May 2005 “Cooking Tips” Winner —
Liane Weber

If you love fish, but hate the way it can smell up your house if cooked on the stovetop, place a small bowl of plain white vinegar next to your cook top. The vinegar absorbs the cooking odor, and you can't smell a thing!

Liane Weber

Prize:

• Cooking tips:
  Classic Six Tea Bag Selection
  Ahmad Tea of London

May 2005 “Cooking Disasters” Winner —
Suzanne Farran

It was the FIRST dinner I cooked after our honeymoon . I decided that fish would be very easy to cook, so went to the store and bought 2 filets of cod with skin on. I looked up the recipe in my new cook book (Women's Home Companion), given to me by my sister . I put the fish in a pan, painted it with butter and garlic salt and into the oven it went. It looked very pretty about 10 minutes later and I used my new fine china plates.

I served it with broccoli on the side for color and a few carrots etc. My husband took one bite and "delicately" said: "You might put this back in the oven for just about 5 minutes under the broiler because it's just a bit pink inside". I accommodated. However, true to what my mother used to do, I had, upon putting the fish on the dinner plates, filled the pan with water and a little Ajax cleanser to soak it. So I dumped out the water, put the fish back in the pan and cooked it the extra 5 minutes following my husband's directions. Back onto the plates it went.

When my husband bit into it the second time, he said. "This tastes a little grainy dear. What did you do"? It was then that I realized that the cleanser had been in the pan. I burst into tears and we finally decided to go out to dinner.

If you ever need to enter a recipe - you can call it: FISH A LA AJAX. 45 years later we were still laughing about this disaster.

Suzanne Farran

Prize:

• Cooking Disasters:
  Truffle & Porcini Pasta
  Cuisine Perel

Previous Winners

Click here to see our previous "Cooking Tips" and "Cooking Disasters" contest winners!