It means that everything needed to prepare and serve a recipe—the prepped ingredients, utensils, pots, pans and plates—is gathered and ready to use before the cooking begins.

This allows the cook to work in a state of constant readiness. There’s no need to stop to get tools, to slice and dice, to find the lid to the pot, etc. It makes cooking a very calm experience.

Use mise en place the next time you follow a recipe.

• To get you started, here’s a lovely spring recipe: Lamb Loin with Blood Orange Sauce and White Bean Purée.

Using mise en place makes cooking this (or
any) recipe a snap. Photo courtesy of Meat
and Livestock Australia.

Photo by Bluestocking | IST.

Salsa is the Spanish word for a sauce of finely chopped vegetables, that dates back to the ancient Aztecs. Red salsas are tomato-based, green salsas are tomatillo-based and there are dozens of different types of both.

Fruit salsas, such as cherry, mango, peach and pineapple, are a modern invention, enjoyable with grilled meats and breakfast eggs.

• See the many different types of salsa in our Salsa Glossary.
• Learn the history of salsa, which was first taken from a homemade Mexican-American product to a bottled grocery store product by Texan Dave Pace, in 1947.
• Salsa goes global: Check out spins on salsa, including Indian and Southeast Asian recipe ideas.
• Two recipes for cooking with salsa: Manicotti and Pork Tacos.

Don’t throw away trimmed bread crusts. Save them in the freezer in resealable bags. Then bake them in the oven or toaster oven until dry and toss them into the food processor. Combining different breads just adds to the flavor.

Breadcrumbs are used for much more than breading foods. Use them in stuffing, to garish soups, top casseroles and mac & cheese, thicken stews and stretch ground meat (in meatballs and meatloaf, for example).

Homemade bread crumbs taste so much better than store-bought, as you’ll see with this recipe.

You can use almost any type of bread; but of course, different breads will add different flavors to the crumbs.

You can use stale bread to make breadcrumbs; but take a bite to make sure you won’t get stale bread flavors.

If you do use stale bread, just skip to Step 3.
 
 
RECIPE: HOMEMADE BREAD CRUMBS

It’s easy to make homemade bread crumbs in your food processor (photo CCO Public Domain).

2. BAKE for 10 to 15 minutes; flip halfway through.

3. REMOVE from oven; cool. Pulse into crumbs in a food processor.

4. STORE in an airtight jar