How To Fix A Not-So-Tasty Soup

I’ve been cooking for almost three decades, and over that time period, I have become quite adept at turning out yummy soups. However, once in a while, even I have some problems. Sometimes the soup is too strong, too weak, or doesn’t have enough broth. Once in a while, usually when experimenting with a new spice, I may dislike the taste entirely.

Here are some simple tips for fixing up a not-so-tasty soup.

Problem: The Seasonings Are Too Strong

Add additional water or tomato product (for tomato-based soups), broth (for clear soups), milk (for cream soups)

Problem: The Seasonings Are Too Weak

Allow additional liquid to cook out or add extra salt or add 50% more of some or all of the seasonings

Problem: The Soup Needs More Liquid

Add additional water or tomato product (for tomato soups), broth (for clear soups), milk (for cream soups). You may need to balance this out by adding more salt, bouillon powder or seasonings.

Problem: The Seasonings Are Just Plain Awful

Don’t bother trying to add enough liquid or other seasonings to detract from the bad taste. It won’t work. Instead, pour out all liquid through a colander, rinse several times with running water and add some plain broth to whatever ingredients are left in the pot (e.g. noodles, beans, meat, etc). Season to taste.

Problem: The Soup Is Too Thin

Add mashed potato flakes or shredded cheese to soup that needs a little more body. If you own a hand blender, you can allow the soup to cool for a bit, and then whirl the blender around the pot for 30-60 seconds. Just be very careful not to burn yourself.

Problem: The Soup Is Good, But Not Special

Consider adding some butter or shredded cheese (to cream soups), parmesan cheese (to tomato- based soups) or croutons (to clear soups) to up the WOW factor. Other good additions are sour cream, yogurt, salsa, minced fresh herbs.

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How To Decorate A Sukkah

What is a sukkah?

In the simplest terms, it is a hut that jews put up during the holiday of Succos. Most meals are eaten in the sukkah, and in Israel, where we live, the sukkah is often slept in because the weather is still warm. Also, much of our spare time is spent in the sukkah, reading, playing board games and talking. After the holiday is over, the sukkah is taken down and packed away again for next year.

Here is a photograph of our sukkah. As you can see, tastefulness is NOT the rule of the day. My one criteria for making/buying succah decorations is that the tacky factor might be very high.

To that end, our sukkah contains a hodgepodge of fake evergreen garlands, tinsel ropes, shiny metalic stars and dangling things, pictures of fruit and molded plastic signs.

I’m not saying a succah has to be bright, with a hundred different colors and patterns, that’s just the way I like to go. I enjoy the cheeriness of the whole thing, especially at night, when everything seems to glow with diffused light.

If you’d like to see an elegant sukkah, Creative Jewish Mom has some very nice photographs.

Here’s a photo of a more homey looking sukkah, also from Creative Jewish Mom.

As you can see sukkah decorations can run a tremendous gamut of styles, though I think my “go for the glow” theme is probably the easiest and most common.

If you’d like to try making your own sukkah decorations, check out my Fruit Themed Wall Poster tutorial from last year.

Additional Information:

Instructions on How To Build A Sukkah

Sukkot Recipes that use ingredients you already have in the house

Recycled Card Garland how-to’s from Martha Stewart

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Make Your Own Magnetic Alphabet Toy

Magnetic Alphabets Toys are a great way to introduce letters to young children, but they run about $10.00 and up at toy stores. Here’s a way to make your own magnetic alphabet toy using nothing but old advertising magnets and leftover letter stickers.

I happen to always have lots of letter stickers on hand from my sister’s scrapbooking projects. If you don’t, check out the dollar store. They usually have several styles of alphabet stickers available. If you chose a pack with a border, this project will go a lot quicker.

By the way, this is a great project for parent-child craft time.

Instructions

Step 1: Wipe the top of each advertising magnet and allowed it to dry. This insures the stickers will grip well.

Step 2: Place the glue side of each sticker onto a magnet. Try to get as many stickers as you can on each magnet. Pat the sticker down well.

Step 3: Using a scissors, trim the excess magnet from around the edge of each sticker.

Important: Choking hazard! Do not make this toy for children under three or children older than three who may still mouth objects.

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Turn Old Stickers Into Cool Magnets

A couple of years ago I bought several packages of handmade, multi-layer stickers for a dollar per sheet. Each sheet had about 8-10 stickers on it and was a fabulous bargain. Until now, I had no idea what to do with them.

Then, yesterday, someone placed the bizillionth advertising magnet on my door and suddenly inspiration struck!

The stickers are perfect for use as decorative magnets.

Here’s what I did:

1. I wiped the top of each advertising magnet and allowed it to dry. I did this to insure the stickers would attach cleanly.

2. I placed the glue side of each sticker onto a magnet. On larger magnets, I was able to place two stickers. I patted the sticker down, gently.

3. Using a very sharp scissors, I trimmed the excess magnet from around the edges of each sticker.

That’s it! It was an extremely easy project and now I have fridge full of very cute magnets.

Warning – Most multi-layer stickers are fragile. These magnets are for decorative purposes only.

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The Old Fashioned Recipe Notebook

Before I left the US, and decided to pare down my belongings, I owned 300+ cookbooks. Even now, when I’ve spent the last six years simplifiying my life, I still have over 100 cookbooks. And yet, I rarely cook from a book.

Like a lot of women, at least 90% of the meals I make come from my own recipes, accumulated over the years. My great aunt had slips of paper stuck in a cookbook and my mother had index cards organized in a file box, but it was all the same idea. We begged recipes from any great cook we came across, and kept them forever.

How I Store Recipes

I first stored my 25 year old accumulation of recipes by taping and stapling them into a spiral notebook. When the pages started to fall apart, I glued them to computer paper, hole punched them, and filed them in a binder. In ten years, when the binder cracks, I’ll just buy a new one. The one thing I’ll never do, is throw the recipes out.

What’s In My Notebook?

The recipes in my notebook come from dozens of sources. Some are from family members and neighbors whose food was so good I wanted to duplicate it. Some of the recipes come from AllRecipes.com, my favorite online cooking source. And, a lot, come from cookbooks.

The Cookbooks I Culled Recipes From

I must have penciled in recipes from at least 50 different cookbooks, but here are the ones that stick out in my mind.

a biscuit and a pancake recipe from an old Joy of Cooking
a universal muffin and a grain recipe from Tightwad Gazette
a herb biscuit recipe from Herbal Treasures
tons of pasta recipes from The 5 in 10 Pasta Cookbook
a pizza dough recipe from The Fanny Farmer Baking Book
a broccoli sauce recipe from an early Mollie Katzen books
a chili recipe from Quickies (Chatelaine)

If you’ve spent years working on your own cookbook, or if you’ve inherited one from a relative, I’d love to hear about it. Please drop me a line the comment box, and I’ll be happy to post it.

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How To Crop A Photo With Fotoflexer

This tutorial is the start of a series of posts on using a free, online program called Fotoflexer to edit your photos. Fotoflexer offers many useful photo editing tools and is very easy to use.

Today we are starting with one of the most basic editing needs, cropping.

Uploading The Photo

Go the Fotoflexer Homepage and click Upload Your Photo. You will be taken to another screen and then allowed to transfer a photo from your computer to the online program.

I chose an adorable photo of our kittens, taken two months ago.

Cropping The Photo

After uploading your photo, you will be transferred to a menu of options.

In order to crop a photo, click on the icon labeled Crop. Then use your mouse to right-click on your photo. While still pressing on the right-click button, drag your mouse across and down the photo, and a box will appear. That box shows the parts of the photo that will be cropped.

You may need to try several times before you have the box exactly where you need it. If so, just press Cancel and then Crop, each time to restart the process.

When you are satisfied with the area selected within the box, press Crop Selected Area to complete the crop.

Saving The Photo

When finished, click Done and then Save. This will bring up the save screen, and computer will prompt you through several steps for saving your project.

Be sure you have correctly saved your work before leaving the program.

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