Important Caveat About Ingredients

When Shrug, one of the contributors to Help! I Have A Fire In My Kitchen read the post entitled:

Teddy’s Insane Laws For The Kitchen & Cooking - Rule #4 - No Recipe Is Holy Writ

She sent me an email with the following point which is critical for those starting out in the kitchen to understand.
I'm big on experimenting. I liked your entry on experimenting, with one small caveat. You can't experiment where the ingredients are necessary for the cooking process. It's more true for baking than for other dishes, but if you try to use baking powder in place of baking soda, you're not going to get the same effect in your baked goods. And, like with the lemon squares. You can't substitute non-acidic juices for the lemon because the acid causes a chemical reaction with the baking powder.
This is an important caveat - or BUT to my Insane Law of No Recipe Is Holy Writ. There are simply some ingredients in recipes you cannot and should not substitute for others. That is always an important point to remember. When in doubt ask. Do not be ashamed to ask.

You can even send an email here and I will be glad to attempt to answer your question. Or get Blog Visitors to help answer it.

(Just click on the Gmail email icon below to email Help! I Have A Fire In My Kitchen)

As the tried and true cliche goes:

There are no stupid questions. Only dumb answers.


Help! I Have A Fire In My Kitchen



Don't Be Shy. Leave A Comment Below.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Baking Powder

Image
This is the last of Paula's recipes for "food & cooking staples" so far. She writes: Sometimes you run out of an item midway through baking. It is fun to be able to make the missing content out of items you have sitting in your cupboards. Baking Powder Ingredients: 1 Tablespoon Cornstarch 2 Tablespoons Cream of Tartar 1 Tablespoon Baking Soda Just whisk together until evenly blended Baking Art Print 12 in. x 6 in. Buy at AllPosters.com Fifty Percent (50%) of all revenue of any product purchased through Help! I Have A Fire In My Kitchen goes to help feed needy families in Israel. The funds are donated directly to the needy families - regardless of religion, race or creed. The remaining 50% will be donated to a Rape Crises Center for Women in Israel. Paula obviously has a knack in the kitchen. I took this recipe but remember folks it implies you have Cream of Tartar and implies Cornstarch and Baking soda. If I had all this stocked in my kitchen - trust me I would al...
Read more

Shrek Cookbook - Book Review

Image
(***Due to layout of this review, if viewed in an RSS reader, certain sections may seem duplicated.) Before we begin, the normal disclaimer. This book review was solicited by the publishers of the Shrek Cookbook and contains my opinion of the book. For kosher readers of Help! I Have A Fire In My Kitchen - This is not a "kosher" cookbook though the majority of recipes in the Shrek Cookbook can be used as is, or with just a few sane and healthy substitutions, can be kept kosher. (Indeed as far as I could tell every recipe in this book can be kept kosher.) It is not that difficult to find equivalent and healthy kosher substitutes these days, especially in the United States. Book Details: The Shrek Cookbook , published by Dorling Kindersley ( www.dk.com ) is a publicized as a cookbook for children (ages 4-8). It's 30+ recipes come in Ringbound Hard Cover, so the pages can be turned easily while the book lays on a counter top. The font is large, catering to the child and p...
Read more

Chicken-Rice Roger

Image
Nancy sent this one in. Help! I Have A Fire In My Kitchen seems to have lit the fire in her kitchen! She writes: I have an ancient cookbook titled "The I Hate To Cook Book". It looks like the Dead Sea Scrolls: it's a paper-back with brown, crispy pages which are crumbling at the edges and more than quite a few of the recipes have large grease stains on them (shows you how wonderfully often they were referred to). I checked the publishing date and it reads 1960! I know...I'm as old as Methuselah. The recipes in this cookbook are about as easy as you'll ever find, so if you are in the category of "cooking for dummies", this particular recipe will please you no end. This recipe is one that was so popular that I even took it to weekend get-aways with my husband's cousin and her husband. We two women stayed up all night chewing the fat, and when we saw the morning light sliding through the Venetian blinds in the kitchen, we took the partially devou...
Read more