DSB Review: Substituting Ingredients

On Sunday night my phone rang at 10:30 pm. I had the sound off since it was past my bedtime, but I wasn’t asleep yet and I saw the phone light up with a call. It was my adorable baby brother Matt Matt. He was at Whole Foods with his wife-to-be Mallories and they were picking up ingredients for a recipe. “Can you go to foodsubs.com and look up piquillo pepper? They don’t have it at Whole Foods, we need to know what we could use instead.”

“This is why you need a smart phone, boy,” I said. Really, I just want him to get a BlackBerry so I can BBM him all day every day.

“I don’t need a smart phone,” the young one said. “I have a smart sister!”

I was about to go to the website they told me about — one I had never heard of because um, I am lazy and just make up what I might need in my head if I am not sure. I never actually thought to be resourceful if I didn’t have an ingredient I needed. But then I remembered that I was sent a book that I was supposed to review in June called Substituting Ingredients: The A to Z Kitchen Reference. Because it was around the same time I implemented Tuesday Blags, I had too much to write about to get a chance to discuss this book. And I kept forgetting about it. And really, I can be pretty irresponsible sometimes. I apologize, Sourcebooks.

[Source: Sourcebooks (hehe)]

But now I thought of it!

So I got out the book and there were so many categories of peppers: peppers, chili and peppers, chili, milder and peppers, gold (also known as yellow peppers) and peppers, red sweet and peppers, green or bell. I never knew there were so many types of peppers. I gave Mallory some options and she ended up using a blend of red bell pepper, anaheim pepper and fiesta pepper to make their pressed burgers with prosciutto and piquillo-paprika aioli. Uh, yeah, my brother is marrying well, wouldn’t you say? Especially considering the most I ever made him was eggs.

So the book came in handy! The book is better for more than just peppers though. As someone who doesn’t have many ingredients at home because (1) I share a 320 square foot apartment with no closets with a roommate, and our kitchen is a narrow entryway between our bedrooms and (2) I am not a cook and don’t really want to be (sorry future husbands), I have to say that even I find this book helpful.

Substituting Ingredients would be so handy in the kitchen for anyone who needs a quick substitute! As I open this randomly, I can tell you right now that you can substitute currants, fresh for gooseberries. You can also substitute jaggery, whatever that is, for 1/2 cup white sugar plus 1/2 cup brown sugar. Woo hoo! Or in baking, substitute nuts with bran. Who knew? Not I.

There is a section of cheeses split into groups, and you can substitute any other cheese in each group for another! CHEESE! What I find most helpful in this book is the oil section. I am pretty picky about the oils I cook with and want to make sure I am using the right substitutes. You can find easy substitutions for vegetables, fruits, grains, meat, fish, and baking ingredients as well as measurement equivalents (I NEED THIS. I can barely add let alone figure that stuff out), baking pan sizes, household ingredients that can also be cleaning products, remedies for kitchen disasters and quick substitutions for herbs and spices.

All in all a good book for people who need this kind of thing.

I have some really great product reviews coming in the next few weeks, including a new open patella knee sleeve, an eco friendly yoga mat, a Magic Bullet and the brand new Core Fusion Yoga Energy Flow DVD!

And a BIG thank you to everyone who signed up for the free Core Fusion class for Dori’s Shiny Blog readers. The response was outstanding and the class filled up in less than seven hours. We have a wait list too! I’m excited to meet everyone on August 12!