COMMENTS ON COOKING

Most good cooks will make a recipe differently almost every time that they create the same dish. You probably won't be able to even tell the difference. My recipes that I cook for my friends are always in a state of change. For instance, the other night while looking for something for dinner I came across some pork cutlets that had been frozen and had some freezer burn on them because they had been in the freezer to long.

I decided that they had to be marinated to help ease the freezer burn. The marinade called for white wine. All that I had was a little red wine, so I used that and fill out the rest of the needed liquid with beer. I made the marinade of thyme, basil, olive oil and red wine with a little beer. I let the pork marinate for about 5 hours in a plastic bag in the icebox. When I was ready to cook the pork, I lightly dusted them with flour with a little black pepper in it and fried the pork on both sides until it was nice and brown.

I removed the pork from the pan and added a whole onion that had been sliced. Then I cooked it in the same pan over a medium low fire for about 20 minutes to caramelize the onions. When the onions were lightly browned, I added two tablespoons of flour to the onions and let it brown for another 5 minutes. I then added a cup and a half of stock to the pan and brought it to a boil. I added the pork cutlets back to the pan and stuck the whole thing in the oven with a lid on it at 350 degrees for one half hour. I'm here to tell you that they were so tender that you could cut them with a fork.

This same process will work with any kind of meat and works really well on tough cuts of meat that have all the flavor in them. Try it with chicken. Your friends won't believe how well it turned out and maybe you can even convince them that you spent big bucks for all of that meat that you cooked for them.

Cooking is about having fun and making people happy, especially yourself and your friends. Good food does that for you as easily as any aphrodisiac that you could think of. Along with that there is an old saying, " Improvise and make do, rather than do without". What this means is that you should be willing to experiment with your cooking. Substitute an ingredient if you don't have the one called for. If you have nothing that you know will substitute for the ingredient, then make a guess rather than do without it. Go slow at first because you can always add more, but once you have added it to the dish, it's hard to take it out. If the recipe calls for sage and you don't have sage, well use thyme and maybe a little oregano along with a touch of adventure, and have a good time.