Separate the eggs by tapping the side of each egg across the middle until you have broken the shell sufficiently to get your fingers in to split the shell in half.  Over a bowl, tip the egg yolk from one half of the shell to the other, letting the egg white fall into the bowl below.  Repeat this until all the egg white (or as much as you can) is in the bowl and you are left with egg yolk only in the half shell.

When the recipe using egg whites only says ‘beat egg whites until stiff’ you can’t afford to have any yolk at all in the whites. You can only beat egg whites until stiff if there is no fat in the mixture and the egg yolks contain fat.  So if you end up with a bit of yolk in with the whites, fish it out using one of the pieces of the empty egg shell.

You can also use a piece of empty egg shell if you get a small piece of shell in the bowl of egg white.  Nothing else is as effective.

Likewise leeks or turnips with white sauce!

However a smooth creamy cheese sauce can enhance other foods or as a major component of lasagna.  The art of making it from fresh individual ingredients instead of out of a packet is actually quite easy.

It is based on the following white sauce recipe and it doesn’t take very long to make.

You do need to concentrate all the time though. Don’t go off and leave the sauce to cook on its own.  I can promise you it will go lumpy if not watched and stirred constantly till it thickens.

White  sauce (the basis for Cheese Sauce – see Variations below)

Ingredients

2 tbsp butter or margarine
2 tbsp plain flour
1 cup of milk
¼ tsp salt

Method

1.     Melt the butter or margarine in a saucepan.

2.     Add the flour and salt and stir until it is bubbly.

3.     Add one-third of the milk and stir all the time until the sauce boils and thickens

4.     Repeat this twice until all the milk is added.

5.     If you keep stirring the sauce constantly until it boils, you should get a smooth creamy sauce

Variations

To make a cheese sauce, add ½ cup of grated cheddar cheese after you have taken the saucepan off the heat.  This is important because if you keep cooking the sauce after you add the cheese, the sauce will become tough and stringy.

If you want a particularly tangy sauce use tasty or well matured cheese.

To make a larger quantity, simply double the amount of all the ingredients.  It pays to annotate the recipe with the new doubled amounts as it is so easy to double some and not all the ingredients – and this can have a devastating effect on the end result!

A cheese sauce for lasagna needs to be a bit thicker so it doesn’t run everywhere when you serve it, and I suggest you use 3 tbsp butter or margarine and 3 tbsp flour to 1 cup milk.

If you end up with a lumpy sauce, or if your sauce has curdled, you can either beat it with an egg beater or you can put it into a sieve and stir it over a bowl until the smooth sauce falls into the bowl.  (You might want to do this out of sight of guests or even the family!)

If you don’ t have a rolling pin, you can use a wide necked glass jar or a bottle.

Fill the jar or bottle with water or sand and seal it well.

Use to roll out pastry, biscuit dough.

Use it to crush biscuits for a cheesecake base

Use it to crush toasted or baked bread slices to make breadcrumbs.

When you’ve finished, empty the sand or water and store toe empty bottle till next time its needed.

Non-stick cooking utensils are good though if you look after them and clean them as soon as you can after use.

To clean up a non stick pan with baked-on food, firstly soak the pan in cold water until the stuck-on food softens and loosens.  Plunge the pan into a bowl of hot water and detergent and rub the food off with a soft dishcloth.

If the baked-on food still sticks,  use a dish mop with plastic bristles, or a plastic spatula.  The plastic won’t damage the non-stick surface of the pan.

If the baked-on food really doesn’t want to be removed, then repeat the process.  Leave the pan soaking in cold water overnight if necessary. Make sure the water covers all the food bits.

Both zucchini and courgettes are baby marrows.

Zucchini is the Italian name.

Courgette is the French name.

Marrow is the English name.

If you grow zucchini or courgettes in your garden and you forget to pick them for a few days at the height of the season, you will have full blown marrows.  A large marrow is a rather bland vegetable that needs lots of spicing up.

If you do end up with a marrow, you can grate it and use it in zucchini fritters.

When I was young we didn’t know about baby zucchini or courgettes; and not a lot about spices.  The ‘zucchini’ were left to become large marrows.  They were cut in half lengthwise, filled with a mince and onion mixture and baked in the oven until cooked through.  A filling but not very exciting meal that I chose not to cook for my own children.

Of course you can always freeze it and bring it out at another time.  But having bought it all at this time, you may prefer to use it now.

So here are some ideas for using up the leftover Christmas meats – some for hot days, some that will work for cooler days.

Leftover beef, lamb or pork can be turned into a cottage pie.

For leftover ham, make it into a pasta dish.  Chop the ham into 1-2 cm cubes, cook your choice of pasta according to the instructions of the packet, make a cheese sauce and mix all together.  Serve with a green salad and fresh crusty bread.

Cold turkey or chicken can get the same treatment as ham.

A cold platter of meats and salad greens can be made to look most attractive if you add other bits and pieces from your fridge. Sliced tomatoes and cucumber are an obvious choice.

Olives, gherkins, sundried tomatoes, sprigs of basil cubes of fetta or camembert cheese can be scattered over the top of the platter to give it a festive air and your family or friends won’t even know they are eating ‘leftovers.’

The cold platter can be served as a light meal with bread rolls or crusty European bread or as a main meal with a bowl of hot cooked potatoes, such as baked rosemary potatoes, potato salad, served hot or cold,or simply boil a panful of small new potatoes in their skins and serve.

http://www.askmumnow.com/in-the-kitchen/recipes/dinner/cold-meat-platter

http://www.askmumnow.com/in-the-kitchen/recipes/extras/mayonnaise/

1. Heat the oven to 140°C
2. Put slices of stale bread on an oven tray and bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown.
3. Cool, break into smaller pieces and put through the liquidiser using the pulse button
4. Or put the crisp slices into a plastic bag, seal it well then flatten with a rolling pin until you have crisp crumbs.
5. Use for a crisp topping for Macaroni cheese, Shepherds pie, Cottage pie
6. You can dress up broccoli or cauliflower with a mixture of crisp breadcrumbs and grated cheddar cheese

1. You will need some stale bread and a hand grater or a food liquidiser
2. To use a grater, simply rub the bread over the coarse part of the grater until the bread is broken into crumbs.
3. To use the liquidizer, cut the stale bread into 5-7 cm squares and use the pulse button so the bread doesn’t get clogged in the blade.
4. You can freeze soft breadcrumbs  and use as you need them.

It really isn’t too hard to keep these copper bottomed saucepans shiny and bright.  And there’s an organic remedy that doesn’t take long to work.

All you need is common kitchen salt and white vinegar.

Wash and dry your saucepans as usual.  Before you put them away though, dunk the base of your saucepan in a shallow dish that has some white vinegar in it, enough to cover the base of your saucepan.  Leave for a few minutes.  This may do the trick without the salt.

If you haven’t cleaned your copper-bottomed saucepans for a while, tip the saucepan upside down and sprinkle salt over the vinegar and rub the mixture over the copper until it shines.  If the staining is really bad you may have to use a pot scrub for the bits that are hardest to shift.

Once you’ve done this you’ll be able to have your copper bottomed saucepans hanging on the kitchen walls instead of hiding them away in a cupboard.

To avoid the resulting mess of broken glass and hot jam all over the bench, it is worth taking a few minutes to prepare the jars for the hot mix.

First, choose the jars you plan to use and check that they are clean and dry.

If they need cleaning, use hot soapy water, then rinse the jars in hot water afterwards and leave to dry.

You can reuse jars that you have emptied of their original contents.

Check for lingering smell from their previous life before you refill them, especially if you plan to put jam into a jar that used to hold tomato sauce!

Check that the lids are clean and free of any stains or corrosion.

Put your clean jars into a warm oven at 100°C for about 10 minutes.

When you are ready to fill the jars with the freshly made chutney,  jam , take the warm jars out of the oven (protect your hands with an oven cloth or clean small towel) and put them on a clean tea-towel on the bench, next to the pan of mixture.

Dip a measuring cup or other small container, into the mixture in the pan and gently pour into the jar.

Fill the jar to the top.

Wipe any excess from the lip of the jar before putting the lid on.  Any excess jam etc will prevent the jar sealing properly and the jam may get mouldy and unusable.

Screw the lid on as tightly as you can.  Wrap your hand in a towel if necessary – remember the jar will be hot.

When the jam has set and the jars are cool, wipe them down with a damp soapy cloth to remove any stickiness.

Label the jars with the name of the product and the date made.  Even if you think you will remember these details, believe me, some months away you will be standing at your pantry door looking at the row of jars and wondering what they contain.

It’s worth leaving your jam or chutney for a few weeks before you open and start eating it – if you can wait!!

If you are preserving whole or sliced fruit follow the same routine for the preserving jars.

Enjoy!