Cooking guides
Timing
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How to Keep Food Warm Until Everything Is Ready
A low oven, a lidded pot, warm plates and a two-hour limit. How to keep food warm until serving without drying it out or leaving it unsafe.
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Cooking a Whole Meal on Two Burners
Two burners, three dishes. Cook what holds first, move jobs to the oven and kettle, share a pot, and finish with the dish that can't wait.
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Recipe Says Meanwhile? How to Run Two Steps at Once
When a recipe says meanwhile, it means start the next job while the last one cooks on its own. How to tell if it's safe, and how to set it up.
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How to Tell When It Is Done Without Trusting the Clock
Recipe times are estimates. Use a thermometer for meat, fish and eggs, and the food's own signs for the rest: how to tell when it's done.
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A Weeknight Dinner Plan You Can Start Cold
Walk in, decide in a minute, start the longest job first and fit the rest around it. A weeknight dinner plan that needs no weekend prep.
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How to Cook Multiple Dishes at Once and Finish Together
Pick when you eat, work back from the longest dish and use the waiting time. A plain method for getting several dishes to the table hot, together.
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Cooking Two Dishes in One Oven: Temps and Timing
Two dishes, two temperatures, one oven. How to pick a shared temperature, adjust the times, place the racks and know which dish gets its way.
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Dinner for Guests: A Timeline From Prep to Plate
Choose a menu you can time, shop two days out, make what keeps the day before and work back from serving. A dinner party timeline that leaves you free.
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How to Keep Track of Several Kitchen Timers at Once
Name every timer, stagger the starts and keep them where you can see them. How to run three or four kitchen timers without losing one.
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A Thanksgiving Dinner Timeline That Holds Up
Thaw early, roast the turkey first, rest it while the sides finish. A Thanksgiving dinner timeline from the week before to the carving board.
Following along
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Making a Recipe for the First Time: What to Do First
Read it twice, make it as written, set up the first few steps and judge doneness by the food. What to do before and during a recipe's first run.
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Can Alexa or Siri Read a Recipe Step by Step?
What Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri can and can't do with a recipe today, where general assistants stop, and what a cooking-specific option adds.
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Hands-Free Cooking: Follow a Recipe Without Touching It
Messy hands and a touchscreen don't mix. Smart speakers, phone dictation and voice cooking apps compared, plus how to set your phone up at the counter.
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Lost Your Place in a Recipe? How to Recover
Interrupted mid-recipe and not sure what you've added? Read the pan, count what's left, find the step and fix a doubled or missed ingredient.
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How to Read a Recipe Before You Start Cooking
Read it once, spot the waiting steps, gather what you need just before you need it, and look up unfamiliar words before the pan is hot.
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Recipe Terms Explained for Home Cooks
Fold, sear, deglaze, simmer, to taste: the recipe terms home cooks trip over, explained in plain words with what each one looks like in the pan.
Fixing things
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Cups, Grams and Oven Temps: Converting Mid-Recipe
Recipe in cups and you only have a scale? Oven in °F and the recipe says gas mark 4? The conversions that matter mid-recipe, and where they trip you up.
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Fixing a Dish Mid-Recipe: Too Salty, Too Thin, Too Much
Too salty, too thin, too spicy or split? Most dishes can be rescued mid-recipe by diluting, reducing or rebuilding. What to do, and when to stop.
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When a Recipe Leaves Out a Step: How to Fill the Gap
No time, no heat, an ingredient the method never uses? How to fill the gap when recipe instructions are unclear, and when to stop and check.
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Missing an Ingredient Mid-Recipe? What to Do
Out of an ingredient halfway through? Work out what job it does, pick a swap that does the same job, and know when not to substitute at all.
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How to Scale a Recipe Up or Down Without Ruining It
Multiply the ingredients, then check what doesn't scale: pan size, cooking time, seasoning and eggs. A practical guide to doubling or halving.
Setup
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Cooking From a Cookbook With Your Phone at Hand
Keep the book open, flat and clean, mark your place on the page, and let your phone handle timers and questions. A setup for cooking from print.
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Cooking From an iPad: Setup, Stands and Apps
Where to put an iPad in the kitchen, how to keep it clean and readable, and what to look for in an iPad recipe app before you cook from one.
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How to Get Just the Recipe From Any Website
Skip the life story. Jump-to-recipe buttons, reader view, print view and recipe apps that import a link, plus what to do when a site won't let you.
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How to Keep Your iPhone Screen On While Cooking
Stop your iPhone locking mid-recipe: Auto-Lock settings, Guided Access, apps that keep the screen awake, and cooking without looking at the screen.