Raab - Clueless in the Kitchen

How to Cook Absolutely Anything

Read the recipe. Twice. The first timeto decide if the dish actually sounds like something you want to cook. Or eat. Does the recipe include an ingredient you hate? Does it require a piece of equipment you dont have? Does it take too long to cook? The second timeto read the recipe more c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y. Do you have all the ingredients? Are you sure? Didnt your brother eat all the chocolate chips last week? Go check. Now.

Assemble everything you need before you start. Everything. The bowls, the pots, the measuring cups, all the ingredients. Take nothing for granted. You dont want to discover at a critical moment that the 9-inch baking dish you need is in the freezer, half filled with last weeks leftover lasagna.

Follow the recipe exactly. This is no time to be rebellious. At least, not the first time. Make the dish once exactly the way the recipe tells you to. Just once. The next time, go ahead and be reckless. Leave out the tomatoes! Double the walnuts! Heckadd some peanut butter! Its your recipe now, baby.

Get over disasters. Everyone has them. Just dont let yourself wallow in them. Pick yourself up, scrape the burned crud off the bottom of the oven, mop up the mess on the floor, feed the disintegrated glop to the dog. And get on with life. It happens.

Know what you like. You cant cook if you dont know what you like to eat. And eating, after all, is the goal. At least, its supposed be. Know what you enjoy eating and cook what you want to eat, and youll probably have fun cooking.

Finallythere are no rules. No one owns a recipe, and there is no right or wrong way for something to taste. If you like it, then its good. If you dont like it, then its not good. Thats all there is to it. Trust yourself.

Basic Kitchen Sanitationa Matter of Life and Death

You definitely dont want food poisoning. Besides being totally disgusting, it could actually kill you, which is not a good thing. So how do you avoid this experience? The following food- handling safety tips might help:

Dont thaw frozen foods on the kitchen counter. Bacteria grow quickly at room temperature, rapidly turning your ground beef into a toxic time bomb. Thaw frozen meat overnight in the refrigerator or defrost in the microwave just before cooking.

When in doubt, throw it out! If meat or other food looks or smells weird, cooking will not make it safe to eat. Just get rid of it and order a pizza instead.

Keep your work areas clean. This isnt just a mom thingits an actual safety thing. Wash your hands, cutting board and utensils in hot soapy water before and after messing around with food. Cross-contamination is a real danger. It happens when bacteria-laden juices from raw meat or poultry contact a surface (your cutting board, knife or hands) that then contaminates another food (such as bread or lettuce). Keep cooked and raw foods entirely separate, and wash or sanitize all cooking utensils and surfaces after using. Better to be crazy clean than sick.

Forget the rare hamburger. Just forget it. Ground meatsbeef, chicken, pork, turkeyare especially dangerous, because when meat is ground, the outer surface (which may be teeming with bacteria) is mixed throughout the meat. Cook any type of ground meat until you can no longer see any pink, and dont even think about eating any of that stuff raw.

Dont let cooked foods hang around at room temperature. Keep cold foods cold and hot foods hot. That leftover lasagna? Stick it right into the fridgedont leave it loitering on the counter.

Watch that potato salad! Keep all salads made with eggs or mayonnaise refrigerated until serving time. Going on a picnic? Use a vinaigrette as a dressing instead of mayoyoull find a basic vinaigrette recipe in this book. How embarrassing if you poisoned Aunt Mildred.

Bare Bones Spice Collection

What cant you do without?

salt and pepper

What else?

basil

oregano

cinnamon

paprika

fresh garlic

fresh parsley

Want to add just a few more?

cayenne pepper

curry powder

ginger

cumin

thyme

vanilla

Mexican chili powder

Breakfast Smoothie GF EF

Youve overslept. Again. If youre not out of the house in two minutes, youre in big trouble. What about breakfast? Heredrink this and run.

1 cup (250 ml) cold milk

cup (125 ml) plain or flavored yogurt

2 tbsp (30 ml) orange juice concentrate (dont dilute)

1 Ripe banana, cut into chunks

Throw everything into the blender and let it zip while you tie your shoelaces.

Quickinto a glassguzzle it downand get going!

Makes 1 large serving (about 2 cups/500 ml).

Variation 1: Instead of the banana, substitute any fresh or frozen fruit: strawberries, blueberries, mangoes, peaches, raspberrieseven a mix of two or three.

Variation 2: Use your favorite fruit juice instead of milk in the recipe above.

Wrap It Up

Making a wrap is a delicate art. Here is a step-by-step guide to help you create the perfect one.

1. Begin with a large, fresh flour tortilla about 10 inches (25 cm) in diameter. You can use white or whole wheat, or one of the fancy kinds made with spinach or sun-dried tomato or whatever. Lay your chosen tortilla flat on a plate or cutting board.

2. Spread the tortilla with something that will act as the glue. Mayonnaise, butter, peanut butter, cream cheese, refried beansa thin layer onlyright to the edges.

3. Now for the filling. Where to start? Sliced or diced meat or fish; veggies of all sortsshredded lettuce, chopped red onion, diced tomatoes, grated carrots, sliced avocado; cheese, of courseshredded cheddar, mozzarella or Monterey Jack, crumbled feta or goat cheese, sliced Swiss; beans, hard-cooked egg, leftover Chinese takeout. Theyre all good. Pile filling ingredients in the middle of the tortilla, in a sort of elongated stack, leaving the edges clear. Dont overdo it or youll have a hard time rolling the wrap.

4. To wrap the wrap, fold the sides of the tortilla in over the filling and then firmly roll from bottom to top to enclose everything, with the glue holding it together. If you arent planning to eat this immediately, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap to keep it all together.

5. And now to eat. You can, of course, just take a bite from one end and keep going. Or you can be fancy and cut it on a diagonal before devouring. Enjoy!

The Leftover Zone

Leftovers are your friends. They are always there for you, waiting patiently in the fridge, ready for you to eat at any moment. Why do we treat them so badly? Here are some ways to show those loyal leftovers how much we really appreciate them.

Heat them up and serve just the way you did the first time around.

In most cases, a microwave does this bestretaining most of the taste and texture of the original.

Dont bother to heat them up.

Discover how the flavor of a hot food changes when its cold. Cold leftover pizza actually makes a good, quick breakfast.

Make a sandwich out of them.

Meat loaf, chicken, meatballs, pot roastthey all make an excellent sandwich if you slice them thin enough and add some lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, mayonnaise, mustard, whatever. Allegedly, leftover spaghetti makes a great sandwich, but no one has yet confirmed this scientifically.

Give them another life altogether.

Reincarnate those potatoes as a potato salad. Turn those leftover vegetables into soup. Give those shreds of chicken or turkey new life as a stir-fry. Create a brand-new dinner from old foodyou can make a silk purse out of a sows ear. Or, at the very least, a casserole.

Create a do-it-yourself TV dinner.

Recycle that multi-compartment plate (the kind you get with a frozen dinner) by filling it with the leftovers of a previously loved meal. Mashed potatoes here, a slice or two of meat loaf there, a few pieces of broccoli in the cornercover with foil and freeze for another day.