Confessions of a Foodie

So recently I made my delicious cowboy cookies, and they were looking great until I pulled them out. Instead of my beautiful, thick oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, I found flat, crunchy disks of oatmeal and chocolate chips. I couldn’t figure out what happened, so I did a little research. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know about you, but nothing is worst tasting to me than a burned sauce. That nasty, pungent smell saturates every ounce of a potentially magnificent sauce. One time in particular, I remember preparing spaghetti sauce for a church function when the unthinkable happened.

I like to let my sauce simmer for as long as possible, so it will be even more tasty. So I had started my sauce hours before the party was to begin. I sauted my onions and garlic, added my spices and my secret ingredient, and then I placed it over medium-high heat to quickly bring it up to a simmer before I cranked it down to low for a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, I got busy doing something else, I believe I was on the phone :), and I totally forgot about my beautiful sauce. Half an hour later, I remembered! But it was too late, my sauce was charred! With tear-filled eyes, I surveyed the situation. What could I do?

I didn’t have enough ingredients left to make a second pot, and by the time I got back from the store with supplies I wouldn’t have time to do much more than open a jar of Ragu! Plus, I hate wasting food. The thought of throwing that big pot of hard work away made me want to burst out in hysterics. So I tried to remember some kind of hint for saving burned sauce.

I knew I had read something somewhere. But what was it?! The answer– bread! That’s right, one little piece of bread. So I attempted the impossible, salvaging a nasty, burned pot of marinara. I crossed my fingers, and started to work.

First, I transferred the burned sauce into a new pot, being careful not to scrape the bottom. Then, I placed a piece of sliced bread in the sauce, covered the pot with a lid, and waited. Those five minutes felt like an eternity! Oh Lord, please let this work! I prayed.

Five minutes later, I carefully removed the now soggy slice of bread, and threw it away. Then grabbing a spoon, with my eyes tightly closed, I sampled the sad, sad sauce. But it wasn’t sad, it was delicious. And best of all, I couldn’t taste even the slightest hint of burned sauce! Woohoooo! It worked!

Later that night, at the church social, I got rave reviews about my spaghetti. Everyone loved it, and wanted my recipe. And the entire time, I just laughed and thought to myself, maybe I should burn my sauces more often.

*Note* The bread in the burned sauce trick always works. The biggest thing is to not scrape the bottom of the pot when you’re transferring the sauce. You don’t want to transfer any of the burn residue. Oh, and in a pinch, any kind of bread will work. One time I used half of a frozen hamburger bun!