July 2002 “Cooking Tips” Winner —
Janie Heniford

I've found it a great tradition over the years to keep track of all the favorite recipes of my family members. Everyone has a "favorites" recipe box--each their own---and when I cook a new item that receives raves from one of the kids, I put a copy of the recipe and cooking instructions in their box.

This does a few nice things---it gives me a place to look for special meals for them, it gives them someplace to look when they pick their birthday dinners, and as each of them leave home, they take their box with them so that they know (and significant others know) what they like best and how to cook it!

Janie Heniford

Prize:

• Cooking tips: Dean Jacobs Pasta Seasonings

July 2002 “Cooking Disasters” Winner —
Ava Little

Sometimes you invite people over just so that you can try out a new recipe, right? At least I do---but I only invite trusted friends who will tolerate a flop if that's what emanates from the kitchen. So when I decided to make a complicated scallop stuffed ravioli with bolognese sauce I asked some buddies over for the feast. My rule of thumb, of course, is to make as much as possible ahead of time, thus giving one the "Quality Time To Spend With Guests" that all good hosts strive for. Ever faithful to my rule, I made the sauce from scratch during the day and set it aside. Never being terribly successful at home made pasta, I really liked this recipe because you used pre-made wonton wrappers to make the ravioli. After endlessly sandwiching the expensive scallop mixture between wonton rounds, and delicately crimping the edges to make pretty ravioli, I layered them into a wide bowl and refrigerated them several hours before my guests arrived. They of course were suitably impressed when I described the main course, and I sauntered off to boil up the ravioli. The inevitable fact that over several hours the soft wet scallop filling would leach through paper thin wonton wrappers and cause the entire bowl to coagulate into one "giant-bowl-shaped- scallop-gloppy thing" seems evident in hindsight, but was not something that I predicted in time to change the outcome! So I invited my friend into the kitchen to watch the ceremonial dumping of the bowl of expensive glop and grabbed a box of ziti. Bolognese sauce was good.

Ava Little

Prize:

• Cooking Disasters: Dean Jacobs Pizza Seasonings

Previous Winners

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