carrots

Fried Vegetables
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How to Fry Vegetables in a Pan

There is a very simple “trick” to ensure that your pan-fried vegetables don’t end up all soggy. You can keep them crisp and delicious by following a few simple tips.

Fried Vegetables

Preheat Your Oil

When frying your vegetables in a pan the most important thing to do is make sure you give your oil enough time to pre-heat. Regardless of what kind of oil you are using, if you add the vegetables before it is hot enough to “spit,” then you’re going to end up with soggy vegetables.

If you’re not sure if you’ve given your oil long enough to preheat, give it longer. You’ll get a sense for how hot is hot enough over time. This is the most important thing you can do to end up with properly fried vegetables.

Cut Your Vegetables Evenly

Another thing you can do to ensure your fried vegetables come out perfect every time is to cut them at reasonably even sizes. Even if you’re frying multiple types of vegetables, if you keep them at fairly uniform sizes, you won’t end up with randomly under-cooked or over-cooked pieces.

Certain Vegetables Have Different Cooking Times

Onions and mushrooms take less time to fry than most other vegetables. Carrots or large pieces of broccoli or cauliflower take longer.

If you’re going to be frying multiple types of vegetables in one pan, add carrots or broccoli first, and add onions last. Almost always. Specific recipes may have reasons for exceptions to this specific rule, but the first two tips will always apply.

Homemade chicken noodle soup
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Easy Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

This easy recipe for homemade chicken noodle soup can easily be prepared almost as quickly as the packaged stuff, and is actually made with real chicken.

Homemade chicken noodle soup

Ingredients for an Easy Chicken Noodle Soup

You will need:

  • Chicken broth (homemade or from a can)
  • Chicken breasts
  • Butter
  • Onion
  • Celery
  • Egg noodles
  • Sliced carrots
  • Basil, oregano, salt and pepper

How to Make Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

Before you do anything, you need to fry up roughly half a pound of chicken breast. Your chicken should be thoroughly cooked before using it for this soup recipe.

Chop up your celery and onion. You will need about a half cup of each. Add more or use less depending on your opinion of sort-of-crunchy things.

Bring a large pot to medium heat and add a tablespoon or two of butter. Cook your celery and onion in the butter for between 5 and 10 minutes, or until they begin to soften.

Once the celery and onion begin to soften you can pour in your chicken broth. You should add about six to eight cups of broth. More broth would just give you more soup but unless you balance out the broth with more soup-stuff then it probably isn’t worth it.

Now you can add your (already cooked and cut) chicken, about a cup and a half of egg noodles, some chopped carrots, and your spices. You should use a teaspoon or less of both oregano and basil, and as with anything else, you can add salt and pepper to taste.

Once you have everything combined in the pot, bring the soup to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, reduce the heat and let your chicken noodle soup simmer for about twenty minutes.

Tips for Making Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

  • Basil, oregano, salt and pepper are just recommendations. This is an area where you can easily experiment or just use something you like better.
  • Homemade chicken broth is an obviously better choice than the canned stuff but for the purposes of this simple recipe, the canned stuff is probably more reasonable.
  • As with most soups and stews, letting this chicken noodle soup simmer longer will result in an overall better soup. Beyond twenty minutes you will see diminishing returns, though.
Beef Stew with a Guinness
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How to Make a Homemade Beef Stew With Beer

Beer fills out the flavor of a stew. Unless you want to risk overspicing, the easiest way to flavor a beef stew is adding a can of beer. Make sure you don’t skimp on the other ingredients, though. If you just want beer, just have a beer.

For a beef stew recipe without beer, check out this recipe for a traditional beef stew.
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