Kitchen Tips and Helps

To grease your pans, and save money at the same time, simply save your butter wrappers in a baggie, and then use them to grease your pans when you’re ready!

A good way to use up the last drops of honey in the container is to add a cup of boiling water to the jar. Then add your favorite tea bag, let it steep, and treat yourself to a relaxing tea break!

Freeze clusters of grapes to float in punches. They keep the punch cold and add a lovely garnish as well.

To keep cheese longer in the refrigerator, moisten a paper towel with a bit of cider vinegar and wrap it around your cheese; then place the wrapped cheese in a plastic bag and seal. The acid in the vinegar will keep mold away. If the paper towel dries out, moisten it with a bit of water-vinegar solution.

Ricotta and cottage cheeses will store longer in the refrigerator once they’ve been opened if you turn the reclosed container upside down, thereby forcing some of the air out of the container. You can get the same results by taking the cheese out of its original container and storing it in a smaller glass jar.

If you find that the difference in price between large and small eggs is 8 cents or less per dozen, the larger eggs are the better buy.

You don't have to throw away the cracked raw eggs you find in the carton; use them, but only for egg dishes that are thoroughly cooked, such as hard-cooked eggs, or in baked goods.

You can tell whether eggs are fresh or not by placing them in a deep pan of water. Any floaters should be thrown away. If you've cooked some eggs, and are not sure if they're done, simply take one out and spin it. If it spins quickly, it's done, if it spins slowly and then stops; it's raw or needs more time.

When you need to store raw eggs without the help of a refrigerator, such as during a camping trip, coat the eggs with shortening. It will help to preserve them longer by sealing out air.

An egg poacher or fried egg mold can be made by removing the top and bottom of a clean tuna can.

Get more volume from beaten eggs by letting them stand at room temperature for about an hour before you beat them.

If you have the patience, a slow but easy way to separate eggs is to beat them one at a time into a small funnel over a cup. The white will pass through into the cup, and the yolk will be left behind in the funnel.

Here are some great tips on fruit I thought you'd enjoy....

Extra bananas? You can freeze them either peeled or unpeeled, cut into chunks, or mashed, depending on what you plan to do with them.

Here's a great use for ripe bananas: Slice the fruit, place the slices on a baking sheet, and freeze them until firm. Roll each slice in honey and then in your favorite topping, such as chopped nuts, coconut, or crushed rice puffs. Return them to the freezer and when frozen solid, put them into plastic bags and seal. These make wonderful frozen candy snacks.

Pureed bananas can be used in breads and cakes. Overripe bananas--too ripe to eat raw-are particularly good because they're so sweet.

Grapes
Frozen grapes make a fine natural snack; just lay them out on a baking sheet in the freezer so that they freeze separately, and then bag them for snacking later.

Lemons and Limes
You will get almost twice the amount of juice out of a lemon or lime if you drop it into hot water for a few minutes before you squeeze it. Heating the fruit breaks down the inner membranes so that they release more juice. Or instead of heating the fruit, try rolling it on a hard surface to break down those membranes.
If you want just a few drops of lemon juice, poke a hole in one end of the fruit with a toothpick. Squeeze the desired amount from the hole, replace the toothpick, and store the lemon in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for future use.

Grating
Grate your citrus rind over wax paper or foil to make pouring it into a measuring cup or mixing bowl easy.
Use a pastry brush to remove the citrus rind that is stuck in the holes of the grater.

Pineapple
They may be messy and prickly, but pineapple trimmings can make great pineapple juice. Pineapple processing plants use this trick all the time. Put it the trimmings and even the core into a blender with just enough water for processing and grind them up; then strain the juice through a very fine sieve or cheesecloth-line strainer and serve it up chilled. Fresh pineapple juice will ferment quickly, so drink it immediately.

Every pineapple top is a houseplant ready to happen. Twist it off with a circular motion so that you leave no fruit on the stem, and then remove 10-15 of the small, bottom leaves from the stem. You'll see little brown or skittish roots already tin place to grow. Put the stem in water about 1 inch deep, and leave it ion a warm windowsill for a couple of weeks, after which time you should have roots. Then you can plant it in a pot or in your garden if you live in a warm, frost-free part of the country. Being a bromeliad, the pineapple appreciates water poured into its crown as well as on its roots.

To keep pineapple fresh longer, cut slices from the bottom as you need them, leaving the green top growth intact. Wrap the unused portion, with the top growth attached, in plastic wrap.

Watermelon
Got a surplus of watermelon? Scoop the pulp from the rind, removing the seeds as you go. Then run it through a food mill or blender, or mash it with a potato masher. Freeze the smooth pulp in ice cube trays, and you've got wonderful natural fruit pops.

Fruit Miscellany
Don't discard the rind of lemons, grapefruit, or oranges. It makes excellent flavorings for
Cakes, frostings, and such. Wash it well and grate, being careful not to include the bitter white part under the rind. Put it in a tightly covered glass jar, and store in the refrigerator.

Leftover apple, orange, or lemon rind can be put into your tea as it's steeping to add a wonderful flavor and aroma--just like the fancy gourmet tea blends.
For a quick dessert, an unsweetened can of fruit can be opened and frozen. When ready to serve, put the frozen fruit in a blender or food processor and spoon it into stemmed glasses. Top it with chopped nuts. You can make another easy, light dessert by freezing fresh fruit, like kiwi fruit or melon, and then shaving it into small chilled bowls

To freeze peaches and other fruits without sugar, use orange juice instead of the traditional sugar syrup. Slice the fruit into thawed orange juice concentrate, making sure the slices are thoroughly coated to keep them from darkening. Two large cans of concentrate will easily do for a crate of peaches.

A coating of lemon, orange, or pineapple juice will keep cut fruits from browning.

There's really no need to rehydrated dried fruit before you add it to a recipe, because even the hardest dried raisins or prunes will become soft and moist when cooked in recipes that contain plenty of liquid, like custards, puddings, stuffings, and moist tea breads.

There are several fresh fruits that, when included in a gelatin dessert of salad, will prevent the gelatin from firming up. They are pineapple, figs, papaya, and kiwi fruit. Save them for other uses.

Small berries, such as huckleberries, can be cleaned by gently rolling them back and forth with you hand across a dry terrycloth towel placed on the counter. They will come clean and as a bonus, they will have lost their little stems, which are so tedious to remove by hand.

To keep your homemade ice cream from crystallizing, add one envelope of gelatin for every 1 1/2 quarts of liquid in the recipe. Just heat some of the liquid and dissolve the gelatin in it; then add to the other ingredients.

You can have "sour cream": on your baked potatoes without the extra calories by using cottage cheese instead. Run it through a blender or food processor to smooth it out, and flavor it with chives. Plain yogurt is a good sour cream substitute, as well and it comes smooth right from the container!

To keep apple skins from cracking while they bake, pare a 1-inch band around each apple's center.

An avocado will ripen faster if placed in a plastic bag with a piece of banana peel.

To keep refrigerated avocado dip or half a sliced avocado from turning dark quickly, place the avocado pit in the center and wrap to form an airtight seal.

If you bring home a big bunch of bananas that you now you'll be separating and using singly, separate them right away by cutting off the "knob" that joins them all together. Make sure that you cut them so that a 1-inch tip is left on each. This tip will dry up and seal itself in a day or two. Then when you are ready to use the bananas, you won't have to bother breaking off one at a time, which can often result in splitting the top skin of several and exposing the open parts to bacteria!
So go bananas over all these tips and tricks, and join me again soon for some more ideas in the kitchen!

Grind up puffed rice and use it instead of sugar to sprinkle on cookies or pastries or try a light sprinkling of ground almonds.

If you have no wire racks on which to cool cookies, or not enough of them when making large batches, cool cookies on cotton dish towels or on a large cotton tablecloth folded in half.

A piece of bread or apple in the cookie jar keeps soft cookies from hardening.

For a flaky pie crust, use sour cream or yogurt for the liquid.

To add flavor to apple pie, sprinkle a cup of coconut over the apples before covering them with the top crust.

When measuring oil and honey for a recipe, measure the oil first so that it coats the spoon or cup, making the honey that's measured next slide out easily. When you're baking with oil and eggs, crack your eggs in a measuring cup first and then pour them into your mixing bowl. The eggs will coat the measuring cup so that when you measure the oil it will slide out easily, leaving no oil behind in the cup.

Dust buttered pans with cocoa powder instead of flour to keep dark cakes brown and beautiful.

Parchment paper can be used to line baking pans so that you don't need to oil or butter the pans. This saves calories and also saves cleanup.

To make a whole wheat bread rise higher and feel lighter, add 1 tbsp. of lemon juice to the dough as you're mixing it. This will add lightness but will not influence the taste.

To make sweetener-free bread, omit all honey and sugar from the recipe and add 1 tsp. of malt for every tablespoon of yeast called for. The malt provides the food that enables the yeast to grow.

Keep a plastic bag nearby when you're kneading bread or making pastry or pasta. When when the phone rings or you have to reach for a clean bowl, you can slip the bag over your messy hand and not spread the flour around the kitchen.

Lightly oil the dough hook on your Bosch before kneading your bread. The oil will keep the dough from "climbing" and will make cleaning up easier.

There's no need to go out and buy a fancy baking tile to produce a crisp bottom on your pizza or French bread. An unglazed terra-cotta tile purchased from flooring or tile store can just as easily substitute.

To keep pie shells from becoming soggy; sprinkle the bottom of a raw pie shell with instant tapioca before adding the filling. This will keep the crust from going soggy and help the filling to be thicker also.