Mom Cooking Tip 103

Always wash your hands thoroughly after handling raw eggs.

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Ingredients Hiding in Plain Sight

Right now my refrigerator is stuffed with food that doesn’t quite add up to dinner: a slice of mushroom pizza, at least one cup of cottage cheese, a huge pan of rice left over from a business meeting, some mushrooms, 2 bell peppers + the usual block of cheddar cheese and several dozen eggs.

I really should pop out to the store or find something in my freezer, but I want to clear out the fridge shelves first.  What can I make from these ingredients?  Click on the links below for the three recipes.

Mom Cooking Tip 102

When making brownies or other dessert bars in a square or rectangular pan, line the pan with aluminum foil, making sure two ends of the foil overhand the pan by about 2 inches.  That way you can easily lift the brownies out of the pan after they’re baked.

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Question for Mom?

Sugar Snap Peas (left)  Snow Peas (right)

What’s the difference between sugar snap peas and snow peas?  --Edna V.

Not a lot, especially considering that snow peas are the parent of sugar snap peas.  Scientists developed sugar snap peas in the 1950s through cross-breeding a snow pea with a garden pea.

There are differences.  Snow peas are flat and have small peas inside.  Sugar snap peas are puffier, and their peas are bigger.  Both make excellent side dishes.

Mom Cooking Tip 101

Some recipes call for saving a cup of hot pasta water before draining the pasta.  Here’s why: you may want to add at least some of the water to the sauce for extra flavor.  Also, the starch left in the pasta water helps the sauce stick better.     

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Where Do You Get Your Recipes?

Shrimp Chowder

I like trying new recipes, but I’ve learned to be careful about the source.  If my aunt, a terrible cook, hands me a copy of a recipe she likes, I say thank you and put it in my purse, never to be seen again.  If a close friend who is also a skillful cook offers one, I try it immediately.  I don’t always like the end result, but I’m willing to give it a chance.

With cookbooks, I’ll test out one or two recipes.  If they’re successful, I’ll try some more.  If they’re not, that cookbook moves down to a shelf near the floor of my kitchen and may never be consulted again.  If it was an epic fail, I banish the cookbook to the garage.

Mom Cooking Tip 100

If a soup recipe calls for fresh spinach and you don’t have any, substitute several handfuls of mixed salad greens.

Bean and Vegetable Soup

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Durum Wheat: What Is It and How Do I Use It?

When I was a beginning cook, spaghetti was one of my fallback meals.  I happily ate it two or three times a week.  The one thing that worried me about it, though, was that I might inadvertently buy the “wrong” kind of pasta.

Mom Cooking Tip 99

Kiwi Slices

Use an egg slicer to slice hard-boiled eggs and other foods into slender slices.  The foods, which need to be semi-soft, could include bananas, kiwis, strawberries, avocados, pieces of ripe peach, apple or pear (skin side away from the blades), as well as nearly-cooked carrots, potatoes, beets and other root vegetables.

Hard-Boiled Egg Slices 

Banana Slices

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Dinner While Driving

More often than I would like, Bart and I wind up driving somewhere during the dinner hour.  Getting a proper meal on the table before we leave usually isn’t an option, so I have built up a list of dishes we can take with us and eat on the road.

The criteria are pretty rigid:

Question for Mom

I have a recipe that calls for BBQ sauce, but I don’t have any.  Can you suggest a substitute? – Daryl W.

Make your own BBQ sauce.  It’s easy, although it’s only worth it if you already have most of the ingredients.

Mom Cooking Tip 98

If you have to suddenly delay serving cooked pasta that you’ve just drained, put it back in the pot and add 1-2 tablespoons olive or canola oil, stir so the oil covers the noodles and cover.  The oil will keep the noodles from sticking to each other while awaiting sauce.

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India Meets Italy at My Table

Pasta with Indian Cauliflower Sauce

I like food from other countries.  Maybe it’s because I grew up in a Western Pennsylvania coal and steel town populated by many nationalities.  Every summer weekend my family attended a community picnic featuring dishes from a specific nationality.  The Italian Picnic introduced me to Spaghetti and Meatballs and Veal Parmesan.  The Polish Picnic offered Grilled Kielbasas (sausages) and Sauerkraut.  I loved the Flatbread on offer at the Syrian Picnic and the Stuffed Grape Leaves, Baklava and Tiropita (cheese turnovers) at the Greek Picnic.

Question for Mom?

Should I store potatoes in my fridge? 

No!  Cold temperatures change the flavor of potatoes.  Also, potatoes take up a lot of room.  Keep them in a cool, dark place. 

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Mom Money-Saving Tip 78

Maximize your use of boiling water. If you need to cook raw shrimp for a few minutes, use the opportunity to remove the skins from a few tomatoes and/or make hard-boiled eggs.  Just drop everything into the same pot of boiling water?  The tomatoes will take no more than a minute.  Then scoop them out and pull off the skins.  The shrimp will take 3-5 minutes, depending on size, to turn pink and slightly curl.  Then scoop them out and peel them.  The eggs will take 10 minutes in boiling water and then another 2 minutes sitting in hot water.  Then run under cold water and peel.  

It’s culinary multi-tasking!

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