It happens all the time. Thereās a practically custom-built-for-me recipe, with beautiful photos and a foolproof method. All I have to do is grab my salad spinner (or rolling pin, or potato ricer) and go.
Except that I donāt have a salad spinnerāmy life's no Sky Mall catalog. Or at least my kitchen isnāt one. Luckily, you can get pretty crafty with substitutions. Hereās what to use when you don't have that one key piece of equipment.
Sure, a salad spinner is a cinch for rinsing and drying salad greens...if you have one. You really can do everything a salad spinner does but with a kitchen dish towel. Wrap the greens in the towel, tie it tightly (very important), and swing it until dry.
Why are you using a pastry bag at home? Theyāre tricky to pack and even harder to clean. Even though I hate throwing things away, itās a lot more efficient to build a pastry bag for single uses. Use a zipping plastic bag and scrape in your frosting. Then snip off a corner, squeeze out the air, and pipe away.
I am so excited about rich gnocchi with simmered sauces right now. But I have no desire to spend the money on a tool with a single use like a potato ricer. Luckily, you can use a box grater to process the cooked potatoes for gnocchi. This may ruffle the feathers of some traditionalists, but tradition be darned.
Do you really need to shell out the dough and the cabinet space for a big hulking meat hammer? Use a rubber hammer instead to pound out meat into filets. Just make sure to cover the proteins in plastic wrap before starting for easier clean up.
When life gives you citrus, juice them. But you donāt need a citrus reamer to get the juice flowing, a kitchen fork works.
If youāre still using a sifter with a crank, I salute your old-fashioned style. Otherwise, you can get away with just a small mesh strainer. Next time youāre working with dry ingredients in your baking, pour the ingredients into a mesh strainer and tap the sides until the mixture passes through the strainer.
Pan pizzaās great, but sometimes you want the taste of a stone. But pizza stones can be huge and hard to store. Luckily, quarry tiles work just as well and are less than $3 at the hardware store. Important shopping pointer: you absolutely have to buy unglazed tilesāthe finished glazed ones are not food safe.
If you need to roll out the pizza dough, reach for an empty wine bottle without any labels.
