Mashed potatoes are one of those seemingly simple dishes that can go wrong in a myriad of ways. Without proper care, they can turn lumpy, gluey and bland. There are, however, steps you can take and pitfalls you can avoid to ensure your mashers come out smooth, velvety and delightfully fluffy.

Poached eggs are the super stars of brunch and the heroes of salads that eat like a meal, but many a home cook is put off by the process of cooking one. If you are skittish about dropping a raw egg into simmering water, relax, it's not as hard as it's cracked up to be.

Dear Lifehacker, I've heard cow's milk is actually bad for you, or at least not beneficial when compared to the many alternative options. But if I shouldn't drink milk, what's the best alternative? Are any of them good? I've heard good and bad things about most, so how do I decide?

Kitchen sinks are usually thought of as something that you clean things in, not something that needs cleaning itself, but organisational guru Marla Cilley - also known as the Fly Lady - swears that a sparkling sink is the key to a happier, more organised kitchen.

I like company. I don't even mind unexpected, last-minute, "hey, I'm in your neighbourhood" company. In fact, if I am home, I am almost always ready to receive guests, but my kitchen is another story. But even if there is a pile of dishes in the sink and a weird smell hovering in the air, I can get it in decent shape in about 10 minutes. Here's how I do it.

Plastic wrap is perhaps the most infuriating, but necessary kitchen item in existence. Though buying the good stuff at a restaurant supply store makes it less infuriating, where you store it can also affect how difficult it is to handle.

There's no need to spend money on packaged salad dressing when making your own, preservative-free version is easy. This handy infographic from Jess Dang at CookSmarts will help you make a variety of dressings.

If you've happened to visit Pinterest in the last five years or so, you have no doubt seen a recipe or 10 for some iteration of three-ingredient, no-knead bread. These recipes are popular for good reason. Not only are these loaves extremely impressive for the amount of work they demand, they are excellent vehicles for any odds and ends you wish to rid your fridge of, from a handful of cheese to lonely fruits and vegetables.

It's no secret that Rick and Morty fans are obsessed with McDonald's "Szechuan Sauce", a limited edition Mcnugget dipping sauce that came out in 1998 to promote the Disney film Mulan. If you want to find out what all the fuss is about, this DIY recipe is pretty damn delicious.

This is not a dream. The top rack of your dishwasher is (probably) adjustable. Whatever height you always left it at, that was only one of multiple options. Go, adjust it. Now you can fit your pans and platters in the bottom rack - or now you can fit tall glasses and crockery in the top rack. You can even remove the top rack entirely. You are Doctor Strange; you are Neo; you are the Inception lady who can draw a maze real fast.

Fat makes food taste good, but greasy food has a way of lingering in the air - and on the dishes - long after a meal has ended. If you're sick of finding oil slicks on dishes you could have sworn were clean, you owe it to yourself to fill a spray bottle with vinegar and keep it near your kitchen sink.

There are many ways to make a sandwich, and many ways to wrap one. But which sandwich swaddling does the best job of keeping your brown-bagged lunch fresh? And does the wrapping material really matter that much?

I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news is that you've been buying hot chocolate mixes unnecessarily, but the good news is that you're going to learn two different methods for making rich, drinkable chocolate for cosy cold days and you're going to do it with stuff you probably already have in your kitchen.

I like to wash dishes. It's one of my few responsibilities that doesn't require any mental effort. You might not like washing dishes. You might try soaking them in a bad-faith act of procrastination. Here's an idea: Pick one of your favourite podcasts, and only listen to it when you wash the dishes.

You wake up in the morning, groggily go to pour some coffee, and that's when the smell hits you. It's robust, wretched, and it's coming from your sink - dirty dishes. The night before you filled some crusty bowls and pans with water under the pretense of cleaning them later on, but you forgot and now you're regretting it. It's time to stop lying to yourself - it's time to stop soaking.

Organic peanut butter is tasty stuff, and it can even be part of a healthy diet as long as you don't eat too much. But when you store it for a while (or in some cases, when you first buy it), the oils separate from the rest of the butter and rise to the top, which requires a vigorous stirring before you can spread the goodness. A quick flip can fix that.

Most of us have a knife block in our kitchen, but not everyone has the knowledge of a master chef. When you need to peel, chop or serate something, it pays to use a knife that was designed for the task at hand. This graphic explains the proper use of the nine main types of kitchen knife, along with a few useful tips.

Magnetic knife holders are a great way to keep your knives at the ready, sure, but they're also useful for keeping other household items organised and easy to grab. (That is, provided they're a good amount of metal in them, such as drill bits or paperclips.) Below, other strategies for putting a magnetic knife strip to use in your bathroom, office, workshop and kitchen.

As a meat-eating human, I always try to eat as much of any given animal as I can, even if that means removing its face from its skull. As such, I'm a big fan of offal-centric applications, particularly the surprisingly cheap and easily-executed chicken liver mousse.