BWW Cooks: Food Hacks For The Win

Of all the "life hacks" offered these days, the kitchen ones are the most frequently useful. Secret knowledge of ways to use vinegar in your laundry, fifty non-food uses of baking soda, and how to make sure your hotel room is really clean are interesting but not always useful, but kitchen hacks are - you do cook, right? Hacks can improve efficiency, relieve stress, and generally make things easier for you.

Most of the kitchen hacks are basics you should already know, but they're easy to forget. We'll toss a few of them around today.

Bottled salad dressing. To a true foodie, this is tantamount to death. To most cooks, however, it's nothing short of a miracle if you exploit it for all its uses. The secret isn't so secret: always buy the best brands possible. Cheap salad dressings, especially artificially-flavored creamy ones, are vicious. Nothing will ever, in fact, replace freshly prepared Caesar salad, which is dressed as it's made. But bottled Italian and Greek dressings are lifesavers, and cost savers as well. Even the cheap ones work well as marinades, especially for chicken. You can baste with Italian dressing, dress green vegetables lightly with it, and, of course, use it for pasta salads. Greek dressing is phenomenal on pasta with sliced olives, roasted red peppers, and crumbled feta as a Greek-themed pasta salad. French dressing, an American invention unknown in France, is at its best when dark and tart - think Kraft Catalina or Milani 1890 (neither a French name). It can marinate pounded skirt steak or chicken, as well as dress fruits if used lightly, producing a pork or ham side similar to mustard fruits. The higher-end vinaigrettes are indispensable; use the raspberry vinaigrette on fruits and on salads with fruit in them.

Ice cube trays. If you're an iced tea or iced coffee drinker, these are indispensable, as both can be made into ice cubes and saved in bags. Ordinary ice will dilute the flavor of the iced beverage, but using frozen tea or coffee in the drink will maintain its strength. Better yet, in hot weather, you can freeze wine cubes the same way to keep your wine chilled. Broths and stocks can be saved as cubes and frozen. If you've needed extra egg yolks in a recipe, you can freeze the whites in ice cube trays. You can freeze some chopped herbs in just enough water, stock, or even oil to form the ice cube around them. Bought too much cream for a recipe you cooked? Freeze it. And here's a fun hack: Skip the little cups for your Jello shooters - make them in an ice cube tray instead. There are also recipes for mini desserts, even mini cheesecakes and peanut butter cups, that can be made in ice cube trays.

Frozen onions. Hate to chop? Have to cook, but have to go out afterwards? (The lemon juice hack doesn't work perfectly; you'll still have onion on your hands.) Solution: frozen chopped onions, or, if you absolutely need fresh chopped onion, as in a salad, produce sections at supermarkets now carry fresh chopped onion, white and red alike. Yes, you're paying for convenience. It may be worth it to you. If you don't mind chopping occasionally, and if you don't want to pay for the convenience, you can chop several onions at once and freeze them at home in a large storage bag; just use what you need for each recipe you cook. Other items can be treated the same way - chopped herbs freeze well, and not always in the ice cube tray.

Grilled or caramelized onions can be frozen in small storage tubs... or in ice cube trays.

Waffle irons. They really can make everything, including shredded hash browns. If you haven't discovered the hundreds of recipes you can make in a waffle iron, check them out immediately. Yes, there's a reason or several not to throw out that wedding present, even if you live on rush frozen waffles on weekday mornings and go out to brunch late on Sundays. The waffle iron is the new "in" gadget. Don't run out for one if you don't have one... but don't waste the one you have when there are so many fun and imaginative... and easy... recipes for them. There are even recipes for caramel and cinnamon "waffles" made with refrigerator biscuits - if you find them nowhere else, Pillsbury has several recipes on their web site. Depending on how you like them done, you can even cook eggs in a waffle iron.

If you've given up on the lemon juice hack for your hands after working with onions or garlic, or for fish, here's an odd one that may work better for you: rub your hands over a stainless steel pot. It's alleged that in the case of garlic and onions, the molecules in the steel bond with the sulfur molecules on your hands that cause the odor, and remove it. Now, it does transfer the odor to the steel... so if you try it, be leery. Good luck!

Photo Credits: Dreamstime

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