Better Home Cooking Basics: #70 Neutralize Too Acidic Soups & Sauces with Baking Soda.

There’s a few things I learned about cooking with wine. The first is you have to have some in order to cook with it. If you have no wine you can’t cook with it. The second is vinegar is not the same as wine. It’s much MUCH more acidic. When you cook wine (or vinegar) it concentrates the flavor so you better like the flavor to begin with.

Why am I rambling about all this? To get to my tip of course so you can learn through my crazy mistake & miraculous quick fix. On Sunday I decided I was going to make this sauce. Four cups of red wine makes up most of the liquid of the sauce. I didn’t have any red wine on hand but I did have some red wine vinegar & some beef stock. (Remember: vinegar & wine are not the same.)

(Far From) Home Remedy

We've been fortunate enough to take refuge from Sandy at a nearby hotel, rather than camping out at the airport until we're able to fly out. can not wait to get home. We're anxious to see how our home and car fared though the storm.

To make matters more fun I've developed a body aching cold with a sore throat to boot.  Since my craftiness has been limited this week I was able to whip up what I cold of a home remedy that my mom taught me when I was younger to kill a sore throat - a salt water gargle.

Today at breakfast, I grabbed some salt packets & dumped them into a glass of hot water. I gargled with this salt water in hopes to nip this sore throat in the bud. The jury is still out.

What remedies do you use at home or away?