Beverages

Basic Simple Syrup Recipe
Also know as Sugar Syrup, Bar Syrup, and Rock Candy Syrup, is nothing more than water and sugar. It is the secret ingredient to the best cold homemade beverages, cocktails, and other drink recipes. With this recipe you can make as small or as large a batch as you wish and store it in the refrigerator in a well sealed bottle.
 

Butters

Butter Ghee and Clarified Butter
Regular butter is made up of butterfat, milk solids, and water. Clarified butter and ghee are translucent golden butterfat left over after the milk solids and water are removed. In short, clarified butter is just butter that contains only pure butterfat. It has a higher smoke point than regular butter, thus allowing you to be able to cook at higher temperatures, and won't spoil as quickly.

Flavored Butters (Compound Butters, Finishing Butter, or Beurre Composé)
A compound butter is butter that has been flavored by blending softened butter together with various ingredients. These can be savory or sweet. These tasty butter spreads are ideal for tea bread, muffins, scones, and pancakes.

Truffle Butter
Truffle butter is an excellent and easy way to prepare wild truffles. Nothing is better than a perfectly cooked steak with some truffle butter on top before serving. The ways to use and eat this wonderful truffle butter are endless. Let your imagination be your guide!

Condiments

Cocktail Sauce
Try this sauce with your next shrimp cocktail!

Crème fraîche
Commercial creme fraiche is quite expensive, so the homemade version is a life saver.

Creole Tartar Sauce
From the recipe files of Robert Hammond, chef and owner of The Kitchen at Honeyman Creek Farm in Warren, Oregon.

Faux Aged Balsamic Vinegar
Aged Balsamic Vinegar, or as it is known in Italy, tradizionale, accumulates its flavor in a variety of wooden casks for as long as one hundred years. The result is a very concentrated dark brown, thick sweet vinegar, and it is a great luxury. If you don't have it in your pantry - chefs have learned to do as the Italians so - reduce your balsamic vinegar with a little brown sugar. It's a good second. Great on beef, poultry, pork, and seafood!

Hollandaise Sauce
What would the famous Egg Benedict be without a great Hollandaise Sauce? Also great served on cooked asparagus.

Horseradish Sauces
Three easy-to-make horseradish sauces. Fantastic served with your prime rib roast

Homemade Mayonnaise
According to Julia Child, mayonnaise is something every cook must confidently and rapidly whip up on command with nary a qualm, because it is one of the elemental cookery procedures.

Oven-Roasted Canned Tomatoes
Longing for summer tomatoes? When good vine- ripened fresh tomatoes are out of season, use top-quality canned tomatoes and roast them in your oven. Amazing things happen to canned tomatoes when you roast them in the oven.

Slow-Roasted or Baked Tomatoes
This awesome recipe comes from my friend, Karen Calanchini of Redding, California. Karen says, "These are great served on crusty bread with a little olive oil or as a side dish. This preparation is a welcome relief from canning all those tomatoes or using sun-dried."  NOTE: You can eat these "as-is" from the oven; they are absolutely fantastic.

Tartar Sauce
You'll never buy tartar sauce from the store again after you taste this delicious, easy-to-make recipe! 

Thousand Island Dressing
I serve this wonderful Thousand Island Dressing with salads, spread on sandwiches (especially Reuben Sandwiches), and seafood. It is so easy to make and so good!
 

Desserts Sauces

Bourbon Butter Sauce
This sauce is sinful - so rich and wonderful! Absolutely great on cakes and ice cream.

Burnt Caramel Cream
Excellent served on pound cakes and over fresh fruit.

Caramel Sauce
You never need to buy prepared caramel sauce again! Making your own homemade caramel sauce is a lot easier than you might think, and it takes practically no time at all.

Caramelizing Sugar
Photo tutorial on how to caramelize sugar. Caramelizing sugar is a term most often applied to melting sugar until it becomes a caramel color liquid.

Chocolate Sauce - A wonderful low fat, low calorie, and low carbohydrate chocolate sauce to serve over fruit, cake, etc.

Crème fraîche
Commercial creme fraiche is quite expensive, so the homemade version is a life saver.

Dulce de Leche (Arequipe and Manjar Blanco)
Dulce de leche, pronounced DOOL-say duh LAY-chay) is a luscious sweetened milk sauce that is literally finger-linking good! The name means "milk sweet," "milk jam," and "sweet milk sauce."

Lavender Jelly
This jelly would be wonderful served as a dessert with ice cream, pudding, or cream.

Lemon Curd
A British teatime favorite. This sweet, yet tart, velvety spread is heavenly on freshly baked scones, muffins, and tea breads.

Maple Sauce for Strawberries
Fresh strawberries are absolutely delicious when served with this Maple Sauce.

Marshmallow Fluff/Cream
This is the best recipe that I have ever found to substitute for the store-bought marshmallow fluff. It is very easy to make and so delicious. Use this homemade marshmallow fluff/cream in any recipe that calls for marshmallow fluff.

Mock or Faux Devonshire Cream
An easy-to-make mock Devonshire Cream. Great for your tea party.

Perfect Chocolate Sauce
Making a great chocolate sauce couldn't be easier! No vanilla and no sugar is added, just high-quality chocolate with cream, water, and a little butter to give just the right texture and taste. This truly is chocolate sauce perfection! Once you fall in love with this chocolate sauce, you might want to keep a jar of it handy in your refrigerator. The velvety sauce is amazingly versatile.

Rose Petal Jam
Enjoy this wonderful jam at your next Afternoon Tea Party.

Zabaglione with Fresh Berries
The French refer to this as Sabayon and it is used as a dessert or a sauce. It is light and refreshing and perfect as warm weather dessert.
 

Jams, Jellies and Relishes

Misc. Sauce Recipes

Cabernet-Cherry Sauce

Dill Sauce

Horseradish Sauces

New Zealand Mint Sauce
After visiting New Zealand and tasting their wonderful mint sauces, I put together this mint sauce recipe. Very simple to make and so good!

Peppercorn Sauce
You'll love the "zip" that the green peppercorns add to this sauce.

Pinot Gris-Dijon Sauce

Pinot Noir Butter Sauce
 

Pasta Sauce Recipes

Parmesan-Asiago Topping
This is very addicting! Serve it as a topping for bread (crostini), tossed with pasta, on a baked potato, spooned over fresh sliced tomatoes, topping for a pizza - the possibilities are endless.

Peanut Sauce
The Peanut Sauce is excellent tossed with only cooked pasta and sesame seeds. Also great on chicken.
 

Salad Dressings and Vinaigrettes

Balsamic Vinaigrette
This is one of my favorite salad dressing! It is so easy to make and so good.

Balsamic Maple Vinaigrette
(low fat, low calorie & low carb) - The addition of pure maple syrup brings this vinaigrette to a new dimension.

Basil Infused Vinaigrette
(low fat, low calorie & low carb) - This is excellent served on fresh tomatoes from your garden.

A collection of sauces is invaluable to a cook.

Sauces enable a cook to add the finishing touch to a wide variety of both sweet and savory dishes. A sauce, gravy, or simple glaze can make or break a good meal.

Keeping Sauces Hot:

Sauces to be served hot can be kept in a double boiler over hot water.

Hollandaise and other egg-based sauces should be kept over warm water, otherwise they will become thin or curdled.
 

TIP: I keep my sauces warm in a small thermos container. I can keep them warm for a couple of hours this way.  You can also make a sauce and travel with it.
 

Jalapeno Pepper Jelly

Lavender Jelly
 

Chunky Avocado Salad - Guacamole Salad
 

Thousand Island Dressing
 

Crème fraîche
 

Caramel Sauce