A little tweaking goes a long way

Q. I enjoyed your column on baking with fats but wanted to tell you about some of my efforts. I found that by minimizing my ingestion of saturated fats, I could manage my cholesterol within the guidelines of my HMO without any need for medication. This also meant becoming a vegetarian. I do eat egg substitutes and nonfat milk, but no creatures and not much cheese.

I have experimented with many of the recipes I love and found that a variety of ingredients can be substituted successfully for saturated fats. I make my pie dough with flour, canola oil and ice water. I roll it between two layers of plastic wrap. I can roll it really thin, remove the top plastic, and use the bottom plastic to help me get it into the pie plate or over the filling with a little care and no tearing. The result is a superb crust, much thinner and more delicate than my grandmother's shortening crust she rolled on an old sack remnant.

I make my muffins with canned pumpkin and no fat at all. Applesauce, plum paste or pumpkin work well. The pumpkin doesn't taste like much: Apparently, the flavor of pumpkin pie is totally from the spices. But pumpkin fools the tongue, and the texture is just like what a solid fat would give. The tongue revels in the feel.

I just experiment. Usually, the results are edible; sometimes they could be improved. Rarely do I have a catastrophe that I cannot tolerate. It surprises me how much fat, sugar and salt you can leave out of a recipe and maintain the results. These were cheap ingredients in the 20th century, and people put them in a lot of things to fill them up, not knowing the health issues they caused. My grandmother used to slice strawberries or peaches and sprinkle sugar on them an hour or two before dinner. We always enjoyed her sliced strawberries and peaches. When I got older and began cooking by myself, I wondered why I needed so much sugar with them. Guess what? I love strawberries without any sugar. The first time I tried eating them without the sugar was the first time I ever tasted strawberries and not just the sugar. The same is true for salt. You simply do not need it. I know it does neat tricks, like drawing the moisture out of a slice of eggplant. Well, putting the eggplant slices in the roaster for a minute or two draws the moisture out just as well and toasts the slices nicely so they are not a soggy mess when you try to put them in something.

When I need fat in a recipe, I use canola oil or olive oil. Period. If the recipe calls for shortening or butter or margarine, I use the oil. When oil clearly won't work, I just skip the recipe. Olive oil is fruitier in flavor than canola, but I really like it. I use canola if the recipe results are going to be very light in taste and the olive oil flavor would overwhelm the rest of the dish. Otherwise, I just use olive oil. So cornbread gets canola oil, but brownies get olive oil.

By the way, if your brownies are starting to bore you, add half of a 4-ounce can of diced jalapeno chilies, with half of the juice, to the batter before you finish stirring. It makes for a surprise that you don't really notice until you swallow, and then the brownie tingles all the way down. Use the full can if you are bold.

D.H., Danville, Calif.

A. You have the makings of a great book. My congratulations on your efforts in the kitchen. Your methods represent new ways of putting more wholesome foods into your diet. The fact that the system works and your body responds speaks volumes.

• Ed Blonz, Ph.D., is a nutrition scientist and the author of the "Your Personal Nutritionist" book series. Write him at "On Nutrition," Ed Blonz, c/o Newspaper Enterprise Association, 200 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016, or ed@blonz.com. Due to the volume of mail, personal replies cannot be provided.