Kitchen
Quick Tips
- If a soup or stew is too salty, add raw cut potatoes. Discard
them after they have cooked - they will have absorbed the salt.
- If a soup or stew is too sweet, add salt. If a main dish or
vegetable is too sweet, add a teaspoon of cider vinegar.
- Can't remember if an egg is fresh or hard boiled? Just spin
the egg. If it wobbles, it's raw. If it spins easily, it's hard
boiled.
- A fresh egg will sink in water, a stale one will float. An egg
white is easiest to beat at room temperature. Take the egg out
of the refrigerator about 1/2 hour before using. For light, fluffy
scrambled eggs, add a little water while beating the eggs. Add
vinegar to the water when boiling eggs. The vinegar helps seal
the egg.
- To avoid 'onion eyes' peel under cold water or refrigerate (or
freeze) before chopping.
- To perk up soggy lettuce, add lemon juice to a bowl of cold
water and soak lettuce for an hour in the refrigerator. When cooking
carrots, peas, beets or corn, add a small amount of sugar to the
water to keep the flavor. To keep sweet corn yellow, add one teaspoon
of lemon juice to the cooking water just about a minute before
taking off the stove. Never salt the water you cook corn in. It
will only toughen the corn.
- Store celery and lettuce in paper bags, not plastic. And leave
the outside leaves and stalks alone until ready to use.
- Sunlight doesn't ripen tomatoes, warmth does. Store tomatoes
with stems pointed down and they will stay fresher, longer.
- Meat loaf will not stick if you place a slice of bacon on the
bottom of the pan.
- To soften rock-hard brown sugar, simply add a slice of soft
bread to the package and close the bag tightly. In a few hours
the sugar will be soft again.
- Place green fruits in a perforated plastic bag. The holes will
allow air to circulate while retaining the ethylene gas that fruits
produce during ripening.
- Remove fat from soups and stews by dropping ice cubes into the
pot. The fat will cling to the cubes as you stir. Take out the
cubes before they melt. Or you can also wrap the ice cubes in
cheesecloth or paper towel and skim over the top of the pot. Fat
also cling to lettuce leaves.
- Poke a hole in the middle of the hamburger patties while shaping
them. The burgers will cook faster and the holes will disappear
when done.
- For fluffier, whiter rice, add one teaspoon of lemon juice per
liter (quart) of water. To add extra flavor and nutrition to rice,
cook it in liquid reserved from cooking vegetables.
- Marshmallows won't dry out when frozen.
- If your stew is slightly burnt, milk will take the burnt taste
out.
- The best way to thaw fish is in milk. The milk draws out the
frozen taste and gives the fish a fresh flavor.
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