Do you subscribe to food and cooking magazines? I used to. I love reading articles on food and cooking and eating healthy. I realized that it had become an expensive habit, though. I tried to cut costs by buying old issues of magazines, instead, and even previously-read magazines. Still, the cost adds up and these days every penny saved counts. Fortunately, I found a treasure trove of food and cooking articles at Lutongbahay.com. Now I can have my fill reading online.
Lutongbahay.com is the first ever and the only interactive cooking portal online that highlights Filipino regional food recipes and features international dishes, as well. Filipinos and non-Filipinos alike united by a passion for food and cooking gather at the site to try the thousands of recipes and interact through the discussion forum. Recipes not found in the vast data base may be requested for. Experts are available to answer questions. Each member can compile individualized cookbooks based on the recipes and create weekly meal planners that are ready to print out. A weekly e-newsletter keeps all members updated on the site and supplies fresh articles.
Indeed, Lutongbahay.com is a community I feel comfortable hanging out in. It feels like being with like-minded friends in a cozy neighborhood home. The big bonus is that this home happens to have a library filled with interesting articles that are all free to read online. Of course I couldn’t stop myself from settling down to have a good read.
One of the articles that immediately caught my eye was titled “De-Fattening” Your Recipes. Now that’s something I would really benefit from. Sometimes the craving for a certain dish is just so great despite the fact that I know it has a high fat content. Learning how to make any dish low fat - or at least lower fat - would make me feel less guilty and much healthier, too.
Now let me start from the end of the article because the last tip had me gasping then laughing out loud. It said, “Don’t follow directions.” Imagine that. Well, it did make sense. According to the article, you should remove, reduce or replace any fat in the recipe. Sometimes removing a fatty ingredient makes no difference at all in flavor, or is at least barely noticeable. If it’s not possible to remove an ingredient, replace it with a substitute. Fatty cuts of meat, for example, can be done away with in favor of leaner cuts. Butter can be replaced completely or partly with light sour cream or, better yet, non-fat sour cream. Half of the oil required can be replaced with unsweetened applesauce. In cakes, the oil can be replaced with liqueur, sherry, fruit juice or fruit puree. The article also recommends using “better” fat such as olive oil whenever appropriate. That I most certainly agree with. The flavor of extra virgin olive oil more than makes up for all the other fats removed.
It turned out that the article title was not just referring to fat content per se but to the fattening characteristic of certain food, as well. It, therefore, recommended cutting down on sugar, too, and switching to whole grains while adding more fruits and vegetables to the diet. After reading that article I felt eager to start experimenting with the recommended substitutions and start cooking healthy again.
Okay, I have to stop before I give a rundown of each and every article on the site. All of them seem so interesting. I also need to pace myself to ensure that I will still have something to read when I return to the site, because I do intend to return again and again.
So if you’re looking for something to read on food and cooking, visit Lutongbahay.com and get comfortable in their well-stocked library of articles. You’ll surely feel so at home that you would want to be a member.