Cooking Hints & Tips Archive 50
Cooking Tip: A freezer full of roasted turkey necks and bony beef cuts will ensure you always have what you need to make broth.
Cooking Tip: Want gorgeous scalloped potatoes or perfectly julienned carrots? Buy a mandoline. Are you a scaredycat? Wear a cut-resistant safety glove until you feel comfortable bare-handed.
Cooking Tip: There's nothing worse than limp herbs. Next time, trim the stems and put the parsley in a glass of water, fit a plastic bag over it, and stash it in the refrigerator.
Cooking Tip: Ground spices die quickly. So give them a whiff - if they don't smell like anything, they won't taste like anything. And if they don't taste like anything, you're cooking with a flavorless, brown powder.
Cooking Tip: Soup could have used more tomato? Chicken needed ten more minutes in the oven? Make a note of it in your cookbook and you'll never make that mistake again.
Cooking Tip: You may have a steel or a sharpener at home, but once a year, get a pro to revive those knives.
Cooking Tip: Chicken breasts are expensive and can get dull after a while; thighs are juicier, cheaper, and more flavorful.
Cooking Tip: Whisk a little salt and sugar into some white vinegar. Pour over thinly sliced raw vegetables. Wait 20 minutes. Eat.
Cooking Tip: There's nothing worse than limp herbs. Next time, trim the stems and put the parsley in a glass of water, fit a plastic bag over it, and stash it in the refrigerator.
Cooking Tip: Want gorgeous scalloped potatoes or perfectly julienned carrots? Buy a mandoline. Are you a scaredycat? Wear a cut-resistant safety glove until you feel comfortable bare-handed.
Cooking Tip: Lemon juice or vinegar in water where cauliflower is cooked makes it keep its white color.
Cooking Tip: Add a slice of lemon to peeled sweet potatoes while cooking. The lemon will help them clear and free of discoloration.
Cooking Tip: A tablespoon of minute tapioca sprinkled in apple pie will absorb excess juice while baking.
Cooking Tip: Rinse measuring cup in hot water before using syrup, oil, etc. Will pour out clean and not stick to cup.
Cooking Tip: For fried foods that require flouring, try pancake flour for a change, it's quite nice.
Cooking Tip: A tablespoon of minute tapioca sprinkled in apple pie will absorb excess juice while baking.
Cooking Tip: Fill a large hole or sugar shaker with flour and use that when needing to dust surfaces with flour or just pour out a tablespoon as you need it, this is handy way to keep a bit of flour on hand instead of digging in the flour bin.
Cooking Tip: Canned fruit is much better if opened and removed from the can an hour or two before using to restore the oxygen.
Cooking Tip: When making popcorn balls, slip plastic bags on your hands when shaping and they them, won't stick or burn your hands.
Cooking Tip: A wire cheese cutter is ideal for cutting chilled refrigerator cookie dough.
Cooking Tip: Add flavor to hot tea by dissolving old-fashioned lemon drops or hard mint candies in the cup.
Cooking Tip: To keep a punch cool, make an ice ring using some of the punch and float it in the punch bowl. This way the punch will not become diluted with melted ice cubs.
Cooking Tip: Place fresh or dried mint in the bottom of a cup of hot chocolate for a cool, refreshing taste.
Cooking Tip: If a recipe calls for chicken or beef broth, make your own by using chicken or beef bouillon cubes or granules. The ratio is 1 cube or 1 heaping teaspoon of granules to 1 cup water.
Cooking Tip: A leaf of lettuce dropped in a pot of soup absorbs grease from the top.
Cooking Tip: Add a few sprigs of fresh peppermint to leftover tea while it is still warm, then refrigerate. Serve over ice.
Cooking Tip: Lemon juice or vinegar in water where cauliflower is cooked makes it keep its white color.
Cooking Tip: Add a slice of lemon to peeled sweet potatoes while cooking. The lemon will help them clear and free of discoloration.
Cooking Tip: A tablespoon of minute tapioca sprinkled in apple pie will absorb excess juice while baking.
Cooking Tip: For bananas that are ripe and ready to eat but you have too many, peel the bananas and freeze them then dip in melted chocolate and freeze again.
Cooking Tip: Fill a large hole or sugar shaker with flour and use that when needing to dust surfaces with flour or just pour out a tablespoon as you need it. This is handy way to keep a bit of flour on hand instead of digging in the flour bin.
Cooking Tip: Use pastry wheel to cut rolled cookie dough in squares or diamonds, much less rolling and very pretty.
Cooking Tip: Rinse measuring cup in hot water before using syrup, oil, etc. Will pour out clean and not stick to cup.
Cooking Tip: Canned fruit is much better if opened and removed from the can an hour or two before using to restore the oxygen.
Cooking Tip: When making popcorn balls, slip plastic bags on your hands when shaping them, won't stick or burn your hands.
Cooking Tip: When boiling milk, first stir in a pinch of baking soda. This will help keep the milk from curdling.
Cooking Tip: First rinse raisins, dates and figs in very cold water before putting them through the food chopper. They will not form such a gummy mass.
Cooking Tip: For crisper salads, place a saucer upside down in the bottom of the salad bowl before filling with salad. Excess moisture will run underneath the saucer and this will help keep the salad crisp and fresh.
Cooking Tip: For tasty flavored whipped cream, first whip cream then add 2 tablespoons of flavored jello and continue beating on slow until the whipped cream is right consistency.
Cooking Tip: Add one teaspoon of lemon juice to each quart of water when cooking rice, this will keep rice fluffy.
Cooking Tip: Freeze meat to make it easier to slice for stir-fries and stews.
Cooking Tip: Use an apple slicer to quickly cut potatoes into perfect wedges.
Cooking Tip: Peel a whole head of garlic by shaking it really hard.
Cooking Tip: Microwave an ear of corn and it'll fall right out of the husk.
Cooking Tip: Caramelize onions in half the time by adding a little baking soda.
Cooking Tip: Instantly core a head of iceberg lettuce by slamming it down on a cutting board.
Cooking Tip: Put a dish towel or damp paper towel under your cutting board to keep it from slipping and wobbling.
Cooking Tip: Grate frozen butter straight into pastry dough for fast, even distribution.
Cooking Tip: Hold cherry tomatoes between two plastic lids to slice them all at once.
Cooking Tip: Coat your cheese grater with nonstick spray for delightfully clean, easy shredding.
Cooking Tip: Baking Powder is a leavening agent that contains a combination of baking soda, cream of tartar, and a moisture absorber. It is used like yeast, but it acts much more quickly.
Cooking Tip: Baking Powder is used in batters where there is no acid present, such as cookies, cakes, pastries, pies, quick bread, etc. It makes the baked goods voluminous by allowing gas formation when an acid comes into contact with it and/or when it is heated.
Cooking Tip: Most baking powders are double-acting, which means it reacts twice; one acid that dissolves when it comes in contact with water and a second acid that does not dissolve until it reaches a higher temperature. This type of double action ensures that the finished product is light and fluffy.
Cooking Tip: When creating a recipes, the food chemistry rule is 1 to 1 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder per 1 cup flour.
Cooking Tip: If too much baking powder is used in your recipe, this produces big bubbles that will run into each other and then rise to the surface and pop. The result is that the muffins, cakes or quick breads become heavy or sunken.
