- Keep two squirt bottles handy – one filled with water, and one with the oil you typically use to grease a cooking pan. Very helpful for a quick squirt when you need it, especially when your goal is always to cook dinners in about 15 minutes.
- Add a little raw sugar to any red Italian sauce as it’s cooking. Sprinkle it over as the chefs do with salt, on the cooking channels. (I swear they must teach them how to do that hand motion in cooking school! It’s really funny sometimes, it’s so overdone.) A little bit of sweetness cuts the “bite” of the tomatoes and gives that part of your palette a refreshing little kick.
- As you cook, always be asking yourself: What could I add to this that would enhance it without turning it into mud? The goal is for a complementary taste, without “fighting” or “eliminating” the other tastes you’ve already built into the dish. An example is a Mexican dish with layers – such as the meat/sauce layer, the melted cheese layer, the sour cream layer, and the guacamole layer.