If you follow me on Facebook then you may have noticed that I have started posting a daily kitchen tip or fact on my Facebook page.

This is something I plan to continue to do. My goal is to post a kitchen tip or food fact every day on my Facebook page. So, if you do not follow me on Facebook it is a great time to start.

I hope everyone enjoys the tips and facts that I post and that you learn something new by following me.

Yesterday, I posted a tip for homemade whipped cream, and today I am posting a bread fact. I have many more tips and facts planned, so come join the discussion on Facebook.

Download your FREE Christmas Recipes Ebook From Lynn's Kitchen Adventures. This offer for subscribers only. Click Here

Daily Tips and Facts On Facebook is a post from: Lynn's Kitchen Adventures ©2011 LynnsKitchenAdventures - All rights reserved.

I am continuing to enjoy the book, “What Einstein Told His Cook” by Robert Wolke. I think this book is fascinating. It explains the science behind food. Robert Wolke is a Professor of Chemistry that also has an interest in food. He answers all sorts of odd questions and myths by giving the chemistry behind each food subject. 

I enjoy learning about the facts behind food. Many times the facts are not necessary to cooking, but they are fun to know, and at times can be useful.

I am finding this book interesting, so I thought I would occasionally share a fact or two from this book. I shared a few weeks ago about the baby carrot. Well, here are some facts about eggs.

Have you ever wondered what makes an egg, extra large, large, or medium? Well, I have. Besides the obvious that an extra large egg is bigger than a large or medium, did you know that there are guidelines that determine this? I didn’t.

The USDA determines their average size by the weight of a whole dozen. A dozen of jumbo eggs weighs 30 ounces, extra large eggs weighs 27 ounces, a large dozen 24 ounces, a medium 21, a small 18, and a peewee weighs 15. I never knew that, did you?

Have you ever wondered how to adjust a recipe if it calls for large egg, which most recipes do, and you have a different size? Here is how to adjust it. If you are using mediums eggs, and the recipes call for one, two, or three large eggs, use the same number. But if the recipe calls for four, five, or six eggs add an extra medium egg. If you only have extra large ones try this. If using one, two, three, or four eggs use the same number. If using five or six eggs in a recipe use one fewer. Or if have farm fresh eggs that come in all sizes, use ¼ cup of beaten egg for each egg called for in the recipe.

Now, these facts do not matter for most things. This small of an amount would not matter in most basic cookies and cakes. But this would matter in something like an Angel Food cake or a soufflé recipe where eggs are more prominent. A small egg instead of a large egg would make a difference in a recipe like that.

So, did you know these egg facts?

Download your FREE Christmas Recipes Ebook From Lynn's Kitchen Adventures. This offer for subscribers only. Click Here

Interesting Egg Facts is a post from: Lynn's Kitchen Adventures ©2011 LynnsKitchenAdventures - All rights reserved.

Yesterday, when I posted the recipe about the carrot muffins I had an interesting comment left. It was from someone from the carrot museum. Who knew that there was a whole website devoted to the carrot.

I was curious, so I went to the Carrot Museum Website. It was actually quite interesting and a little odd too. I spent way to much time this morning looking around and reading on the site. My daughter G was quite thrilled to know that there was so much information on the carrot, since the carrot is one of her favorite foods.

One of the interesting facts that I read was on baby carrots. I knew the store baby carrots were not real baby carrots. But so many people complain that they are not frugal. I have read and heard many times why you should not buy them because so much of the carrot has to be wasted. But did you know that is not entirely true. Baby carrots are made from reject carrots. Most people only want to buy nice looking long straight carrots. So a farmer got tired of all the waste of “ugly” carrots and came up with the baby carrot idea.

Here is what the Carrot Museum had to say and also some interesting facts they had on their site. If you want to know more about the carrot take a look around their site. I did not check out the whole site, so I do not know all that it contains, but overall I found it interesting.

Here are the facts:

“Manufactured” baby carrots , or cut and peel, are what you see most often in the shops – are carrot shaped slices of peeled carrots invented in the late 1980′s by Mike Yurosek, a California farmer, as a way of making use of carrots which are too twisted or knobbly for sale as full-size carrots. Yurosek was unhappy at having to discard as much as 400 tonnes of carrots a day because of their imperfections, and looked for a way to reclaim what would otherwise be a waste product. He was able to find an industrial green bean cutter, which cut his carrots into 5 cm lengths, and by placing these lengths into an industrial potato peeler, he created the baby carrot.

The much decreased waste is also used either for juicing or as animal fodder. Perhaps most important, the baby-cut method allows growers to use far more of the carrot than they used to. In the past, a third or more of a carrot crop could have been easily tossed away, but baby-cut allows more partial carrots to be used, and the peeling process actually removes less of the outer skin that you might imagine They are sold in single-serving packs with ranch dressing for dipping on the side. They’re passed out on airplanes and sold in plastic containers designed to fit in a car’s cup holder. At Disney World, and MacDonald’s burgers now come two ways: with fries or baby carrots.

Some Statistics:

In the US over 172 million tonnes of carrots are processed into baby peeled carrots.

In the US baby peeled carrots sales exceed US$400 million per annum.

Overall carrot consumption in the US has increased by 33% through the introduction of baby peeled carrots.
In the US annual consumer spending on baby peeled carrots exceeds US$2.00 per head.

In 1999 baby peeled carrot purchases passed whole carrots. 94% of US consumers purchased baby peeled carrots while 90% had bought whole carrots. Purchases of baby peeled carrots were even ahead of fresh salad mixes.

Baby peeled carrots have the lion’s share of the carrot category accounting for over 80% of all retail carrot sales.

Up until 2000 baby carrots have dominated US produce department’s with excellent growth ahead of all other produce items.

Download your FREE Christmas Recipes Ebook From Lynn's Kitchen Adventures. This offer for subscribers only. Click Here

Carrots is a post from: Lynn's Kitchen Adventures ©2011 LynnsKitchenAdventures - All rights reserved.