Rachael passes along valuable remedies for those "oops!" moments in the kitchen. Some "catastrophes" you can recover from -- others, not so much!

"Do you smell something burning?!"

You've invited 10 of your nearest and dearest friends for dinner and while you are enjoying a cocktail with your guests, you suddenly realize you've left your spaghetti sauce on high heat and you think you can smell something starting to burn. In a panic, you run to the kitchen, pick up a spoon and ...

STOP RIGHT THERE!

"If you're making spaghetti sauce or chili and you can feel with your spoon that it's starting to burn and get crusty on the bottom of the pan or you smell a hint of something burning, DO NOT STIR THE POT. You'll just end up getting all the blackened bits into the good stuff, making it unsalvageable. Turn the heat off, get another pot, immediately skim the unburnt food out of the original pan into the new one, leaving all the burnt stuff on the bottom of the old pan. Reheat what was on top and make any taste adjustments and you should be just fine."

"Water! Water! This is way too spicy!"

While adding a few drops of hot sauce to a pot of your famous chili, you get distracted by the kids. Before you know it, you've dumped a half bottle of hot sauce into your brew. Your five-alarm chili is now ten-alarms! You're about to chuck the whole thing into the garbage, praying it won't burn a whole through the bag ...

STOP RIGHT THERE!

"When you're cooking spicy foods, always start really mild -- half a jalapeno instead of a whole one, a teaspoon of chili powder and then work up from there. Keep testing it along the way, starting with the spice meter way back. But if it comes out too spicy or if it cooks down too long and the spice concentrates, you can always balance the spice with a little bit of sweet. Add a little bit of sugar, brown or white, or a squeeze from a honeybear to take the spice level down a bit. You can also add liquid to the pot, mix it up and it will really take the edge off."

"The garlic is starting to burn!"

While cooking up Rachael's favorite pasta, Aglio Olio (pasta with garlic and olive oil), you leave the heat on too long and burn the garlic to a crisp. "Eh, oh well!" you say to yourself. You're about to put the pasta in the pan ...

STOP RIGHT THERE!

"Unfortunately, the one thing you really cannot fix no matter how hard you try -- so don't try, just start over -- is burnt garlic. If your pan is too hot and the garlic browns and gets really tough and hard, immediately turn the heat off and let it cool. After it cools down a bit, take the pan to the sink, get the garlic and oil out of the pan, wash the pan and start from scratch."