These tips can help improve your cooking skills by teaching you new techniques, flavor combinations, cooking methods, and help reducing food waste.
1. Tomatoes cut vertically instead of horizontally tend to bleed less.
2. Sprinkle lettuce for salad with lemon juice while crisping in the refrigerator.
3. Keep simple syrup on hand for making mixed drinks, flavoring iced tea or coffee. It's more economical and makes a better blend with vegetables too. Use about equal parts sugar and water until sugar dissolves into a smooth liquid.
4. Add 1 teaspoon butter and 1 tablespoon cocoa to an 8-cup coffee brew for a delicious Dutch variation.
5. Use yogurt or buttermilk instead of oil or sour cream for salad dressing. It's delicious and good if you're on a diet.
6. Keep a ready-to-use shaker of sugar and cinnamon on hand for cookie, coffeecake and toast toppings. Try a little instant coffee in the mix for a change.
7. Toast cold rice cereal for quick croutons. Use with soups or tossed into green salad.
8. Add 1 tablespoon oil or butter to rice before boiling. It makes grains separate and glossy and rice will never stick to the pot.
9. Don't be caught without stock on hand. It's a fine seasoning for soups, sauces, gravies etc. Keep vegetable discards frozen until you have about a gallon. (celery tops and bottoms, ends of green beans, pea pods, carrot skins, parsley stems, bits of onion etc.) Save your bones from meats in the freezer too. Bake the bones and combine both in a stock-pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and lower heat to a low simmer. Cook for about 2-4 hours until liquid has reduced and takes on a slight color. Strain and store in the refrigerator or freezer. If you don't want meat as part of your stock don't include it.
10. To any basic recipe for dumplings to be served with meat or chicken, add any of the following for added interest: 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley; 2 tablespoons grated cheese; 1/2 teaspoon raw onion, 3 tablespoons minced parsley and green sweet pepper. To keep dumplings light and fluffy as they should be, always cook them in a covered pot and never lift the lid.
11. Use drawn butter for sauteing veal or chicken, also as a sauce for asparagus, cauliflower and fresh peas. Gently melt butter in vessel that is deeper than it is wide. Skim off the foam that rises to the top, then pour the melted fluid off slowly leaving the whitish or cloudy substance in the pan. The clear liquid is the drawn butter and has a flavor that is delicious and different from regular butter.
12. For lighter, crisper cookies; Drop cookie dough in teaspoon-size bits about 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet. Press down gently with the bottom of a drinking glass which has been covered with a cloth dampened in cold water.
13. Think of food coloring. The tiniest bit of red added to chocolate puddings or icings makes a righer brighter brown. Yellow added to white sauces makes them more attractive and looks as if egg yolks have been added.
14. Use frozen fruit juice ice cubes for punches and cold drinks, so that the flavor will not become diluted. Apple juice is one of the best because of it's clearness, and it's ability to blend with other flavors.
15. For the most delicious iced coffee try this: freeze extra strong coffee in ice-cube trays. Fill tall glasses with frozen coffee cubes then pour warm milk over them and add a tablespoon whipped cream.
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