There’s nothing like a good bowl of hot soup to warm you up and fill you up at the same time.  Hearty Vegetable, Chicken Noodle, Beef, Tomato, Seafood and many, many more.  There are plenty of good off the shelf soups but the best are ones you make yourself so here is a Soup Recipe Website to get you started.

Check it out.  http://souprecipe.org/

Like everyone else, if you are wondering what makes the Texas barbecues so special, I will tell you that it is almost everything. If you go on to make a list, the whole lot will feature in it – right from seasoning to cooking and smoking to presentation. Above all, you will require patience! If you falter there, you will spoil the barbecue.

To start with, we will be mentioning the cooking process. Texas style barbecue is not cooked in the standard grilling process. While BBQs in general are cooked over searing heat, the secret to grilling (rather smoking) melting soft and succulent Texan barbecues is to cook them slowly over low temperature and indirect heat. The lower the temperature (say, between 200-250 degree F) of the pit/grill, the lesser will be the moisture-loss and so the piece of meat will not get dry. Moreover, the steady and low heat will thoroughly cure the brisket, causing the collagen as well as connective tissues to break down and add to the tenderness of the meat. In fact, it is this prolonged process of cooking (around 6/7 hours) which renders even unusual and more difficult cuts like a brisket, shoulder or ribs utterly delicious.

Adding to this lusciousness, this deliciousness of the Texan style barbecues is the frequent use of mop sauce. After the meat has been smoke treated, say for the initial 2/3 hours, it is basted with a mop sauce containing bacon, beef broth, lemon, pepper, onions, etc. and turned every 30 minutes for another 3 to 4 hours.

The flavor is the other specialty, the ‘tang’ factor of a Texas style barbecue. Both seasoning and hardwood smoke contribute to the unusual flavor of Texan barbecues. Texans prefer dry rubs containing black pepper, cumin, garlic, red pepper, salt, sugar, etc. in powered form. People even use Marinades. There are lots of good dry rubs and marinades available in the market, which penetrates into the meat-cut when left overnight, tenderizing it and making it flavorsome.

Smoke from the hardwoods such as mesquite, pecan, hickory and fruitwoods give the Texan bar-b-qs a typical sweet flavor. Used with charcoal, they increase the food value of Texan BBQs. The much talked-about reddish colored smoke-ring that forms around the internal edge of the meat as a result of a chemical reaction between smoke and air (nitrogen) is another specialty of Texan style barbeques; it is usually considered that the bigger the ring, the greater is its penetrating power and consequently stronger favorable effects on health.

This speaks for the taste and health benefits of the Texan style barbecue, but what about its looks! Well, you can give an appetizing look to your Texas style barbecue by slicing each piece across the grain of the meat. Now, when you serve the Texas barbecues, your guests will be eager to enjoy the well-cooked aroma of the steaming barbeque cuts and will gather around the dining table to bite into the savory, succulent Texas BBQ.

Author: Reinaldo Finch

Want to find out about carbs in carrots and carrot allergy? Get tips from the Benefits Of Carrots website.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Texas Style Barbecue For Everyone

More Southern Cooking Techniques

I know this first technique may sound unrelated to Southern Cooking , but you will see the connection as we proceed. Here’s the first tip, which should be applied to all your recipes, not just Southern Cooking.

The Chinese figured this out long ago. Combine sweet and sour in your cooking. That is, in a dish that is intended to be sweet (deserts), add a pinch of salt, vinegar or hot spice. In a dish that is intended to be sour (not sweet), such as vegetables, chili, meats, add sweet. I prefer syrup or molasses rather than regular sugar to add sweetness.

As an example, in Southern Recipes, I add a teaspoon of molasses to greens (turnip, collards, mustard), green beans and breakfast gravy. One exception to the adding sweet to sour is in cornbread. If you want real Southern cornbread, never put sugar in it. Sorry, that’s not cornbread, it’s cake (or Yankee cornbread.) I also add a teaspoon of regular sugar to my cole slaw and chili.

Likewise, in all deserts I cook I add a pinch of salt. You are probably aware that most desert recipes call for this anyway.

I have discussed the next technique at length in my other articles and on my websites, but it is so important I want to repeat it here. You must use cast iron cookware for most Southern dishes, especially cornbread. First, it is the traditional way to cook Southern. Additionally, the cast iron transfers heat unlike any other material, making it uniquely suited for Southern dishes. So, please use cast iron.

This next technique is employed in many Southern recipes. Southerners use cornmeal in many fried dishes to coat the food. This produces a crunchy texture and adds flavor. When frying chicken, coat (batter) the chicken in flour, but add cornmeal to the flour mix at a 3 to 1 ration. In other words 1/4 cup cornmeal to 1 cup flour. Also, fried okra should be coated in a pure cornmeal mix (with salt and pepper, no flour.) Here’s the point…experiment a little. When a recipe calls for flour or just because you have always cooked it that way, try substituting cornmeal for flour.

Here’s something I remember from my grandmother’s kitchen. She was a great cook of traditional Southern food. She made the best biscuits I ever tasted. At first, I thought it was her recipe, until I found out there was nothing unusual about it (I think she got it off a bag of flour.) It wasn’t the ingredients that made them so good. It was the size of the biscuits. I always knew she made bigger biscuits than I was use to but I didn’t make the connection until after I found out her secret was not the ingredients. Larger biscuits will have more of the soft insides and a larger area outside for the brown crust. They are especially good with gravy or anytime you will be using a sauce. Here’s what she did. She rolled out the biscuit dough to about 3/4 inch thickness. Then she used a biscuit cutter that was a little over 3 inches in diameter (who knows where she got it…it was probably a hundred years old.) A word of caution if you use this technique for your biscuits, do not make the dough over 3/4 inch thick. You may think that if 3/4 inch is good, then 1 1/2 inches should be better. Not so. The 3/4 inch rule seems to be the optimum for Fat Biscuits. If you make them much thicker the tops will crack and they will have a doughy flour taste. So, if you are one that has always made slim 2 inch biscuits, give these a try. And, try out the other techniques mentioned for real Southern Cooking.

Ken Miller is a free lance writer and webmaster for itzalgud.com Southern Cooking – Southern Recipes, where you can get free recipes for authenic Southern favorites.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com – Free Website Content

With lamb you have a varied choice of cuts i.e. Breast, Leg, Shank, Shoulder, Loin, Chump Fillet Scrag and of course Minced Lamb.

When people think of a joint of lamb they tend to think of roast lamb and mint sauce, whilst this is truly delicious there are so many other recipes that you can choose using different cuts of Lamb.

If you have the opportunity to buy a whole lamb from a local farmer so much the better, the flavor of the meat and the tenderness is so much better than the lamb that we tend to get in the supermarkets.

You also have the benefit of knowing that the Lamb has been reared on a local farm and hopefully has been well looked after. If you do have to buy lamb from the supermarket then make sure that you but the leanest cuts with firm creamy-white fat.

A lot of recipes that we tend to use beef mince for are in fact so much better if you use lamb, how can you make Moussaka with beef, and all curries are so much better made with lamb try it for yourself and you will see the difference.

Because lambs are young when they go to slaughter the meat is always tender, ever heard of a tough bit of lamb, I very much doubt it. If you can get it the neck fillet is one of my favorite cuts and you can do absolutely anything with it that you like.

Cut it into large chunks and roll in some spices and fry quickly in a frying pan and it’s meltingly soft and so full of flavor. Mince it up and make Moussaka or Shepherds pie I bet you notice the difference from beef. Cube it for all your curries.

All the joints can be roasted, make some slits in the skin with a sharp knife and place some slivers of Garlic in each slice with some thyme or rosemary it gives the meat a most wonderful smell.

There are so many things that can be done with such a succulent piece of meat. If you are stuck for ideas or have never cooked lamb before try looking for some recipes online, or try cooking it on its own and when your confidence grows start to add things to the meat.

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About the Author
Vicki Churchill is the owner of http://www.simplecookery.com  a site that specializes in simple cooking ideas, ways to serve up stunning dishes with minimum effort and cooking tips and ideas.