Part of the fun of the Christmas season is baking cookies in all shapes and sizes. If you don’t have the cookie shapes you want, making your own custom cookie cutters is easy: all you need is a printout of your shape and a cheap foil pan.
Need to thaw some frozen meat? Tips and tricks blog Lifehackery recommends pouring a cup or so of vinegar on the frozen flesh. The vinegar will lower the freezing temperature of the meat so it will begin to thaw more quickly, and the acid in the vinegar will break down connective tissues, making the meat more tender.
Instead of microwaving your leftover cold pizza to make soggy hot pizza, try this: reheat the pizza slices in a large skillet on medium heat for 4-5 minutes, adding a domed lid for the pizza made with aluminium foil to help reflect heat back to the toppings without trapping steam inside.
Heavy frying pans are designed to conduct heat efficiently when cooking food, and you can also use these same pans to quickly defrost frozen foods. Line a heavy frying pan with aluminium foil, place your food in the pan, and place the pan on your stove top or an oven rack (turned off, of course) to facilitate defrosting.
I routinely use small portions of frozen corn, peas and green onions in dishes like fried rice, soups, and casseroles. Bento weblog Lunch in a box recommends using a water bottle to store frozen small vegetables to avoid freezer burn and make it easy to dispense the amount you need.
Bento blog Lunch in a Box shares this handy tip on how to easily freeze pasta for future meals: after draining the pasta, toss it with butter, olive oil or vegetable oil to keep it from sticking, and quickly freeze it in a plastic wrap or a freezer bag.
If you love cooking but you have a small kitchen (or budget) you can reduce the number of appliances you need by buying only multi-purpose tools – and devising new ways to use the ones you have.Once you’re in the mindset of adapting the tools you have at hand, you’ll surprise yourself with what you can do. When I was growing up my mother used a wok for just about all the cooking – she could even bake cakes in it!The Wise Bread blog has some great suggestions – like getting your strainer to pull triple duty as a strainer, sifter and colander: The trick with sifting? Tape the strainer over the bowl.There were a couple of nice cooking techniques which, once mastered, will let you get rid of single purpose items like a garlic press (just use the flat blade of a wide knife) or a potato masher (make them in your mixer).Got a favourite suggestion for equipment that can do double duty in the kitchen? Please share in comments.
Cooking without crepe pans and other expensive kitchen tools [Wise Bread]
If you own many plastic containers, you’ve probably found that the lids outlast the containers themselves. If you have an excess of lids lying around your house, why not recycle them? How-to website Curbly inspires you to do so with twelve practical uses. Use the lids to scrape the bottom of pot or pans without causing any damage to the surface. If you’re a crafty type, use the lids to hold onto your paint or glitter while you’re doing art projects. Put small plastic lids in your shower underneath your shaving cream to prevent the bottom of the can from creating rust rings on the edge of your bathtub. Place lids on the bottom of houseplants to catch leaks (and to prevent your furniture from staining). Before you store your hamburgers in the freezer, use the lids to separate the chunks of meat so that they’re easy to break apart before they thaw. What other uses do you have for plastic lids? Feel free to share them in the comments.
Top 12 Uses for Plastic Container Lids [Curbly]
