Here’s a confession: I am slightly addicted to hacks. I find them so irresistible.
I have spent sleepless nights collecting them onto my boards. Actually, if you drop by my Pinterest page you’ll see that I have pinned probably hundreds of them: travel, organizing, health, etc. If in the near future you’d see posts about the coolest or weirdest hacks I’ve discovered, I hope you don’t get fed up. Just think, you or someone you know might need them one day so keep reading and sharing!
For this post, I’m sharing some of the best hacks I’ve found, tried and tested. Some of them are from the women in my family while others I got online or in cooking shows.These will not only make things more convenient but would probably save you a lot of time in the kitchen.
Prep like a Pro
Stop weeping over an onion
My aunt taught me this life-changing hack. I used to hate chopping onions but now, it’s nothing to fuss over. Just place the bulbs in the refrigerator for a few hours before cutting them. No more tears!
Nobody Wants A Bad Egg
Ever wondered how to check for a rotten egg without breaking it open? Just put it in a bowl of water and see if it floats. If the egg floats, it’s bad. It’s because of the gas inside that came from bacteria that has penetrated the egg shell.
Serve Ice Cream Just Right
I scream. You scream. We all scream for ice cream because it’s just too hard to scoop out from the tub! I found a trick that will make it way easier to give everybody a scoop (or two) of this yummy dessert. Simply put the tub of ice cream in a clear freezer bag before putting it in the freezer and voila! You’ll just hear them scream for more ice cream!
Portion Your Meat Before Freezing
When I got married, I learned a great way to have just the right portions of ground meat to saute for dishes. In my mother in law’s home, she would make small blocks of ground meat and line them up in a freezer-proof container instead of just shoving the whole half kilo inside. It really comes in handy since most of the dishes we love start by sauteing ground meat. You could also do this to chicken or beef. Cut them and portion them accordingly.
Peel the ginger with a spoon
I don’t know about you but I find peeling a ginger with a knife quite tough. So, when I watched someone peel it with a spoon in a cooking show, I tried it. It worked!
Scoop squash seeds out
We love cooking with squash, especially the kabocha squash ( I just learned this recently). I usually saute it with other veggies while my husband makes it into spinach squash soup. Anyway, it’s a bit tough to get the seeds out so I found out you can use an ice cream scoop and tried it myself. It does make it a whole lot easier than using a spoon or knife. You could also use this for melons!
Don’t let the crust be soggy.. EVER
I hate soggy pizza crust. So when we have some leftover pizza I now know that I have to place a small bowl with water next to it before reheating it in the microwave. This also works well with siopao (steamed buns) I think.
Room temperature butter
A lot of recipes in baking call for soft room temperature butter. Two ways to do this easily and quickly are to either grate the butter or pound the butter with a rolling pin. Personally, I prefer the former unless I have some pent up anger.
Clean in a jiff
Remove unwanted smells from your chopping board
We have wooden chopping boards and they have the tendency to absorb food smells. A quick trick to cleaning them is to rub salt vigorously and leave it for 10 to 15 minutes before rinsing.
Brush, Baby, Brush
We have a lot of tumbler type water bottles at home. We use them for fruit and milk shakes. I find cleaning them quite tedious. Good thing my smart husband bought baby bottle bushes to reach even the bottom part of the bottles. Yes, lucky me!
Do you have any cool kitchen hacks to share? I would love to learn more!
Who doesn’t love kitchen hacks? Well, I even scroll so many pins on Pinterest just to look for hacks that I could do. The egg hack was taught to me by my culinary arts friend. That’s really convenient and knowledgeable since we don’t want to be eating bad food, right?
I love kitchen hacks! Anything that makes it all easier haha. I’m so much chaos always in the kitchen. I love the ice cream hack! It can be difficult to make ice cream. So I’m definitely trying out your tip. I totally agree with the meat portioning. It’s so much easier to do it before freezing. Baby bottle brushes! I need that as well. Thanks I’ll look it up immediately.
wow, truly this is so informative and I rarely read an article like this. I like how you were able to think about all these ideas that could possibly be done in kitchen. I used to stay in the kitchen whenever I get time cause I love to cook. I'll surely do some of your hacks.
Great tips! We also put a small cup of water inside the microwave to avoid soggy pizza. I would love to try the regrigerated onion. No more tears lol
I love kitchen hacks too and I do try them out at home when I have the chance. Thanks for sharing yours.
I learned a lot and my favorite is the ice cream inside the freezer bag. Great hacks! One hack I can share it is that, when you are boiling an egg and you don't want the shell to crack while boiling, put a little amount of vinegar in the water. It will harden the shell so it won't break.
Could always use more hacks! Some I've heard and tried a couple I'd like to test like the ginger and spoon one. One that I use is the portioning of meat. It's really helpful to have it portioned out.
Thanks for sharing these hacks! I should try peeling ginger with a spoon next time! 🙂
I also love hacks/tips which could make life easier haha. I like the simple ones which I can apply at home. Thanks for sharing your kitchen hacks. I have actually seen some of the 10 on your list from other posts too and it really works
I think I developed a high tolerance to cutting onions over the years. It takes a lot of onions before my eyes starts tearing up. LOL! I do the meat portions, too! Saves fridge space. 🙂
Wow! I like the union's idea Madz, I will try that too kasi lagi nalang ako napapaluha heheheh! Almost everyday I cook squash and vegetables na may sabaw because that's my ZD's fave. This tips are very helpful Madz thanks a lot :*
I know the salt-trick to remove unwanted smell in the chopping board though I prefer to rub my board with calamansi. The onion trick doesn't work with me though since we keep our onions inside the fridge. 🙂