans, cherry tomatoes, corn kernels, black olives, celery and parsley. You can add optional chopped red onion. Get the recipe.
One special dessert for July 4th is red, white and blue cupcakes.
These cupcakes from New York City’s Magnolia Bakery combine red velvet cake, white frosting and a blueberry garnish.
You can also create a tray of cupcakes, lined up in red, white and blue “stripes,” by tinting 1/3 of the frosting red, 1/3 blue, and leaving 1/3 of the tops white.
More options: Use blue decorating sugar (sanding sugar) to sprinkle the tops; cut out blue stars from fondant; or use stripes of red and white fondant over a thin layer of icing, topped with a blueberry.
If you prefer something other than red velvet cake, look for red cupcake liners.
TIP: Make mini cupcakes instead of full-size ones. With all the food that revelers will have consumed before dessert, smaller is better.
Cool before refrigerating. Photo by Edward
O’Neil | IST.
Why does cooked meat have to cool down before it is refrigerated? Why should meat be defrosted in the fridge instead of on the countertop? For the same reason: to avoid bacterial growth. Extreme temperature changes abet bacterial growth in meat, poultry and seafood.
That’s also why thawing and refreezing of uncooked or cooked meat and seafood is not recommended. You increase your risk of bacterial contamination when the item goes through several temperature changes.
Defrost frozen meat/seafood overnight on the lowest shelf or in the meat drawer—you don’t want raw drippings contaminating other foods.
Let cooked meat sit in a room-temperature container for half an hour; then cover and immediately refrigerate it. Meat that is already at room temperature or just slightly warm can be refrigerated as is.
Find our favorite meat products, glossaries, tips and recipes in our Gourmet Meats Section.
Disposable plastic food bags were introduced in 1964. Overnight they changed the way people carried their sandwiches and carrot sticks to lunch. (The prior options were aluminum foil, paper bags and wax paper.)
Baggies and the variations that followed made it easy to transport food and keep it moist. But flash forward to the present: Every day, more than 20 million sandwich bags from school lunches alone end up in landfills.
Three green moms with a mission designed an alternative kids’ lunch bags. Their solution, LunchSkins, are a fine work of engineering: The plastic-lined bags are made from pastry bag material and go straight into the dishwasher for cleaning. The colorful designs have a velcro closure. There’s even a place to write the owner’s name with a permanent marker.
Reduce landfill waste: Pack sandwiches
and snacks in LunchSkins.
Reduce landfill waste, save money, eat healthy and look stylish while you’re doing it: LunchSkins kids’ lunch bags are the answer to plastic baggie pollution. Buy them at LunchSkins.com.
