Cooking and Food Prep Tips
To aviod an extremely bad situation, always make sure to keep the pot on the stove's handle in. This prevents walking by and hitting in, therefore spilling.
To chop onions the easy way, start by cutting off the stem end,then peel the skin back to the root, KEEPING THE SKIN ATTACHED. Holding the skin to steady the onion, cut in half nearly to the root end, then at right angles to the first cut, 3 or 4 more cuts nearly to the root end. Next, still holding the root end by the skin, slice finely across the onion from the stem end, the result will be nicely chopped onion. And it takes longer to explain than to do it!
Place a damp paper towel under your cutting board to keep it from moving. Dan,
When cutting an onion, turn on the sink and cut the onion beside the sink. The onion is attracted to the water in your eye and therefore makes your eye burn and tear up, if the sink is running close by, the onion will be attracted to that water instead of the water in your eye.
For a different look to sweet breads like pumpkin bread, Bannana bread, bake in 1 lb coffee cans. grease and flour just like you would for bread pan.
When bread is baking, a small dish of water in the oven will help to keep the crust from getting hard, if you want it soft; but some breads should have a hard crust.
Instead of dried breadcrumbs in meatballs and meatloaf, remove the crust from 2 slices of whole wheat bread and soak in 2/3 cup buttermilk for 10 minutes. Squeeze out excess milk and add to meat. Mighty moist! Another cooking tip - Your meatloaf will not stick to its' pan if you place a strip of bacon at the bottom of the pan before placing your meatloaf in it.
When you have a spoonful or so of vegetables, like beans, peas, corn, rice, etc., leftover after a meal, put in a freezer container or bag in freezer. Use it to make vegetable soup.
I keep a dry mix of 1 part cornstarch and 2 parts flour in a container to use for making gravy. Just scoop out amount needed and mix with cold water. Also,I make my gravy in the microwave,I boil off my drippings from the pan and put it in a 2 cup or 4 cup measure and make in microwave stirring several times.