30 Helpful Cooking Tips

Here and there over time I have come across some helpful tips and hints for working in the kitchen. Below I have listed 29 helpful tips.

1. Sometimes frozen gravies and sauces can be a little bit thicker after thawing, than when they were freshly made. You can add a little appropriate liquid, such as broth, milk, or water and thin to the desired consistency that you want.

2. For extra juicy hamburgers, add 1/4 cup of evaporated milk to the burger mixture before shaping them. Also always indent the middle of the burger. This way it will stay flat and not puff up. And never flatten a burger with a spatula, as it will squeeze out all the juice, and make the burger dry.

3. To ripen green pears, just place 2 or 3 in a brown paper bag, close loosely, and store at room temperature out of direct sunlight.

4. When making pickles, you should use white vinegar to make clear pickles and course salt. Avoid using iodized salt for pickle making. Pickles are best if allowed to sit six weeks before using them.

5. Lemon jello dissolved in 2 cups of hot apricot nectar with 1 teaspoon of grated lemon added for zip makes a perfect base for jelled fruit salad.

6. You should put a tablespoon of butter in the water when cooking rice, dried beans and macaroni to keep it from boiling over.

7. A sharp pair of scissors are great for slivering onions and celery.

8. You should never put a cover on anything that is cooked in milk, otherwise you will spend forever cleaning the stove when it boils over. And this is not a pleasant task to do.

9. Keep in mind anything that grows under the ground, such as potatoes, beets, carrots etc., starts off in cold water, and things that grow above the ground, such as greens, peas beans etc., starts off in boiling water.

10. If you want to clean aluminum pots when they are stained dark, just boil with a little bit of cream of tarter or vinegar.

11. If you want to remove coffee or tea stains from china cups or pots use baking soda.

12. If you have a burnt on mess in the bottom of a pot, just take some baking soda with a little water, boil quick on the stove, them let it sit a bit, and it should wipe clean, you may have to use a scrubber to loosen the burnt spot, though you should not have to scrub it.

13. Canned cream soups are great for making sauce for vegetables, and meats. Canned creamed soups are so versatile.

14. If you need to reheat a roast, just wrap it in aluminum foil and heat in a slow oven.

15. When you make hard boiled eggs they will peel more easily when cracked and placed in cold water immediately after taking out of the hot water.

16. You can cut a meringue pie cleanly by coating both sides of the knife lightly with butter.

17. When a recipe calls for adding raw eggs to a hot mixture, always start by adding a small amount of the hot mixture to the beaten eggs slowly, this is to avoid curdling.

18. To remove fish odor from your hands, utensils and dish towels, use one teaspoon baking soda to a quart of water, and soak the items for a little while, clean as usual.

19. If you want to keep icing moist and to prevent it from cracking, just add a pinch of baking soda to the icing.

20. If you find that your soup tastes very salty, a raw piece of potato placed in the pot will absorb it. As the potato has starch in it.

21. Pour water into a mold and then drain it before pouring in the mixture to be chilled, and it will come out of the mold easier.

22. When rolling cookie dough, sprinkle the board with powdered sugar instead of flour. Too much flour makes the dough heavy.

23. When freezing cookies with frosting on them, you can place them in the freezer unwrapped on a plate or tray for about 2 hours. Then you can wrap them without worrying about them sticking together.

24. This one is a gem in itself. When you have fruit in the kitchen, especially Banana's, and you get fruit flies or some call them tetsie flies. Well I have a solution for you. A friend of mine gave me this great tip. Take a container, like a frosting container or a glass or tall cup. You will need plastic wrap and some rubber bands as well. Take a Banana peel and place it in the container, then seal it with the plastic wrap and secure with the rubber bands. Take a fork and poke the plastic wrap a few times or so. Put it in the kitchen, well kinda where it won't be exactly in plain view. Now the point is, that the fruit flies will be attracted to the Banana in the container. The will be able to get in the container, but not get back out. Ta Da! The fruit flies are trapped!

25. Drop a lettuce leaf into a pot to absorb the grease from the top of soup, then remove it before serving the soup.

26. Rinse a pot in cold water before scaulding milk, as this will prevent sticking.

27. If you want to melt some chocolate, grease the pan in which it will be melted.

28. Dip a spoon in hot water before using it to measure out butter and shortning, as the fat will slip off the spoon more easily.

29. Always have your cheese chilled before grating it, as it will be easier to grate.

30. Take the inside of a banana peel, and add it to the roasting pan, as it will help to tenderize the meat. Also on another note; You can use the peel to shine shoes, then just buff them out!

** A few extra Quick tips: You can place cucumber peels in spots to repel household insects. You can even put cucumber peels in your bath to help soften your skin. Also you can take a potato and cut in in half, rub it on mud stained clothes before throwing it in the wash. Okay, so you can use lemon peels to polish chrome, or even add to your firewood in your fireplace to add a pleasing scent.

So there you have it, a few helpful tips for the kitchen. I will try to update here and there when I come across some good tips, and who can't use helpful tips in the kitchen..