Let Fix Mistakes

Streamline dinner and minimize last-minute work on food from the freezer by leaving a note to yourself. Next time you freeze a make- ahead dish, wrap it up and then place a sticky-note on top of the wrapped food that lists the finishing instructions. Wrap the whole thing in an extra layer of plastic wrap. Now in the rush before dinner you’ll have all the information you need to finish the dish without having to dig up the recipe again.

If you forgot to save pasta water for thinning sauce and instead poured it all down the drain, there’s an easy fix: Mix ¼ teaspoon of cornstarch with 1 cup of water and microwave it for 1 to 2 minutes until hot. A splash or two of the slightly thickened liquid creates a sauce with just the right consistency

Boiling four or five quarts of water for pasta can be slow and frustrating, especially if you’re running out of time before dinner. Speed up the process by boiling the water in two pots. When both pots are boiling, carefully pour the water from the second pot into the stockpot, and you’re ready to go.

Oils infused with garlic, herbs, or other flavors can make the perfect final touch for a pasta recipe, salad, or side dish. However, large bottles of flavored oil don’t always keep well and they may not have the strong, fresh taste that you’re looking for. If you don’t like keeping these expensive products around or you find that you’ve run out in the middle of cooking, try this solution for a lighting-fast, convenient way to make small amounts of fresh infused oil for a particular dish: Put a few tablespoons of olive oil in a microwave-safe bowl with chopped garlic, red pepper flakes, or herbs, and microwave for about a minute (until the oil is warm but not hot). The oil will be infused with whatever flavor you want in no time at all

It’s always a good idea to chill the bowl and beaters or whisk you plan to use when whipping cream, but full refrigerators and freezers may not accommodate bulky bowls. If you find yourself in this situation, try the following method: Fill a zipper-lock bag with ice cubes and place it in the bowl. A bag filled with 20 ice cubes will chill a 12-inch stainless- steel bowl in about 5 minutes. Another way to chill a stainless-steel bowl is to toss in a couple of frozen freezer packs. They will turn the bowl icy cold in about 10 minutes.

Homemade pancakes and waffles just aren’t the same without syrup. If you run out of pancake syrup with breakfast already on the table, you can make a super quick and delicious substitute from a basic pantry staple: Just melt brown sugar by microwaving it. Add water to get a consistency that you like. You can also add butter or mix in flavoring from ingredients such as almond or vanilla extracts, depending on your taste.

If it’s hard to get your stovetop burners to maintain a very low flame (necessary when trying to cook soups or stews at a bare simmer so they don’t burn), improvise a flame tamer out of a thick ring of aluminum foil. Set the foil ring on the burner, then place the pot on top of the foil.

Searing meat in a pan produces a crusty brown fond, which is key to great flavor in many soups, stews, and sauces. But when those dark brown bits begin to turn black, it’s a good thing gone bad. When searing cutlets over high heat, for example, the areas of the pan between the pieces of meat are often the first to blacken. To guard against this, shift the food to cover the darker spots. The juices released from the meat will help to deglaze the pan. When searing a large quantity of meat in batches, it may be necessary to deglaze the empty pan with water, wine, or stock between batches.

Blackened butter will impart a bitter flavor to a finished dish and should be thrown away. However, slightly browned butter has a pleasantly nutty flavor and is often specifically called for in recipes. To keep butter from browning further after you get it to just the right stage, add a small amount of vegetable oil to the pan. With its higher smoke point, vegetable oil helps keep the butter from burning.

If you have already taken meat off the heat, rested it, and sliced it, only to discover it’s underdone, you might be tempted to simply put it back in the oven or the pan, but that will only make it dry out and turn gray. Instead, place the sliced meat on a wire rack set in a baking sheet and cover each slice with a lettuce leaf. Then put the pan under the broiler for a few minutes. The meat will gently steam under the lettuce, without drying out.

Food that initially sticks to the pan usually releases on its own after a few minutes, when a crust begins to form from the heat. As long as the food is not burning, you should wait a minute or two before worrying about any stickiness. If it’s still sticking on stubbornly, dip a thin, flexible spatula in cold water and slide the inverted blade underneath the food to loosen it.

If you find yourself with a dry, overbaked cake, brushing the cake with a flavored simple syrup can restore moistness. The technique works with yellow, white, and chocolate cakes

Trying to ice a cake with stiff frosting can yield unappealing flecks of torn-off cake. To keep things spreadable, heat up a spatula or spoon in hot water before slathering on the frosting.

Sometimes a finicky sauce, such as beurre blanc, can separate and break if it gets too hot. But all is not lost. Simply remove the pan from the heat and whisk an ice cube into the sauce until it comes back together.

Trying to thicken gravy by sprinkling in flour often results in unsightly lumps and a consistency that is still too thin because the starch is not dispersed. Solve the problem by using the following steps. (This technique does not work with mushroom or giblet gravy.)

When baking lots of cookies, it’s inevitable that some of them will end up overbrowned or even burnt in some spots. But all is not lost! Save those sweet efforts by gently grating the burnt layer with a rasp-style grater. Note that there are limits; this tip works well with lightly singed cookies but can’t rescue thoroughly burnt ones.

If you’ve ever found yourself with broken cake halves after removing a finicky cake from a pan, you’ll appreciate this trick. Repair the fracture by allowing the cakes to cool, then spreading a thin layer of soft buttercream frosting over the broken surfaces and reattaching the pieces. Then set the cake in the refrigerator for about an hour to allow the frosting to harden before continuing to assemble and frost it.

Instead of panicking when your cupcakes stick to the muffin tin, improvise with the crumbly (but still tasty) pieces by alternating cake and frosting to fill small, individual plastic cups. Simply rename the dessert “Fancy Cake Parfait Cups” and no one will be the wiser!

Even when every precaution is taken, the occasional cheesecake will develop unsightly cracks. Here’s a simple method for repairing them.

1. Remove the sidewall from the springform pan while the cheesecake is warm. Wrap a cloth ribbon snugly around the cake, preferably one that covers the sides completely (about 3 inches wide for most pans).

2. Secure the ribbon with a binder clip, and leave in place until the cake has cooled completely.