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Trouble Free Cooking?

Believe it or not, trouble free cooking is a common desire around the world. Even those among us who love cooking and eating almost equally will be the first to confess that being able to cook without the worry of creating a mess, spilling, or burning would be a blessing. Truthfully speaking there really is no such thing as trouble free cooking though there are things you can do that will take a good deal of trouble out of your cooking.

Most of the tips here will be beneficial to novice or beginners in the culinary arts however, there are some great refresher tips for those who are more experienced when it comes to cooking as well. Hopefully you will learn some things through the next few paragraphs or at least remember some things you had forgotten.

First of all, cleaning as you go will take a lot of the trouble out of what comes after the cooking. When asked the least favorite thing about cooking a wide margin of women proclaim without a second of hesitation that the clean up by far is the worst thing about cooking. To make things easier, clean as you go. Keep a sink of hot sudsy water ready to go the entire time you are cooking and wipe up any spills that occur immediately to avoid sticky messes that are much more difficult to clean afterwards. You should also note that if you transfer your food to serving dishes and immediately wash your pots and pans they will be much easier to clean than if the food is allowed to sit in them while your family dines.

My best friend is constantly burning her dinners. The reason? She believes in high or low when it comes to cooking and there is nothing in between. Very few meals should be cooked on high truth be told. You are much better off to begin the food preparation at a medium or medium high temperature and to adjust accordingly.

Make sure your oven is preheated. The temperature of the oven does indeed make a difference in the cooking process. While there are those that believe preheating is a simple waste of electricity it is what is required in order to achieve the optimal results when cooking. Most modern electric ovens will signal when the proper temperature has been achieved.

Select recipes that fall within your comfort zone in order to avoid making mistakes or becoming too stressed about the cooking process. Once you’ve decided on your recipe read it through a couple of times in order to be certain that you not only understand all the steps involved but also have all the necessary ingredients before beginning.

Wash your hands thoroughly and wash your hands often. Remember the sink of sudsy water I mentioned above? You’ll want to use it quite frequently in order to wash any surface, cutting board, plate, or utensil that has come into contact with raw meat in order to avoid cross contamination. The same holds true for your hands.

While to some degree these tips may seem a bit simplistic, when it comes to trouble free cooking there really is no such thing. The more you do to make the cooking process seem as effortless as possible the more trouble free your cooking will really be.

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The Appeal of the Kiosk Coffee Franchise

Many malls and shopping centers around the country have them, even some supermarkets in select areas have them as well. I’m talking about the coffee franchise kiosks. They are a great and inexpensive investment for many would be franchise owners and they provide very low overhead with a potentially high return on investment as there is almost always foot traffic in the malls and shopping centers they populate.

Why is the kiosk attractive to coffee franchise owners?

The primary reason that this particular coffee franchise is appealing is because of the extremely low start up and operational costs involved in operating a business such as this. Rather than renting a storefront or building a business in a physical location the kiosk coffee franchise has considerably lower costs involved in ownership and operational expenses.

In addition to low rent the kiosk is a small space that has low inventory. This keeps operational expenses quite low as well. This is a huge benefit for those looking to build a business with a minimal investment and relatively low capital available to invest in operational expenses.

If these reasons aren’t enticing enough, there is very little equipment to buy for a coffee franchise as well. This means another lower expense. One reason is that there is limited space for additional equipment. Another reason is that there really is no need for additional equipment. These stations are great because they do a few things but do them exceptionally well. Rather than having a full storefront devoted to a wide variety of coffee flavors the kiosk offers a couple of coffee flavor options to customers. This keeps lines moving quickly and customers moving along happily.

Yet another great benefit is the fact that there is really only a need for one staff member at a time. This keeps overhead even lower and earmarks more of the income for profit. If you are going to have an active role in running your franchise business this minimizes the expenses even more. If not you still only have a real need for two or three staff members on alternating days and hours in most cases to turn a nice tidy profit.

Another expense that is eliminated with most kiosk coffee franchises are the expenses of utilities such as electricity, heat, and air conditioning that can be quite extensive in many businesses. Every penny that you can eliminate from leaving your business the better when it comes to expenses. A kiosk allows you to eliminate many of the expenses that often plague small businesses before the profits begin to take off.

If you are considering a coffee franchise as your business of choice you might want to carefully consider whether or not the idea of a kiosk coffee shop would be appealing for you. The benefits of a store such as this are great for new business owners and the pathway to profits, though slower, are ultimately greater over time with expansion and perseverance.

Manual Drip Coffee Makers

Many people don’t really know the difference between automatic and manual drip coffee makers. It’s really very simple. An automatic drip coffee maker pours the hot water over the ground coffee for you while a manual drip coffee maker requires that you do it yourself.

Manual drip coffee makers typically come in single cup to twelve cup varieties and basically give you similar results as an automatic drip coffee maker. Many people feel they get a better tasting cup of coffee when they have the ability to pour the water themselves and choose from a variety of filters and filter holders. A good thing about manual drip coffee makers is that they don’t use electricity and can be used wherever you happen to go. This makes them a great choice for camping. You can boil water over a fire or portable stove for your coffee.

The main components of manual drip coffee makers are the pot or cup, a filter, and a filter holder. There are more complicated varieties available but for most of them, this is all you will need. First you set your pot or cup on a counter, set the filter holder on top, add a filter and fill it with ground coffee. You boil water on a stove and pour it into the filter. It’s pretty easy but if you don’t know what you are doing or have the proper pot to boil water in, there is a potential to get scalded. Using a teapot or special pot that has a place for pouring is the best way to go as a saucepan isn’t designed for pouring water out.

Every manual drip coffee maker has a special filter and filter holder. The filters can be permanent metal ones or your basic disposable paper ones. Many people like the metal filters because they can be used many times and provide the same water flow each time. Paper filters, though cheaper, can end up costing more in the long run and each brand might let water flow a little differently. The filter holders come in hundreds of varieties but you usually get one with your manual drip coffee maker. If you buy a different one, you run the risk of overflow. Filter holders can be porcelain, plastic, metal, or glass and come in many different sizes.

The manual drip coffee maker pot or cup is an important thing to consider. Do you want to make a single cup or ten cups? A single cup version will take up almost no counter space and is a great choice for people who live alone or in a very small place. The ten to twelve cup versions are great for homes that drink a lot of coffee or for big camping trips. They aren’t as big as an electric coffee maker and can be taken apart for easy cleaning and carrying.

The most important part of any coffee maker is the type of coffee you use. Expensive coffee that is freshly ground will taste much better than coffee from a discount store. Try different types of coffee and decide what kind you like the best.

The History of Coffee Makers

Coffee has been used as a drink for well over 2000 years. The first methods of brewing coffee were pretty crude but they have advanced greatly over the centuries. People used to just chew the cherry that came off the coffee tree to get a stimulant effect. Inside the cherry was the coffee bean. Over time with experimentation, people started to roast and then grind the beans for better flavor.

As early as the the late 1700s, coffee makers began showing up. This made it easy for people to brew coffee and not worry about getting grounds in their cup. This was expensive and not many people had them. The basic design is similar to coffee pots of today. There was a pot on the bottom with a place to put your ground coffee on the top. This was connected to a chamber on top where you poured in your boiling water.

People tried many different types of coffee maker throughout the years since then. There have been percolators, vacuum coffee makers, and drip coffee makers. Percolators use a pot over a heat source that forces the water into an upper chamber where the coffee grounds are. The water drips through the coffee and back into the lower pot. You know it is ready when it stops making percolating noises which are easy to hear. Then you remove it from heat before it boils. Vacuum coffee makers use what looks like two pots, one upside down on the other. As it is heated, the pressure forces hot water up into the top chamber where it infuses with the ground coffee. When you remove it from heat, the pressure is reversed and the coffee goes back to the lower pot ready to drink. Drip coffee makers are the kind we are all used to. Whether automatic or manual they work by dumping hot water over coffee grounds that sit in a filter. It strains through into a pot and is ready to drink.

With the advent of electricity, coffee makers became very popular and a little cheaper. In the early 1900s coffee makers really started to boom and by the 1970s almost everyone had a coffee maker in their home. These were usually of the automatic drip variety as they were the easiest to use. Todays coffee makers have many features. They have timers that allow you to specify when you want your coffee maker to turn on, have built in grinders, storage areas, and much more. You can buy home espresso and cappuccino machines also. Coffee makers today range from the single cup variety to commercial units that make gallons at a time so no matter what your need, you can usually find it.

As more and more people start to enjoy different kinds of coffee, coffee makers become easier to use and offer more features. Many combine espresso, cappuccino, and coffee all in one machine but it is rather bulky still. Look for these to shrink in the near future.

Electric Coffee Makers

There are many types of coffee maker available on the market today. When most people think of a coffee maker, they think of an electric coffee maker. This means the coffee maker is plugged into an outlet and is powered with electricity. This is the most common way to power your coffee maker because of its simplicity. You just plug it in, add water and coffee, and push start. This is much easier than the older vacuum and stove top coffee makers from years past.

It can be hard to imagine not using an electric coffee maker. Many of us have grown up with them not knowing how hard it was to make coffee long ago. It used to take a lot of time to stand there by the stove and watch your coffee brew and make sure everything was going right. Lucky for us, we just have to push start and wait. The electricity heats the heating element which is in the water container. The water is heated to a specified temperature and then by gravity or a pump pushes the water over the ground coffee. The result is a nice, easy cup of coffee. This has a great advantage over stove top coffee makers as you don’t have to worry about your coffee being too cold or so hot it takes the skin off of your tongue. Electric coffee makers don’t use a ton of electricity so you won’t even notice a change in your utility bills.

Electric coffee makers come in many different varieties. There is everything from a single cup coffee maker to a restaurant grade coffee maker that produces gallons at a time. By using electricity to heat the water, you are guaranteed the same temperature coffee every single time. Electric coffee makers also allow you to set a time for coffee to be brewed. This is handy for those of us on a tight schedule and don’t want to waste time messing with the coffee maker in the morning. Simply set it up the night before and it will start your coffee before you even wake up.

Expensive models come with all sorts of special features. There are some that only brew one cup at a time but use special pods of high quality coffee and might even top them off with foam. Other models can have built in grinders, a storage area for extra coffee and water, or be combination machines that make espresso and cappuccino as well as normal coffee. You have so many options available, you really need to choose the coffee maker that is right for you. If you have a lot of coffee drinkers in your home, you might pick a large one. If you live alone, a single cup maker might be perfect.

You can find electric coffee makers pretty much everywhere. Every store that carries a coffee maker will have 99% electric coffee makers. Occasionally they will have some that don’t use electricity, but these are either for professional coffee makers or campers.