I’m guessing most of you have been in the same situation as me before:
You see a great recipe on someone’s blog and want to recreate it immediately; however you are missing a few of the ingredients… you are at a crossroads at that point…
- Do you run to the store and pick up needed ingredients…
- Spend hrs googling appropriate substitutions…
Usually i do a mixture of both 1 and 2 and then by the time i’m done shopping, something else comes up and i run out of time to actually make the dish i wanted to! That being said, when I was asked to do a review of “Substituting Ingredients: The A to Z kitchen reference“, I jumped at the opportunity because I felt like it would be the perfect book to have handy in the kitchen!
Upon opening up the book, I found a useful listing of food substitutions from A-Z. I skimmed through most of this section and found some really interesting substitutions. I almost never have bay leaves on hand, but I do have the substitution that the author recommends. I had no idea what clarified butter was until reading her description on how to transform butter into that form. There is also a quick how-to on how to transform chocolate into Mexican chocolate using what your probably already have in your house… Another huge substitution that I found was the sub for cake flour! I can almost never find anything clearly marked as “cake flour” in my grocery store, but there is SUCH an easy sub in the book!
The one downside to this book is that there are some really obvious substitutions in the book however, using canned for fresh, or subbing out different kinds of meat/veggies/beans for others… they seem obvious to me, but then again to the beginner cook or baker, maybe they aren’t so obvious… I was also hoping there would be a recommended sub for ancho chiles but I couldn’t find anything… I’ve been on the search for these because I want to recreate a Bobby Flay recipe!
There is also a smaller spice substitution section which I found to provide really interesting subs… in need of mint? Use a mint tea bag or worst case basil… who would have thought?
I think that I was most impressed by the end of the book. The last few sections outside measuring equivalents and a great section called “Too Little, Too Late: Remedies for Common Kitchen Disasters“… this was interesting because I have been in this position before where I have accidentally poured too much in, burned an ingredient, overseasoned, or overcooked – the solutions provided seem to “rescue” an otherwise failed dish…
The section that I think I may use the most though is the “Household Formulas” section. I really didnt expect this book to contain this section so I was really impressed… If you know anything about me, you will know that I am horrible clumsy and spill all the time! The author provides easy to use formulas using just a few simple ingredients to remove stains from clothing. I had to opportunity to test one of these out when I got olive oil on my polo shirt, I used her solution for removing grease and it worked perfectly! Additionally, I know most of you are trying to be more green in terms of cleaning product usage and she provides a number of quick and easy mixtures for cleaning bathrooms, cutting boards (never knew this one, I ALWAYS just used dish soap!!!!), drain cleaners & openers, pesticides for ants, and an oven cleaner… Not only will it help the environment, but it will also save me a ton of money on cleaning products!
If you are interested in purchasing the book, you can find it on Amazon at the following link:
Happy Substituting!
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They came out delish and I like these because you can keep them in the fridge for when you just want a handful of something sweet…
