Question

[Akaela]

Now that I'm finaly getting settled into my apartment, its time for me to ween myself off of bachlor chow.

So I got a question. Olive oil and pam cookin spray. I know that they can help flavor food, and keep stuff from sticken to the pan...but what else do I need to know about this stuff? Whats the low down?

[Landro]

Now that I'm finaly getting settled into my apartment, its time for me to ween myself off of bachlor chow.

So I got a question. Olive oil and pam cookin spray. I know that they can help flavor food, and keep stuff from sticken to the pan...but what else do I need to know about this stuff? Whats the low down?

Use Olive oil. It's rather healthy. Has some saturated fats, but that is canceled out, per say, by all the good fats that are in it. Be careful with it though, it can burn easily and then it tastes bad, otherwise I could drink the stuff :)

[Brigadiir]

I use extra virgin olive oil most of the time. If I need to use something with a higher smoke point, I use grapeseed oil. Two good sites for finding recipes, tips, etc are Food Network (http://www.foodnetwork.com/) and AllRecipes (http://allrecipes.com/).

[Akaela]

yeah I made sure to buy extra virgin. now I remember, its got a higher smoke point if I'm not mistaken. What kind of foods do you normaly use it with, or is it good for pretty much anything that hits a frying pan?

[Jeane]

I use the olive oil for all my frying... you can also use it to coat your foods to help make things like bread crumbs stick. most of the recipes I post use olive oil.

[CheapToad]

Pam is good for things like eggs and pancakes.

[Akaela]

yeah I use pam for eggs. I tryed using olive to keep the eggs from sticking, no go, it doesn't like spread

[Morrigan]

Read the ingredients. Pam and some others used to use grain alcohol to thin the oil so it would spray better, the issue with that is after heating to a certain point the grain alcohol starts to burn and your food can/will burn and stick.

I don't know if they changed that or not, years ago when I found out about the grain alcohol I started reading labels and using store brand or Crisco spray because I knew they didn't have the grain alcohol in it, so I just kept buying that because I knew and didn't have to worry about it, so it's been awhile since I looked.

Extra virgin olive oil is the healthiest to use, but if you're just going for enough to keep stuff from sticking I wouldn't worry about because the amount from the spray is minuscule.

[Akaela]

The PAM spray I have is the extra vigin olive oil kind. I didn't see booze listed anywhere on the ingredients...unles "propelent" is a code word for that :)

This weekend I think I'll try my luck at beer can chicken.

As far as healthy eating goes. I've slashed the hell out of my caloric intake. I cut beer from the diet *cries* and only drink soda on the weekends. I used to drink alot of soda so, yeah, thats big cut down. Durring the week its just tea (hot, straight, no sugar) V8 and wine :)



More wine?


Wine not!

[Brigadiir]

Most of the time if I'm cooking eggs I'm also cooking bacon. I'll cook the bacon first, drain 99% of the fat out of the pan, then cook the eggs in what's left. If I'm not cooking bacon, I'll use a little butter to keep the eggs from sticking because I don't use high enough heat to smoke/burn the butter.

[Pamela]

Something that is better than buying cooking spray with propellents. Is one of the pump sprayers you can fill it works by pumping air into it. Pampered chef sells them but I am sure you can find them other places also.

[Namoric]

i just pour a quarter sized drop in my pan and then use a paper towel to rub it around

that's what i do anyway

don't use the stuff that comes in a can because i'm too good for it

[Palehorse]

What kinds of foods do you enjoy cooking?

[Joxer]

Akaela - experiment with infused oils as well. You can really do some fun and tasty experimenting with different pepper and herbal infused oils.