Compiled by Polly Campbell
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Required reading

Go to any potluck and you'll realize that a lot of people don't so much cook as they assemble. A bag of this, a jar of that, bake at 350, voila. That's the style of Kraft Kitchens New Classics (Clarkson Potter; $15.95)

This is a collection of directions for assembling dishes. Many of the recipes even are presented in graph form: Take the meat from column A, add the veggies from column B, the sauce from column C, put together with simple instructions - and you have lasagna. Cook pasta, throw in vegetables in the last few minutes, add cream of mushroom soup, tuna and cheese - it's tuna casserole.

Not exactly Iron Chef stuff, but if you're not a confident cook, it's a nice way to know that it's OK to make it up as you go and that you can start with what you have in the house instead of with what a recipe tells you.

There are some recipes with more steps, such as Nanaimo bars, using crushed Oreos, instant pudding, etc. There's also the recipe for Velveeta fudge, which starts with (Yikes!) 3/4 pound of Velveeta. It's an old cult favorite: The recipe gets more than 10,000 hits a year at classics@kraftfoods.com.

Timely tip

Many of the recipes in Kraft Kitchens' New Classics use convenience products to make things go faster. Here's an interesting use for salad dressing:

Easy Roasted Vegetables

Place any combination of cut-up vegetables, such as potatoes, carrots, onions, Brussels spouts or parsnips, in a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Pour sun-dried tomato vinaigrette dressing over vegetables; toss to cover. Bake at 400 for 1 hour or until vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally.

Uncommon knowledge

Scrambled egg devotees take heed: If you love creamy eggs, you might think adding milk is the best way to make them even creamier.

Actually, a teaspoon of water with two or three scrambled eggs will yield a moister product.

The answer is in chemistry. Water slows down the coagulation of the egg yolk, making a creamier product. Milk products work the opposite way, tending to harden the yolk.

We've tried it both ways and we lean toward the water-added method. Remember, for really tender curds of scrambled eggs, cook very slowly.