Hello friends! I have an assortment of kitchen tips to share with you all, the formatting may be wierd but this is me trying to keep it organized. Discuss, share your own tips, and keep poasting to help make Hexbear healthy and strong.
- Coconut Oil Cubes
Most ice cube trays have slots that measure around one tablespoon in volume. Since coconut oil is profoundly annoying to measure I will melt it down and pour into an ice cube tray and store the cubes in a container in the fridge. You can do half tablespoon or teaspoon sized portions too but that calls for actually measuring.
- Keep Frozen Bottles of Water Around
I keep about a dozen bottles of water in my freezer since it makes the appliance more efficient and helps keep things colder, longer when the power goes out. They used to be refilled 1 or 2 liter sized soda bottles but Ive since switched to those half liter bottles of drinking water for utilities sake. They make decent impromptu ice packs too.
- Frozen Water Bottle Iced Coffee Trick
When I want iced coffee I'll pour it hot into a very large cup (I use a protein shaker bottle thing) and then place one of my many frozen water bottles inside of that and place it in the freezer. This cools previously hot coffee down to at least room temperature in 3-5 minutes without watering it down.
- Soy Curl Laundry Bag Trick
Soy Curls have a wierd aftertaste if you don't squeeze them out after hydrating but I don't like doing that barehanded or wasting cheese cloth so I rehydrate them in a small mesh laundry bag after sifting out the dust in a colander. This way I can just pull the bag out and squeeze when its done. I wash the bag after every use with the rest of the laundry but will give it a rinse before using in order to take care of any lint. Pic related, its the kind of bag I'm talking about.
- Buy Big Size, Use From Little Container
Buying seasonings in bulk and then decanting into spice bottles saves a lot of money and reduces waste. Use a wide-mouth funnel for this. Same goes for soy sauce, I have one of those resturant-style pour bottles and I refill it from half-gallon jugs, the difference in price by volume is astronomical.
- Miscellaneous Other Tips
I keep a hot sauce bottle filled with water next to my stove. Its really good for dispensing a splash of water when doing that in-pan steaming thing or deglazing.
Having multiple sets of measuring spoons is really useful, helps avoid "cross contaminating" spices or measuring powders after liquids. Its also nice if youre being lazy about doing the dishes.
Baking powder expires and it expires for real.
Couple cheapass tricks from me:
Water baths are not just the smoothest way to warm something up, but often the fastest way to cool something down. If you want to cool something you just cooked in the pan, put the pan in a bigger pan with some water in it. The heat will shift to the water and then you can use that water for cleaning instead of getting hot water from the tap.
Having a few pitas or slices of bread around is useful for when there's leftover fat in your pan. Soak it up in some toast for an appetizer. If the bread goes stale, that's nothing less than a source of breadcrumbs, or croutons or bread pudding or numerous other stale bread-based concoctions.
Many seeds (like from gutted pumpkins) can be roasted and eaten, if you find them too coarse as-is then you can blend them up with salt and garlic (or any spice you prefer) and make a variant of gomashio.
Have a designated bag that you crush brittle things in so they don't end up as crumbs all over your kitchen.
Something about to go bad, and you don't have a use to put it to yet? Just submerge it in brine about half the salinity of seawater, it will last longer and you will have something pickled at the end.
Leftover liquid from sauteing things, or from cooking pasta and rice and beans, deglazes, food scraps, rinses from jars to get the last little bit out, and brine from pickling* can all go into a broth for easy use.
*The exception is if you have done the previous trick with meat, pitch that brine after use.
Use one of those big gallon-size coffee containers with plastic snap-on lids for composting, to keep all the potentially smelly things out of your trash. To stop food buildup from sticking to it, tear up a paper bag and line the insides with it. The paper will give you a head start on balancing out the C:N ratio of your compost pile.
Build your own insulated cooker, it's a fun craft. Especially during the summer, you can cook stuff like soups in it without heating up your kitchen quite so much.
Leftover glass jar? That's a cup. Leftover rigid plastic container with a lid? That's a refrigerator dish.