Not everything is about cooking! Here is a tip for the laundry day! Clean out your washing machine and remove soap residue by running an empty cycle with a cup of white vinegar.

When baking cookies, be sure your dough is thoroughly chilled when it goes on your baking pan. This will allow the leavening ingredients to work before the butter flattens out and your cookies lose their textural distinctions.

Doing any kind of preserving means a lot of time at the cutting board but even if you’re just prepping dinner, a cutting board that slips around as you chop is risky business! Put a wet towel or paper towel under your cutting board to prevent it from sliding while using it.

Dry your salad greens using a kitchen towel. Salad spinners? So bulky and annoying. Instead, pile your just-washed greens into a clean dish towel, gather it by the ends, and swing that sucker around until your salad is dry (or your arm is tired).

During the fall and winter season we often find ourselves making, creating and cooking delicious meals that involve YUMMY homemade sauces. More often than not, we have a bunch of sauce leftovers and we just hate to throw them away.  Ice cube trays are perfect for freezing small sauce portions for later use. Use different […]

Oil-salt-roast- in that order! When roasting vegetables, toss them in oil, then season them with salt and pepper and toss again. This way, the seasoning actually sticks to your food.

Cut brownies without the crumbs! There’s nothing worse than pulling out a pan of perfect-smelling brownies only to destroy the entire pan when it comes time to slice. For perfectly square, clean-cut brownies (or other bars) grease a baking pan, line it with two strips of parchment (one from left to right, one from front […]

When grilling flank or skirt steak, marinate it for 10 minutes after cooking instead of before. It adds amazing, full flavor in a tenth of the time.

Shoes off, music on, favorite beverage in hand — enjoy your time in the kitchen.

De-funk hairbrushes and combs. Combat build-up from hair products with a sudsy solution of a few drops of dish soap mixed with warm water.

Clean your microwave easily. Clean a crusty microwave with a soaked sponge (and sanitize a sponge this same way). Soak a sponge in water and cook in microwave for one minute. Careful, it will be too hot to handle with bare hands. The moisture will loosen grime on your microwave and make it easier to […]

Use drawer inserts. One of the problems with keeping a kitchen drawer organized is the ineffective use of space. Too many times people just throw all the kitchen utensils and tools in haphazardly. Use drawer inserts to make it easy to sort utensils, cooking tools and more, allowing each to be more accessible.

Cool your food before putting in the fridge or freezer. If you don’t, the temperature in the refrigerator will rise. And the only thing that benefits is mold.

  Enjoy scrambled eggs on a busy weekday schedule by baking them into muffin tins. A perfect portable week day solution.

When making meatballs or meatloaf, you need to know how the mixture tastes before you cook it. Make a little patty and fry it in a pan like a mini hamburger. Then you can taste it and adjust the seasoning.

Cool down coffee without diluting it. Fill an ice cube tray with leftover coffee (cooled to room temp) and let the cubes set in the freezer. You can even customize the cubes by adding milk and sweetener.

When you grill, pull your steaks out of the refrigerator one hour ahead of time so they can come to room temperature.

There’s no need to purchase a special polish for stainless steel, aluminum and chrome! Remove stains off stainless steel by rubbing lemon on it or soaking in lemon juice. For extra cleaning power, mix lemon juice with either salt and baking soda!

Separate yolks from whites easily! Separate eggs by gently squeezing a plastic water bottle over a cracked egg. When the bottle re-inflates with air, it will scoop the yolk right up.

Make eggshell removal even easier! Add baking soda or vinegar to water when boiling eggs for easier shell removal. Both substances permeate the eggshells and help the albumen (that’s fancy speak for egg whites) separate from the shell.

                                    Grate your own block of cheese to save money! Not only does this trick help the pocket book, but grated cheese at home tastes better and has better texture.  Often most grated cheese you purchase in the […]

Hang pots and pans from the ceiling! Give yourself more cabinet space by hanging pots, pans, and even cooking utensils from the ceiling. As a bonus, get yourself an attractive overhead rack and if you have a decent set of cookware, you’ll end up with a funky, stylish decoration for the kitchen.

Mark your calendar for bedding cleaning. You only need to clean pillows and comforters 2 or 3 times a year. An easy reminder: Wash them when the seasons change.

Create a perfect holiday centerpiece with odds and ends around the house and fresh flowers. Holiday Nuts This is the time of year when you can find so many varieties of whole (in the shell) nuts. Using different shapes and sizes you can turn ordinary into extra ordinary. Fill glass vases or dishes with nuts, […]