"Dimitri" > wrote in message
...
> Cheating - I prefer to call it "tricks of the trade' or Tricks in the
> Kitchen.
>
> Ok you've goofed and made a little error - flexible cooking is the ability
> to correct your mistakes before they become a big error and you have to
> call for Pizza delivery.
>
> As example:
>
> Too much salt - they say to add a potato. (I don't think it works)

I had a pot of pinto beans cooking and salted to taste. Thanks to new
medication my taste was apparently rather flawed as my husband explained
when he tried it. I peeled two potatoes cut them into one inch or so chunks
and tossed them in. It did decrease the salt and the kidlets now think that
I have to put potatoes in pinto beans every time I cook them.

Anyway, this one worked for me

>
> You've misjudged the amount of liquid in your pasta sauce. If you serve
> it like that you'll have red water separating from the meat. What to
> do. - Simple thicken the sauce with some bread crumbs.

I was always taught to use tomato paste to thicken tomato based pasta sauce.
I may be wrong.

>
> Your potatoes are starting to sprout - poke them with a fork and cook them
> on the nuker then refrigerate and you can use them for home fries.

We just cut around the eyes and use as normal. Since my grandfather had an
apple house where lots of vegetable and fruits were stored, we made it
almost all of the winter on the fall crop of potatoes. They were stored in a
cool, insulated environment. Apples lasted a long time too.

>
> What do you have in your bag of tricks ?
>
>

A pinch of sugar in pasta sauce is supposed to cut the acid. It works for
us.

The latest substitution we made was when DD made cookies they came out
really crumbly but the flavor was good. Our brainstorm was to crumb up the
cookies and use like graham cracker crumbs in a pie crust. We got them to a
pretty small crumb. We did have to use a little extra butter than my
standard recipe and we didn't add any extra sugar. A refrigerator cheesecake
went in next and popped into the fridge. The pie crust came out quite well.
The cookies were chocolate chip and she had the idea to drizzle chocolate
and caramel syrup over the top and then sprinkle on finely chopped nuts so
it was like a turtle pie. I had a bite. The kids inhaled it.

Toast that comes out too dry becomes bread crumbs as one member of our
family leans toward overdoing the toast.

C



> --
> Old Scoundrel
>
> (AKA Dimitri)
>
>
>
>