15 Kitchen Tip Quickies

Here’s a handy list of kitchen tips sent in by readers over the last few weeks.
Each of these were selected because of their usefulness and I’ve included the name of the person who submitted them beside each tip (thank you!).
15 Kitchen Tip Quickies

1. Whole tomatoes can be washed and frozen in containers or plastic bags. When you are ready to use simply thaw and the skin will slip right off and they are ready to be used in cooking. (Norma)
2. When you get a good price on lemons, make big batches of fresh lemon juice at once. Freeze in measured 1/4 cup amounts so you can just take out the freezer bag or container to thaw when a recipe calls for lemon juice. You can also pour juice in muffin tins, freeze, then take them out and freeze in freezer bags. Make sure to freeze in measured amounts. (Sherry)
3. Next time you make meatballs, try this tip: roll meat mixture into a log then slice off even sized meatballs. Time saver! (Jennifer)
4. Perfect tiny meatballs tip: Use a melon baller. (Lisa)
5. Buy fresh chicken breasts in bulk then wrap individually before freezing in large freezer bags. You’ll be able to grab the exact amount of chicken breasts you need without having to pry them apart. (Cami)
6. Keep a roll of painters tape handy in the kitchen, it’s great to seal bags and such, re-sticks over and over (even stays sticky in the freezer). (Elizabeth)
7. Line refrigerator metal racks with large washable placemats, they catch all the spills and wipe up easily. (Helen)
8. Use a piece of bread with butter or oil to grease your casserole dishes easily. (Carol)
9. Wrap fresh herbs in slightly damp paper towels then seal in an airtight plastic bag and store in the refrigerator, these will keep fresh for a long time! (Brenda)
10. Try cooking vegetables in chicken or beef broth instead of water, delicious! (Kim)
11. Keep wooden chopsticks in the pantry canisters, use them to level off measurements for cups of flour or sugar. (Shannon)
12. Freeze wedges of lemons and limes then plop into glasses of water or iced tea. Good way to prevent the fruit from going to waste! Make sure to wash the outside of the fruit first before freezing. (Steve)
13. Freshen up dish racks by occasionally scrubbing them with a paste of baking soda and water. Removes stains and odors. (Dawn)
14. Place cookie cutter shapes on top of frosted cakes or cupcakes then drizzle candy sprinkles or colored coconut inside the shapes, remove cookie cutters and you have an original cake decoration done oh so simply! (Katy Lyn)
15. Save time on baked potatoes by first boiling them for 15 minutes to pre-cook. Then put them in a preheated oven to finish cooking. (Jody)

The tips were too small to post individually, but too good to not be shared so I waited until I had enough for a full list. Thanks so much for sharing these with Tipnut readers! If you’d like to share your favorite tips, please send it in by using the contact form.

50 Amazingly Helpful Time-Tested Tips for the Kitchen

Amazingly Helpful Time-Tested Tips for the Kitchen
by lifehackery - All Posts By This Author

You know all of those helpful kitchen-related suggestions that old-timers are so willing to share with the younger generations? These little tips and tricks might be called “kitchen hacks” these days, but they’re still the same good old nuggets of wisdom that they always were. As with any old wives’ tale, hack, or tip, your mileage may vary. Some of these gems have been around for several lifetimes - and according to most grandmas, they really work.

1. For cleaning smelly hands after chopping onions or garlic, just rub them on a stainless steel spoon. The steel is supposed to absorb the odor.
2. Fresh coffee beans can also absorb nasty odors from your hands.
3. If you happen to over-salt a pot of soup, just drop in a peeled potato. The potato will absorb the excess salt.
4. When boiling eggs, add a pinch of salt to keep the shells from cracking.
5. Never put citrus fruits or tomatoes in the fridge. The low temperatures degrade the aroma and flavor of these persnickety fruits.
6. To clean cast iron cookwear, don’t use detergents. Just scrub them with salt and a clean, dry paper towel.
7. Will milk curdle if it is allowed to boil? It turns out that this age-old piece of wisdom isn’t true, after all. Milk that has been boiled is perfectly safe to consume.
8. To clean an electric kettle with calcium buildup on the heating element, boil a mixture of half white vinegar and half water, then empty.
9. When storing empty airtight containers, throw in a pinch of salt to keep them from getting stinky.
10. If you are making gravy and accidentally burn it, just pour it into a clean pan and continue cooking it. Add sugar a little at a time, tasting as you go to avoid over-sugaring it. The sugar will cancel out the burned taste.
11. Burned a pot of rice? Just place a piece of white bread on top of the rice for 5-10 minutes to draw out the burned flavor. Be careful not to scrape the burned pieces off of the bottom of the pan when serving the rice.

12. Before you chop chili peppers, rub a little vegetable oil into your hands and your skin won’t absorb the spicy chili oil.
13. If you aren’t sure how fresh your eggs are, place them in about four inches of water. Eggs that stay on the bottom are fresh. If only one end tips up, the egg is less fresh and should be used soon. If it floats, it’s past the fresh stage.

14. To banish ants from the kitchen, find out where they are coming in and cover the hole with petroleum jelly. Ants won’t trek through the jelly. If they are coming under a door, draw a line on the floor with chalk. The little bugs also won’t cross a line of chalk.
15. Before making popcorn on the stove or in an air popper, soak the kernels in water for 10 minutes. Drain the water, then pop as normal. The additional moisture helps the popcorn pop up quicker and fluffier with fewer “old maids.”
16. Don’t store your bananas in a bunch or in a fruit bowl with other fruits. Separate your bananas and place each in a different location. Bananas release gases which cause fruits (including other bananas) to ripen quickly. Separating them will keep them fresh longer.
17. To keep potatoes from budding in the bag, put an apple in with them.
18. If you manage to have some leftover wine at the end of the evening, freeze it in ice cube trays for easy addition to soups and sauces in the future.
19. To clean crevices and corners in vases and pitchers, fill with water and drop in two Alka-Seltzer tablets. The bubbles will do the scrubbing.
20. After boiling pasta or potatoes, cool the water and use it to water your house plants. The water contains nutrients that your plants will love.
21. When you clean your fish tank, the water you drain can also be used to water your house plants. The nitrogen and phosphorus in fish droppings make aquarium water a great fertilizer.
22. When defrosting meat from the freezer, pour some vinegar over it. Not only does it tenderize the meat; it will also bring down the freezing temperature of the meat and cause it to thaw quicker.
23. The substance in onions that causes your eyes to water is located in the root cluster of the onion. Cut this part out in a cone shape, with the largest part of the cone around the exterior root section.
24. Taking the top layer off of a onion can also reduce the amount of eye-watering misery.
25. Toothpaste is a great silver cleaner.
26. Baking soda isn’t as effective a deodorizer for the fridge as that baking soda company would like you to believe. Activated charcoal is much better at absorbing fridge and freezer odors.
27. Baking soda is an extremely effective cleaner, though. Use it with vinegar to deodorize drains and clean stovetops and sinks.
28. A favorite tip of thousands of grandmas: when you nick your finger while cutting veggies, wait until the bleeding stops and paint on a layer of clear nail polish. It will keep juices out of the wound and won’t fall off into the spaghetti sauce like a bandage.
29. The jury is still out on what to put in the bag of brown sugar to keep it from going hard: a slice of apple, a piece of bread, and a shard of a terra cotta pot have all been used.
30. Got a nasty invisible splinter from your kitchen tools? Put a piece of adhesive tape on the area and then pull it off to remove the splinter.
31. When you burn yourself in the kitchen, just spread mustard on the affected area. Leave it for a while and it will ease the pain and prevent blistering.
32. For aluminum pans that are looking dull, just boil some apple peels in them. This will brighten up the aluminum and make your house smell yummy.
33. To keep cookies fresh, savvy grannies like to put some crumpled-up tissue paper in the bottom of the cookie jar.

34. If your salt is clumping up, put a few grains of rice in with it to absorb excess moisture.
35. To clean fruit stains off of your fingers, rub them with a fresh, peeled potato. White vinegar can also do the trick.
36. Keep iceberg lettuce fresh in the fridge by wrapping it in a clean, dry paper towel and storing lettuce and paper towel in a sealed baggie in the fridge.
37. If your loaf of bread is starting to go stale, just put a piece of fresh celery in the bag and close it back up. For some reason, this restores a fresh taste and texture to the bread.

38. Always keep an aloe vera plant in your kitchen. It’s invaluable when you scrape your arm or burn your finger. Just break off a leaf and rub the gel from the inside on the injury.
39. When making a soup, sauce, or casserole that ends up too fatty or greasy, drop in an ice cube. The ice will attract the fat, which you can then scoop out.
40. To reuse cooking oil without tasting whatever was cooked in the oil previously, cook a 1/4″ piece of ginger in the oil. It will remove any remaining flavors and odors.
41. If your milk always goes bad before you can finish it, try adding a pinch of salt to the carton when you first open it. It will stay fresh days longer.
42. Water that has been boiled and allowed to cool will freeze faster than water from the tap. This comes in handy when you’re having a party and need ice pronto.
43. Remove tea or coffee stains from your fine china by mixing up a paste of baking soda, lemon juice, and cream of tartar. Rub it over the stains and they’ll come off easily.
44. If two drinking glasses become stuck together after stacking, it’s not impossible to unstick them. Just put ice in the inner glass and dunk the outer glass in warm water. The warm glass will expand and the cold glass will contract, making the glasses separate easily.
45. For splinters under the fingernail, soaking the affected finger in a bowl of milk with a piece of bread in it is said to draw out the splinter.
46. Did grandpa ever give you a drink of cola for an upset tummy? It turns out that this is actually a pretty effective remedy. The sugar and carbonation can soothe many tummy problems - but it can also exacerbate others.
47. Putting salty bacon on a boil is said to “draw the poison out” of boils.
48. To help old wooden drawers (without runners) open and close smoothly, rub a candle on the tracks.
49. A cotton ball soaked in white vinegar and applied to a fresh bruise will reduce the darkness of the bruise and help it disappear sooner.
50. Drinking cranberry juice and eating blueberries regularly will help stave off urinary tract infections.

SIMPLE MAYONNAISE

SIMPLE MAYONNAISEEggs MUST be at room temperature.

1. Whisk together two fresh egg yolks, salt, 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard and 2 teaspoons of good vinegar in a roomy bowl.
2. Add two cups of good olive oil very slowly - start whisking the yolk mixture and let the oil fall from the spout, drop by drop in a thin stream until you have achieved a thick, velvety mayonnaise. You must whisk all the time, or use an electric beater. When the mixture thickens up, you may add the rest of the oil faster.
3. Taste it. Add lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste

Oh it's so good Tart

Still in the kitchen, here is last night's (and tonight's) dinner - a tomato and caramelised onion tart. Simply made with whatever pastry you care to make, or have on hand, I had two sheets of butter puff pastry in the freezer and used them. I blind baked the tart for about 15 minutes before adding the filling.

To make the filling, peel and slice two onions and slowly fry them to caramelise. In a bowl mix together four eggs, about ½ cup of cream, one clove of garlic, about ¾ cup of finely shredded Parmesan cheese and salt and pepper to your taste. Pour that into the pastry shell, add some thick slices of ripe tomato and the caramelised onions into the mix, careful not to overflow it. Then just bake until it's golden brown on top - 20 - 25 minutes on 190 C (375F). I used a flan tin to bake my tart. It's delicious.

Did you Know...

Finding Life:  There are lots of plants and animals living on th earth, but there are still many to be found.  Scientists tend to look for new species on coral reefs and sea floors, which are rich sources of life.

Doing the dishes:  The first dishwasher was inveted by an American woman name Josephine Cochrane.  It was not vecause she hated doing dishes, but because her servants kept breaking her good china.  She patented her machine in 1886.

Population density:  Although Canada is 40 times the size of Britain, almost twice as many people live in Britain, which has a populatin of just over 60 million (including England, Scotland and Wales).  Canada is home to only 35 million people.

Energy boost:  One country that has become renowned for its use of renewable energy is Spain.  There, solar power and wind energy are well-utilized sorces of power.

Warm and cozy:  Igloos, made by the Inuit for centuries, are created from blocks of snow.  These Arctic dwellings are surprisingly warm because snow has insulating qualities, which traps body heat inside the structure.

Get Juiced!! Why you need to learn this.

How to use vegetable juices to flavor your cooking.

It's easy to forget that food is about more than taste. We have four other senses, each of which can play a role in how we perceive what we eat. Today, we'll focus on texture, in particular how changing the texture of vegetables by juicing can increase their versatility while at the same time encourage your own creativity.

Why you need to learn this

One of our goals here at Prep School has always been to get you thinking outside your own box, to start thinking like a chef. Too many of us get into a rut, where we rely on the same old foods and standards that we've been making forever. Meatloaf Monday. Taco Tuesday. Whaleburger Wednesday. By taking something as simple as a vegetable — something we think of mostly as a side dish — and changing its form, suddenly we're presented with a completely new ingredient.

Moreover, as any juice fanatic can tell you, vegetable juices are very, very good for you. Getting more of them into your diet can only be a good thing.
The steps you take

Before we get started, a quick word on the difference between juices and purees, both of which involve taking a whole or cut up vegetable and pulverizing it. One difference is that, with juice, the solids are removed whereas with puree, the solids remain part of the final product. The other difference is that pureed vegetables generally are cooked first to make them easier to puree, whereas juices generally are extracted from raw vegetables.

There are several ways to get vegetable juice:

1. They sell it at the store. You can buy bottles of various juices and juice combinations, of course.

2. You can pass veggies through a juicer. Quality juicers produce great juices. If you're already into juicing, you know that you can juice just about anything, and you've probably been delighted, not only with the great flavors, but also with the vibrant colors of fresh juice. Imagine using these same great flavors and colors in supporting positions for dinner plates.

3. Even without a juicer, all you have to do is grate your vegetables or pulse them in a food processor. Then, place the pieces in some cheesecloth and wring out the juice. Not as easy or efficient as the juicer, but the results are good.

Obviously, there are exactly 2 bajillion vegetables on the planet, so we'll just mention a handful along with a few ideas. With any luck, that will spur your imagination to try some new ideas yourselves. (If you've got a good one, please share it with all of us at foods@tribune.com or in the Comments section at the bottom of this article.)

What to juice

GingerCarrots Use this sweet, bright orange liquid in place of milk for mashed potatoes. You'll love the color and creaminess. Enrich it with butter or, to keep it vegan, extra-virgin olive oil. Use carrot juice to replace some or all the liquid in baked goods or starches.

Beets Beet juice is fantastic — and I'm one of the few people I know who dislikes beets. Deep purple and wonderfully sweet, try reducing it in a saucepan until it's slightly syrupy. Use a pastry brush to paint a broad swath of purple across a white plate as a striking background for your plated food.

Or, after plating your food, spoon droplets of the beet juice around as a decorative sauce. Or drizzle it over vanilla ice cream (with a bit of crumbled bacon, if you're really getting crazy). One note about beets: Wear rubber gloves to prevent your hands from getting stained.
Sweeten ginger juice with sugar and add it to bubbly water for your own homemade ginger ale. Pouring a few drops of the juice into pureed soups like carrot or lentil will give it bright, spicy, gingery flavor. Use drops of ginger juice as you might soy sauce over Asian inspired stir-fries.


Using that juiceHere are a few general ideas that you can use with just about any juice. Think of each of these as a way to get good vegetable flavor into something that typically is a liquid:

VinaigrettesWhisk vegetable juices to taste into your favorite vinaigrette recipe to dress salads, blanched and shocked vegetables or grilled meats or fish.

Heavy cream
Whip cream until thickened, but not stiff. Whisk some juice into it, season with salt and drizzle over pureed or cream soups as a tasty and decorative garnish.

Mayonnaise
Whisk vegetable juice into mayonnaise and spread on toasted bread for grilled veggie sandwiches.

Signature drinks
Stir juices into clear mixed drinks to create signature cocktails like a beety vodka tonic or a carrotini.

Frozen juice cubes
Speaking of signature drinks, imagine frozen celery or tomato juice cubes in your Sunday brunch bloody Marys.

However you use your juice, just be sure to use it within a day or so of making, as it's best when fresh. And no matter how you use it, think like a chef and ask yourself two questions: What can I do to make it better next time, and how else can I use it?

By James P. DeWan, Special to Tribune Newspapers

May 23, 2012

Quoteable Quotes

"If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life.  With confidence, you have won even beore you started."
                                                       Marcus Garvey

"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing; the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."
                                                                                           Theodore Roosevelt

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand.  The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."
           Alexander Graham Bell