September 2005 “Cooking Tips” Winner —
Denise Nyland

My favorite, most often used recipes are not in a cookbook, recipe card file, or on my computer. They are taped inside my cupboard doors in the cabinets over the food preparation area. All I have to do when I want to make my kids’ favorite cookies or my grandfather’s chicken adobo is to swing open the cupboard door. The recipes are just about eye-level and I don’t have to worry about them getting splashed with batter or cooking oil.

Denise Nyland

Prize:

• Cooking tips:
  White Chocolate Cocoa Amore
  Coffee Masters

September 2005 “Cooking Disasters” Winner —
Claud Maness

I am a lifetime institutional cook, everything from military to fire camps to currently the largest prison in the state of Oregon. So I feel I know a thing or two about various styles of cooking and how to use the many appliances in a food services environment. Boy was I wrong.
In October of 1997 I found a unique recipe for baked beans. It was a recipe that claimed to be from a bakery in the late 1600’s to early 1700’s. Anyway I love baked beans so I thought I would give it a try. Well, it called for two pounds of beans, and the only pot that I had that was big enough was the large ceramic insert that comes with your standard garden variety Crock Pot.
Well for some reason I have since forgotten (wouldn’t you) I decided that I would use the electric range to speed up one of the steps in the recipe. At first every thing was going fine, and all was well. I was thinking this is an easy way to do this part of the recipe! Well it was about that time when I heard a loud hiss and crack. It came from the direction of the range. I moved really fast towards the range and I noticed beans were every place and water was running down the front of the range. Two nicely split halves of my ceramic crock pot insert were laying on top of the range. What a mess - needless to say my wife got a really good chuckle out of this and to this day she reminds me of it whenever I get to going on about how much I think I know.

Claud Maness

Prize:

• Cooking Disasters:
  Crab Dip Kit
  Blue Crab Bay Company

Previous Winners

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