#1 If you have stinky fingers rub'em on the inside of your stainless steel sink or buy a fancy stainless steel "bar of soap" to get out those pesky fish and garlic odors.

 #2 When using phyllo dough: cut before you cook

#3  This one I learned the other a day from a dear friend: putting a lit candle next to you while you cut onions really works and is easier (and less silly)  than holding a piece of bread in your mouth, which I will no longer do.

 

Also check out this place. A collection of hundreds of found grocery lists. Incredible how many people put vidka on their list :)

So goes the life of a mama with a nursling and a joyful 5 year old. New recipes are on their way!!!

Pressing sweet tooth emergency? peanut butter, chocolate chips or maple syrup in a bowl.....Brown Cow Yogurt, cream cheese on graham crackers with sliced strawberries (or jam). Frozen bananas whipped in the food processor with a touch coconut milk.

What's up with people who have the salty tooth?

Mostly, I use recipes for baking. Baking is my weakest subject and I think part of that is because I don't totally know all the science involved....like how eggs affect the outcome of a cake. I also think baking requires more patience and has less room for error. Yeah , I've got some issues.

I spent a few years working under a pastry chef. A very snooty, peculiar, I-don't-want-to-teach- you-my-craft kind of pastry chef who liked to wear her Cordon Bleu chef's jacket and speak spanish to the produce delivery driver. She wasn't so much in to teaching me the basics of pastry chefing . Mostly I just made everything beautiful. She DID teach me plate painting and lots of sugar work but not as much of the basics. So I find myself turning to recipes mostly for baking.

However, my favorite cook books , I turn to for inspiration and ideas. Sometimes, if the dish seems too far out for me I will stick to the instructions (mostly). But after that first time,  if all turns out not being awful, I'll run with the recipe.

Last month , I created a dish that began a few years back with a recipe from Madhur Jaffery's An Invitation to Indian Cooking. I began making dry potatoes and onions....aloo something something. I remember the recipe said to boil the potatoes in their jackets and I still do that. I can't stand peeling taters.

Well, I made that recipe a few times a month andI started tweaking it. I added a pound of spinach leaves to it and changed the spices a bit. I still use asofoetida though, it makes the dish. Last week I used these indian potatoes as filling between layers of filo dough brushed with olive oil ! A new dish was born. It is very filling , extremely good eats AND totally vegan. I'm ot vegan but I delight in finding non dairy dishes.

Well, I'm still musing on the cook book.....the ones I use most often these days are A New Way to Cook (Schneider) and A World Community World Cookbook: Extending the Table (Schlabach).