I’m a big believer in RAP in the kitchen.
No, not the music. 😎 The steps: Read, Assemble, Prep (RAP).
These steps – Read, Assemble, Prep – will save you tons of time and frustration. These are some of the kitchen home truths that I learned from my 10th grade Home Economics teacher years ago, but didn’t take seriously until about my 100th recipe disaster. Now RAP gets me ready to make magic in the kitchen and the disasters are a thing of the distant past. I should have paid more attention to Miss West back in high school – and wherever you are now, Miss West, thank you!
Don’t skip anything. Not even if you’re in a hurry. Especially not if you’re in a hurry.
Read It First
This time-saving step applies to any recipe: Read it first.
All the way through.
It is so frustrating to get halfway through a recipe and then realize you should have melted something 20 minutes ago and let it cool before adding it to the rest of the ingredients. The temptation is to add it anyway – damn the torpedoes – and the results can be disastrous (at least in my kitchen true confessions).
Assemble Everything Before You Get Started
After you read the recipe – all the way through, remember? – Assemble all of the equipment and ingredients. You don’t want to be scrambling to find the whisk after your butter is already melted for a fancy sauce, right? Curdling happens.
Prep All Ingredients
Finally, before you get started actually cooking: Prep all of your ingredients. If the recipe tells you to use a half cup of onions, finely chopped, chop ’em before you get started on the actual cooking. Again, you don’t want your olive oil to start smoking because you waited until it was hot to mince the onions.
Glover Gardens Recipes are Based on RAP
The recipes in this blog and in the cookbook I’ll eventually finish on are all written with RAP in mind. The ingredients lists read like this: “½ cup of onions, finely chopped” instead of the cooking instructions telling you to chop the onions. I really believe in the RAP approach.
More tips and tricks can be found here, where I’m assembling the how-to instructions that have helped me make kitchen magic.
Copyright 2015 Glover Gardens Cookbook
Update © 2025, Glover Gardens
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