These Kitchen Tips Will Have You Cut Costs And Save Time

Even people who love to cook can find it tiring, especially if you have to cook on a daily basis for a whole family. Still, unless you can afford to eat at expensive organic salad bars on a daily basis, nothing is better than freshly made, home cooked food when it comes to your health, and cooking at home is a great way to eat delicious food that is good for you without breaking the bank.

Cooking can also be a source of pride in addition to being a fun and creative outlet for you. That’s why it is so important to know all of the tips, tricks, and hacks that will keep you from losing your mind in the kitchen. Read on for four of these tips, which will save you plenty of time and also help you keep your bills down.

Skin Potatoes With This Easy Trick

Is there any ingredient as versatile as the potato? It can be tossed into many dishes with ease, and it can also be had on its own in a plethora of ways. It is a great way to bulk up a meal and make it more filling, substantial, and delicious, and they are typically easy to cook. The one pain, though, is peeling them. 

However, once you learn the potato’s secrets, you will find out that what was once a chore is now easy as pie (well, if only pie were actually easy, but that’s another story). Just boil the potatoes and you will see that the skin will peel off practically on their own. You don’t even need to touch them, you can just use a fork, which will come in handy because you don’t want your hands to have to touch that hot potato. From then on, they are ready to go for you to bake them, mash them, fry them, or do whatever you want.

Shake Garlic Cloves In A Jar For Easy Peeling

The best flavor bomb you can give your food is a heavy dose of garlic, but it’s too bad that they are so frustrating to peel. Doing a few garlic cloves on your own is fine, but if a recipe calls for a sizable amount of garlic, you’re going to be spending way too much time in the kitchen getting the smell of garlic on the insides of your fingernails.

Thankfully, there’s a good way to make the garlic peeling process easier, and it is one that you never would have guessed. Put your desired amount of garlic cloves into a mason jar, put the lid on, and then shake the jar with all of your might. You will find that as the cloves bump around the jar, the skins will come off on their own. You will never make spaghetti aglio e olio the same way again!

Cut Onions Without Getting Teary-Eyed

Next to garlic, onion is the ultimate all natural flavor enhancer for your food. Of course, good things make you work for them, often with some amount of blood, sweat, and/or tears, and in the case of onions, it is the tears that really come out. While a few minutes of crying during the onion cutting process is something that most chefs have come to accept over the years, we are here to tell you that there is another way.

There are many pseudo scientific methods that people use to prevent or reduce the world famous onion tears, such as putting cucumbers over your eyes while cutting (which doesn’t sound especially safe) or spreading your arms out to cut at a distance. We have a solution that is simpler, safer, and more effective than the above methods. Are you ready? All you have to do is wear goggles. Yes, it’s that simple. If only you had thought about this before, right?

Save Your Pasta Water

Italian grannies are an endless resource of cooking tips, and if only we could somehow impart all of their knowledge we would also be able to effortlessly cook up spectacular feasts that would put even the best restaurants to shame. While it would take years of close study to absorb all of their cultural culinary knowledge, there is one trick you can easily apply to give your pastas an extra dose of deliciousness.

When you cook your pasta, don’t toss out the water, as the water, which will have absorbed some of the starch from the pasta, will come in handy. When you mix the pasta with the sauce, adding a splash of the water will make the pasta and sauce stick together better, and give it a wonderful creaminess as well. Master this trick, and you will have reached step one of one thousand of becoming a pasta granny.