“When a car breaks down, you fix it. When your food breaks down you can fix it…” state the authors of the book How to Repair Food. If you have ever had disasters in the kitchen, you may understand the benefits of learning to turn problem foods into tasty ones. Instead of giving up and calling for pizza, this book gives you methods to salvage your dinner.
The authors of How to Repair Food, Tanya Zeryck and Marina and John Bear, explain how to repair almost any type of food you can think of. The main portion of the book is an alphabetical list of meals and ingredients along with fixes for problems that might arise in cooking each item. Here are a couple of interesting tips:
* To fix salty ham, slice it, then soak the slices in milk for 15 to 30 minutes. This does nothing to affect the taste except make the ham less salty.
* If your oven (or your kitchen) is not completely level you may end up with a lopsided cake. To prevent this from happening, check your cake after 20 minutes of cooking and turn it halfway. Check again after another 20 minutes and repeatedly turn the cake as needed. This should keep your cake level. If a finished cake is lopsided, cut the top off, turn the cake upside-down and frost it.
* Did you know that you can keep leftover soup for a year without ever freezing it?! Sounds crazy, but this book says you can. Keep the soup in the refrigerator and heat it to boiling every couple of days.
How to Repair Food is filled with these types of tips for saving money in the kitchen by fixing foods you might otherwise throw out. Check the appendices for methods to repair burnt foods, fix problems with utensils and cooking appliances, how to store leftovers, and more.