Kitchen tips and tricks

There are numerous little things I've picked up that make life easier and wish I knew of earlier....


• Rubberbands on jars to indicate type. I use yellow for fish broth, blue for chicken broth, and red for beef. I always have lots of rubberbands leftover from buying vegetables. We also use rubber bands to mark kombucha bottles for different flavors.




• Cloth around herbs (or paper towels) with or without bag. Instead of going brown, the herbs will just gradually dry. Watch to make sure that the cloth doesn't become too wet.

 
• Tipping jars at 45 degree angle to prevent glass breaking in freezer

• Peel multiple bulbs of garlic, run through processor, and freeze in ice cube trays for convenient garlic. Also can do with herbs,  bone paste, liver paste, etc.

• Didn't chop things beforehand? Grab a kitchen shears and chop up while in the pot or bowl. Great for salads, frozen green beans, etc.

• Chop the entire head of lettuce or celery or bag of carrots, etc. Put what you don't need for today's meal in a container for tomorrow's. 

• Ziplock bag with holes in it? Store bones and vegetable peelings in there until you are ready to make more broth.

• Rock-hard ice cream turns perfectly scoopable when left in the fridge for a few hours.

• When using the cutting board for many vegetables, do drier items first, then do wet/sticky veggies. And use both sides of the cutting board.

• Those cheap timers they sell for lights work great to turn off crock pots, dehydrators, etc. that didn't come with a timer :)

•When freezing the cheese you shredded, close the bag with lots of air in it, and shake up to loosen the cheese. Freeze in that fashion. After fully frozen, you can squeeze the air out and not have a big frozen clump!

• Looking out for rotten eggs - I've had pretty few, but often I can tell before they go in the bowl because they crack differently than the others in a carton. The thinner shell and/or membrane gives much more easily; and also doesn't protect the egg and it rots.

•Measure your spices in the lid of the spice container. Learn what a tsp looks like inside the lid, and then you can save yourself from always grabbing the spoons.

What tricks have you found?