Link: Cooking Light's 25 Most Common Cooking Mistakes

I subscribe to Cooking Light magazine, it is one of my favorite resources for healthy recipes. I love leafing through the color photos and unusual ingredients, even if I don't attempt many of them each month. In the March issue, there was an article detailing the most common cooking mistakes and how to prevent them.

Anyone who cooks has memories of their own kitchen disasters. I could relate to many of these mishaps. I'm especially guilty of "You overcrowd the pan." I'm always trying to minimize the dirty dishes. I liked the way this article explained the why of each "mistake" and advice for next time.

Here is a tip from their article, one that had never occurred to me before. It explains why some things haven't turned out since I switched to skim milk. I'm also guilty of "You boil when you should simmer."

You overheat low-fat milk products. Result: The milk curdles or "breaks," yielding grainy mac and cheese, ice cream, or pudding.

If you're new to lighter cooking, you may not know that even though you can boil cream just fine, the same is not true for other milk products, which will curdle. The solution is to cook lower-fat dairy products to a temperature of only 180 degrees F or less.

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Use a clip-on thermometer, hover over the pan, and heat over medium-low or low heat to prevent curdling. And if it curdles, toss and start again. One alternative: Stabilize milk with starch, like cornstarch or flour, if you want to bring it to a boil; the starch will prevent curdling (and it'll thicken the milk, too).

• The 25 Most Common Cooking Mistakes

Let us know which tips were helpful to you. If you have any of your own cooking disasters you would like to share, feel free to post them here!

Source: Cooking Light Magazine

By Jess from Hillsboro, OR