Anyone have any cooking mantras?

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Dh and I always say there is very little that cannot be improved by the addition of an egg. Eg pizza, stew, soup, pork pie - all enhanced by an egg.

Anyone else got any cooking mantras?

Mine is (with regards vegetables): If in doubt cook it with bacon. This works on most inexplicable veg that come in the veg box.

I am showing my age unable to cook without the Ladybird Book of Cooking (c.1965) mantra "First Wash Your Hands" going round my head...

Not mine but my grandmother's " if you can read you can cook".

Mum refuses to use more than 2 pans for any dish - her "2 pan rule"

Cooking is an art; baking is a science.

Ha ha - dh always says that everything tastes better with the addition of a bit of bacon!

you can never add too much cheese

DewDr0p

And if there is not a hope in hell that DC would eat it: If in doubt cook it with chilli. And bacon.

(We like hot food here. If anyone knows any magic trick to get DC to eat hot stuff please tell!)

This too shall pass...

Start with decent ingredients and don't fuck them up.

Uptoapoint - no idea, but DH got the kids (4 and 2) to each a home made (as in dried spices forward) Jalfrazzi earlier this week. I had to warn Nursery about the possible poo-plosion that might occur.....

Bung it in and hope for the best

But seriously the one about if you can read you can cook is true, but it does help that I learned from my DM not to be afraid of attempting things. A lot of my friends say "oh I couldn't do that" and I think we'll I can, so you definitely can.

Mine all like hot stuff uptoapoint but I've no idea why!

On the other hand dc3 (who loves curry) refuses to eat classic kid-friendly stuff like ham and cheese. Strange child!

There's no telling with kids. DS2 will eat all kinds of green vegetables, even salad, but refuses to eat carrot. Why??? And definitely no macaroni cheese for my lot.

You can always add more, but you can't take it out.

This with regards to salt, spices etc.

There's nothing that onion doesn't impove..apart from ice cream maybe..

UpToAPoint, years ago I made carrot cake muffins for ds1 and ds2. The carrot was, I promise, very finely grated and unrecognisable as carrot. Ds1 took a bite and said "Mmmm, chocolate". Ds2 took a bite and said "There's peas in it" At that time he called all vegetables peas. how did he know?

To paraphrase Nigella (on home made mayonnaise I think, though I could be wrong on that): give it a go. Don't wait too long before giving it another go. Repeat. Don't be afraid. If it goes wrong chuck it out. Then try again.

Put the kettle on before you start. You will almost certainly need boiling water at some point.

My Grandma's: if it needs liquid, might as well be liquor.

Water doesn't bring any flavour to the party

"One for Elijah" ( we always make a little extra)

"Go hard or go home". No time for trying to reduce the fat/sugar etc in recipes. Why birger cooking a healthy cake??

My mother used to say, eat it while it's hot, when it's cold it's poison.

Her other favourite was those who cook, wash, wipe and put. I am a very tidy cook!