When seasoning a salad, use coarse sea salt mixed with a little olive oil. It will stay crunchy when combined with the vinaigrette.

Make your tomatoes last longer! Store tomatoes stem end down to keep them from spoiling as quickly. This prevents air from entering and moisture from exiting the scar where the tomato once attached to the vine. Storing them at room temperature rather than in the fridge also makes them last longer.

Bring new life to wooden spoons. When wooden spoons don’t exactly look (or smell) like they used to, boil them in a pot of water and leave them lying in the sun to dry.

Avoid messy stains and get at a pomegranate’s arils faster by slicing it in half, then submerging it in a bowl of water. The seeds will sink while the pith floats, making them easy to separate.

Pit stone fruits with a twist! Cut stone fruits, such as plums and nectarines, into two equal halves, then twist the halves in opposite directions. Use your thumb to pop out the pit (if your thumb doesn’t do the job, gently pry it out with a butter knife, or cut the fruit into quarters for […]

Ditch any product that has one of these! Artificial Colors – These are chemical compounds made from coal-tar derivatives. They can cause allergic reactions, skin rashes and headaches. Artificial Flavors – Pure chemistry. Have been linked to allergic reactions, asthma, hyperactivity and more. Benzoate Preservatives – These chemicals work to prevents fats from becoming rancid. […]

To cut avocado more easily, slice it while it’s still in the skin. Not using the whole thing? Leave the pit in the remaining avocado to prevent browning.

Buy brown sugar as you need it, in as small a quantity as possible. The stuff just doesn’t keep very long. But if your brown sugar is rock-hard, don’t throw it out. Revive it with a minute or so in the microwave.

Hull strawberries! Use a straw to hull strawberries. Press a straw through the bottom of a strawberry until it breaks through the top and takes the hull—the white part of the center of the berry—with it. Remove any remaining leaves with your fingers.

Freshen stuffed animals! In between baths (through the washing machine, of course), groom your kids plush pals by giving them a quick once-over with a lint roller.

For best results when you’re baking, leave butter and eggs at room temperature overnight. When at room temperature, eggs, butter, and other dairy ingredients form an emulsion which traps air. While baking in the oven, that trapped air expands and produces a fluffy baked good.

Toast your grains and nuts. It’s the first step to building roasty, warm flavor. Using quinoa? Toast it before you rinse it. Using almonds? Toast it for more crunchiness!

  Create mini taco bowls for perfect lunch time meal. These are great make ahead lunches on the weekend. Prep 101 #1 : Use Chicken or ground beef (1 pound boneless/skinless chicken sliced thin or beef) and saute in 1 – 2 Tablespoons Do You Bake? Fiesta Seasoning and a teaspoon of vegetable oil or […]

We use oil and butter almost everyday of our lives and cooking or sauteing without it, you think is a little bit tricky. Oil has 120 calories per tablespoon and is 100% fat. When sauteing vegetables for a crispy, flavorful, and less fattening result simply replace the oil you normally use with water or vegetable […]

Make a Holiday schedule! Plan a cooking schedule for yourself. Take note of dishes that can be made a day or two ahead, those that can be frozen, and those that need to be cooked at the last minute.

De-kernel a cob of corn without your teeth! Use a bundt pan to slice corn kernels off the cob. Place the pointy end of the cob on the center hole of the pan (with the open part of the pan facing up) and gently slice downward. The pan acts double duty as both a stand […]

If you need to use boiled eggs the next day, and you are thinking of keeping them already boiled in the refrigerator, you need to read this first! Always peel hard-boiled eggs when they’re freshly cooked.If you refrigerate them with the shell and then you try to remove it, they are almost impossible to peel!

Don’t let your salt harden! Put rice in your saltshaker to stop the salt from hardening. The rice absorbs condensation that can cause clumps.

Read the recipe thoroughly, and then wing it. Use your senses—taste, touch, smell—pay attention, and play with the ingredients. You might make a few mistakes, but you’ll learn so much more.

Air dry your chickens. After you’ve unwrapped and rinsed your bird, pat it dry, salt it generously, and let it stand in the refrigerator, uncovered, for a few hours before roasting. The bone-dry skin will cook up to a crackly, crunchy, golden brown.

We’ve all been there. You go to start a recipe for your favorite chili or bean soup or from-scratch hummus and then it hits you: you forgot to soak the beans! Of course you can reach for canned beans at this point, but if freshly cooked beans are what you really want, then this tip […]

For better-tasting asparagus, cure the stalks: Peel them, roll in equal parts sugar and salt, and let them sit for 10 minutes, then rinse off and prepare as desired.

Do you live by the 3 or 5 second rule? You know what I mean! … If you drop something on the floor … you pick it up fast and yell “Five second rule” and pop that bad boy in your mouth! Haha – it makes me laugh thinking about it because I know I”ve […]

When chopping herbs, toss a little salt onto the cutting board; it will keep the herbs from flying around.