Jewish Cooking for the Clueless

IT'S HERE! My new cookbook - Jewish Cooking Boot Camp - came in the mail last week. I know that this cookbook was made for me - especially when there is an article on page 7 titled "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Kitchen Injuries."

I'd like to add a new segment to the cookbook from the Clueless Cook (a.k.a. yours truly). I call it - Reasons to read the recipe BEFORE you start to cook.

Reason #1 - By reading the entire list of ingredients, you can make sure that you have each item in your kitchen. If you don't follow this philosophy, you will likely annoy your spouse when you send him or her out to the store to retrieve the missing (and usually hard to find) ingredient.

Reason #2 - Read the recipe again to make sure that you have all of the kitchen equipment you need. This would have come in handy before I was in the middle of making cupcakes with the kids from scratch without a sifter.

Reason #3
Read the amount that you need of each ingredient prior to putting it in the bowl. Otherwise, you may wind up quadrupling the one ingredient that you didn't read while using the exact measurements of the ingredients that you did read. Yes, I admit that I did this. I overloaded on the tomato sauce and put in the exact ingredients while making a mango sauce for my tilapia.

One more cooking tip for clueless cooks out there (are there any out there besides me?), buy 2 of everything so that when you mess it up - you have everything you need to start all over again!

Yeah, the brisket I plan to make for the High Holidays should make for a very interesting story. Wish me luck and stay tuned!