From our kitchen to yours

Southern Living, Mar 1996 by Campbell, Dana Adkins

Gourmet Goof, Super Save

My first--and worst--kitchen goof happened in my third week of marriage. Determined to serve a hot meal in our happy home, even after a full day of college classes, work, and emotional adjustment, I started a Crock-Pot of chili at 6 am.--not my time of day.

Rubbing my unwilling eyes into focus, I measured and stirred. Let's see, 2 tablespoons chili powder, 1/4 teaspoon red pepper. Gee, those bottles sure look similar through blurry eyes. You guessed it. I got them backwards. Of course, I didn't realize that until our tongues burned as intensely as the candles on our romantic table. The fragile bride, I wept for both seared mouths and scalded pride.

Nearly 12 years of wedded bliss later, I now know to stir a few large chunks of raw potato into fiery pots and remove them before serving. Those starchy tubers will absorb some of the excess heat or counteract a heavy hand with the salt, if that's your problem. I've also learned to swallow my pride instead of my unsavory mistakes.

A Soft Touch

It's tough to guess the perfect moment in the life of an avocado. Standing in the produce department, you pick up one after the other, gently squeezing, thinking, "Okay, this is Tuesday, and I'm making a Mexican dinner on Friday." You squeeze again. "Nope, too firm. It'll never soften by Friday." You finally pick one, set it faithfully on your kitchen window ledge, and give it a daily squeeze. Come Mexican night, it's sometimes still hard as a rock.

There's one last-ditch solution: peel, seed, and pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds or so. Sometimes, it'll give up and get soft enough to eat. (Not awe-inspiringly ripe, just soft.) And sometimes, it just won't. Your safety net? Add an extra-large carton of sour cream to the grocery list to make up for the irresistible fat you may have to throw out in a stubborn avocado.

Take a Whack at It

In the last year, you've sent us a multitude of recipes for cakes, pies, and cookies made with candy bars. Our favorites have been the ones using candy bars made of English toffee wrapped in milk chocolate (like Heath or Skor), but breaking them up to mix into other ingredients has been a mess. After battling them with rolling pins, sharp knives, and warm hands, we've had more chocolate on the counter and ourselves than in the mixing bowl.

Assistant Foods Editor Jodi Jackson Loe turned a minor fit of frustration into a fruitful solution when she whacked a still-wrapped candy bar against the edge of the countertop She whacked a few more times, and the confection gave way into perfect chunks for stirring into our treats. (Of course, you can always skip the recipes and pair the crushed candy bar with a big bowl of ice cream instead.)

Hands Off

If you squeamishly back away from a bowl of gooey meat loaf-to-be or a vat of cookie dough, take a tip from Dorothy Gunn of Pinehurst, North Carolina. Instead of getting elbow deep in the stuff and then scrubbing her hands for hours, she keeps a supply of disposable gloves in her kitchen to handle such dirty jobs. When the deed is done, she just peels the gloves off into the garbage and forgets the whole incident. As a bonus, it's more sanitary.

Dana Adkins Campbell Foods Editor

Easy As Pie . . . crust

And we're not talking homemade. We invite you to cheat with the kind of crust you buy folded up in the box in your grocer's refrigerated section. Just unwrap, unfold, cut with fun cookie cutters, and bake quickly for some eye-catching salad croutons.

With fashion going retro, we picked daisies for "flower power." If you don't have many shaped cutters in your kitchen, you can cut free-form triangles or diamonds with a knife, and straight or curvy strips with a fluted pastry wheel for a wavy edge. Bake at 400deg for 4 to 6 minutes, and then cool the shapes and put them on delicate greens.

Serving a salad with a sweet dressing? Brush the cutouts with milk or egg white; then sprinkle them with sugar before baking.

Top a pecan pie with a pile of pastry leaves or a holiday dessert with Christmas-light shapes sprinkled with red or green sugar crystals. (The miniature Christmas-light cutters are available for about $1 plus shipping from The Little Fox Factory. Request a brochure by sending a self-addressed, stamped, business-size envelope to 931 Marion Road, Bucyrus, OH 44820.