Join Cathy Salter, a founding member of The Common Ingredient, in testing a recipe from our collection. Send any photos to a member of our team and we’ll share your kitchen adventures with our community!
tips + tricks
from my kitchen to yours.
This is a space where we’ll share the secrets from the stovetop that have made us better chefs and cooks in our own kitchens.
To submit a tip of your own, add a comment below.
“My French Toast improved after someone gave me the tip that keeps the cinnamon evenly spread in soaking your French toast and that is to first whisk well the cinnamon with the eggs before adding the milk --- and you must add a teaspoon of vanilla for the best taste!”
— Anne Deaton, co-founder of Children’s Grove & co-director of Deaton Institute for University Leadership in International Development
“Fresh pesto is so easy to make. If you grow basil, cut bunches along the central stem where you see new pairs of leaves emerging, and it will multiply. To make pesto, all you need is a food processor (Cuisinart) with blade attachment and a few simple ingredients.”
First chop: 2 cups of fresh basil leaves, minus the stems (after rinsing in cold water)
Then add and thoroughly blend:
- 1/3 cup fresh parmesan cheese (grated)
- 4 cloves of garlic, peeled
- 1/2 cup pine nuts
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
Toss with cooked pasta, green peas or asparagus, and fresh grated parmesan. Keeps in refrigerator one week in a sealed container or freeze for a few months."
— Cathy Salter, weekly columnist at The Columbia Tribune and Boone County Journal; author of Notes from Breakfast Creek (2008) and Notes from Boomerang Creek (2015)
party time:
Make extra frosting!
(From Robin LaBrunerie)
When you’re frosting a cake if you’re able to make extra frosting, it makes the frosting process so much easier. Just take the recipe times 1 1/4 or so and you’ll have much more to work with and can more easily cover the entire cake surface. Also, take a pastry brush and brush away any loose crumbs before you start frosting to keep crumbs from getting mixed into the frosting.
Keep it simple for big parties!
(From Robin LaBrunerie)
If you want to throw a big party but are intimidated by all the work required, keep it simple and just make it a theme. You could just serve soup and bread, but make the soup memorable and hearty. Or just do dessert and after dinner drinks. Or pick a well loved dish and have everyone bring their own version for a good natured tasting competition. Try these *after* covid-19 concerns are past. ;-)
mealtime tips:
Marinate your meat before roasting or grilling.
(From Robin LaBrunerie)
Everyone comments on the tenderness and full flavor of the meat we serve. Here are our secrets. Start by using some unseasoned tenderizer, sprinkle lightly on all sides, whether it’s chicken, pork or beef. Then marinate in a mixture of one part lemon or lime juice, one part tamari or soy sauce, two parts olive oil. If it’s chicken don’t marinate for more than 20-25 minutes, pork can be marinated for several hours or overnight, or as short as 30 minutes and beef can also be marinated for a short while or several hours.
Then remove from marinade and season generously and grill or roast.
I am lucky to live with an active and creative chef (From Kit Salter)
Speaking as one of many who enjoy the benefits of knowing and sharing a home with a grand chef, I want to lobby for all such onlookers--and probable eaters-- benefitted by the chef's labors to Do Active and Good-Spirited Clean up! Stay out of the way of the chef, but stand ready to wash bowls, plates, pans, and kitchen mixers. Always help after the chef's creative work is done--but in complex recipes, be ready to keep surfaces clear and THEN clean. All of us who are Not Chefs should proudly be members of a Support Crew--and dish work is the generally the most useful such assistance.
Make Pizza most every weekend!
(From Anne Deaton)
1.Whatever amount of flour you use, make sure half of it is Italian flour. I use Gustare Vita all purpose that I purchase at Hy-Vee.
2. Add 1/4 teaspoon baking powder to your flour mix.
3. Handle dough lightly by folding over a few times
4. Heat oven to 500 degrees for at least 30 minutes before using. Reduce heat to 475 just before putting pie in oven
5. Shape pizza and put in oven for 8 minutes without any topping!. Remove and top as desired. Return to oven to finish baking.
Happy to answer any questions about pizza making: deatona@missouri.edu.
A classic pot for cooking grits or polenta: (From Cathy Salter)
A few years ago I bought a copper “paiolo”—a classic polenta pot with top-heavy proportions that looks like it belongs in Manhattan’s Museum of Modern Art. Why, you might be wondering, was a specialized 7 1/2-inch-tall pot with a 5 ½ inch base and 10-inch-wide top needed for polenta which, after all, is just cornmeal, water and salt? If you’ve ever made polenta or grits, you may have experienced some challenges. Cornmeal gets lumpy and during the 20-30 minutes of cooking, it must be stirred constantly with a wooden spoon to avoid sticking to the bottom of the pan. And when it thickens, it begins to bubble and spew like one of Yellowstone National Park’s volcanic hot mud pots. Whenever I make grits or polenta, I use my copper paiolo with its long wooden handle and equally long spoon. If you don’t have one, a pot with high sides will do just fine. It’s just not as much fun!
Uses for Aloe Vera: (From Cathy Salter)
Aloe Vera gel is widely known for healing wounds. It can be applied to burns from cooking or stoking your fire, or to relieve sunburn. The succulent has a long history of being used for medicinal purposes dating back to ancient Egypt. It can be grown in a terra cotta pot with well-drained dirt. Long, spikey aloe leaves are available at local markets. Cut off a small piece of the succulent and rub the gooey gel that emerges on the burn.
special tips from author Suzanne Dunaway:
Don’t refrigerate any fruit (especially bananas!) except apples, unless the fruit is cut up and mixed together for fruit salad (macedonia in Italy, macedoine in France). Sprinkle fruits with lemon or lime juice so they retain their color.
Exception: I’ve mentioned apples.
Lemons may be kept for months in a fridge. Take it from someone with a sweet little tree that puts out hundreds of seedless lemons twice a year. You can only make so many jars of lemon curd, chutney, and so many gin and tonics, but a bit of lemon juice goes into just about everything I cook to balance the final flavor, be it sweet or savory.
I make guacamole in avocado season and freeze it for whenever I like. Put it in an airtight container, cover the surface with plastic wrap and you’ll have lovely, fresh guacamole any time of year. Great for no-work make-ahead party food.
Make all meat stews a day or two ahead — boeuf bourguignon, cassoulet, ragout, peposo, bolognese, and so on. Meat sauces or stews are so much better after a little repose, just like the cook.
Ditch your dried herbs, especially the ones that are now available fresh in most supermarkets. In a sunny spot, grow a few small pots of basil, parsley, and cilantro, or your favorite fresh herb.
Scratch the garlic salt forever! Spices and herbs are two different things. Spices, such as the ones for curry, are usually dried unless you have fresh curry leaves, or fenugreek growing in the hills, as it does here in southern France. But herbs are best used fresh, period.
Scratch the garlic salt forever! Spices and herbs are two different things. Spices, such as the ones for curry, are usually dried unless you have fresh curry leaves, or fenugreek growing in the hills, as it does here in southern France. But herbs are best used fresh, period.
Sell-by dates are fine to consider, but many foods are perfectly good a week or two later, such as yogurt, sour cream, cottage cheese, and other dairy products. A good sniff will ascertain whether to toss it or not, and even the mold that sometimes forms on stored foods can be considered as protection for what’s underneath. A good example is the mold seen on some jams and jellies. Remove it along with a thin layer of the stuff underneath, and what you have left is usually perfectly fresh. If it’s moving, toss it.
to keep it clean:
(From Cathy Salter)
To safeguard from a boil over messes when you have pasta cooking in a pot, try two tricks. Lay a wooden spoon over the center of the pot and diffuse the steam. I use this method all the time!
Or for about $15 you can buy a silicone boil-over safeguard screen to prevent excess water from boiling over the sides of a pot. It also lets you use the steam from the pot to cook vegetables al dente at the same time your pasta is cooking.
JUICING
By: Cathy Salter
Juicing is a delicious way to stay healthy any time but especially during this period of Covid-19 sheltering in place. I use a Breville Juicer that is compact and easy to clean and reassemble. The juice goes into a juice jug and the dry pulp is collected in a container that can be added to your garden compost. Try various combinations of vegetables and fruit such as carrots, green apples, golden beets, ginger root and turmeric root. Or combine kale, green apples, Kiwis, cucumber, celery, and pineapple. Or try red apples, red beets, and spinach. The possibilities are endless. Be Epicurious and come up with your own combination of healthy juices.
African Market Baskets
“Every Basket Helps”
As a Peace Corps volunteer in Southeast Asia in the late 1960s, I (Cathy Salter) shopped in outdoor markets and carried produce and flowers home in a woven basket. My friend Nina Mukerjee Furstenau did the same as a volunteer in North Africa in the mid-1980s. Women all over the world still do so today. In 2009, African Market Baskets formed a non-profit organization “Every Basket Helps” to support its humanitarian projects in the villages of Ghana. They are members of the Fair Trade Federation.
In Missouri, Moser’s sells these West African baskets in all nine of their grocery stores, thanks to Roger Moser and his Ashland store’s produce manager Dallas Gresham who sells them like hot cakes. The baskets are also available at Clovers. They are big, colorful, handmade, sturdy, roomy, and they eliminate the need for one-use plastic bags. Use them when you shop, gather tomatoes, or store yarn. They also make wonderful gifts while weaving hope, healthcare and education for the villages where they are made.