Food Hacks: Page 17

Do you want to learn how to cut a pineapple the quick and easy way. This video will show you how easy this is to do.

One of the great joys of cooking is taking the most basic of foods and preparing them in new and exciting ways. About two years ago, my wife opened my eyes to a delicious staple of Indian and Moroccan cuisine that is made in a very elementary way, the preserved lemon.

If you're anything like me, you probably think it's borderline sacrilege to even think about a sandwich or a burger that doesn't have a layer of smooth mayonnaise. But I don't just keep a jar of it in my fridge for lunch—it's also there for practical purposes.

Ah, the art of the April Fool's Day prank. It has to walk a fine line: not enough prankish flair and the joke falls flat. If it's too mean, then you've just bummed everybody out.

Is there anything more emblematic of Easter than marshmallow peeps? And yet, despite their popularity...does anyone actually like eating them?

Greasy fast food. Snacks. Candy. Empty stomachs. What do these all have in common? They're all things that people commonly have for lunch during the week, because it beats the hassle of having to plan, make, and pack lunches before their workday.

As a lover of food, I'm often asked, "If you could only have one food the rest of your life, what would it be?" My answer is always the same: sourdough bread. (Okay, it's not always the same... I usually cheat and say sourdough, fancy cheese, and a good beer.)

There are lots of great reasons for going out to a fantastic coffee shop for a cuppa. Coffee shops have a lovely ambiance, are a perfect place to meet with friends or do some work, and are a great excuse to get out of the house. Seeking out a perfect cup of coffee, however, shouldn't be one of the reasons that you hit up your local café.

Poaching, the cooking method that gently cooks food at the barest simmer, is awesome because it keeps in moisture and flavor. The no-cook poaching method is even better, because you don't add heat to your kitchen on hot days, and you don't have to watch the pot.

Staying at a hotel for business? You probably think that traveling means you can't cook, right? Wrong. There are lots of ways to make delicious dishes if you're inventive (and we're not just talking about heating things up in the microwave, guys and gals).

While Kobe beef cows get massaged, American dairy cows are taking a real beating. Many people are cutting back on dairy while a growing number of people are discovering that they're lactose intolerant. As the public's disdain of cow's milk grows, milk sales themselves are at a forty-year low.

Bacon isn't hard to cook on the stovetop, but every cook who's been hit by splattering fat knows it's not the most pleasant kitchen task to tackle. If you're cooking bacon for a lot of people, you can avoid this by cooking it in the oven on a roasting rack, DIY or otherwise.

Corned beef and cabbage is rarely eaten in Ireland (or at least America's version of the dish), but on St. Patrick's Day, many Irish Americans and wannabe Irish Americans will head to the bar to eat sloshy, poorly cooked versions of corned beef and cabbage while downing some jolly green ale.

Coconut oil must be sent from the gods themselves, because this stuff is made of miracles. If you ever wondered why your mother always has it around, it's because she's smart enough to know the countless uses for it.

Tater tots have a bad rap as a soggy cafeteria staple, but bake them at home and they crisp up nicely in the oven. Drain any unwanted oil from them on paper towels and they become perfectly crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

Those ordinary green zucchini you see in the market are hiding a lovely, delicious secret:

Eggs are incredibly important to cooks, and not just because they're tasty and a complete protein (many erratic genius/artist types make a point of eating an egg or two for breakfast). Yes, they are great when perfectly poached, scrambled, hard-boiled, and even scram-boiled, but they serve literally dozens of functions when used in recipes, especially baked goods.

Using spaghetti squash "noodles" for a healthy, low-carb meal seems like such a great idea, but as many of us know, turning this vegetable into a decent pasta facsimile usually has less-than-satisfying results. The usual method is to cut the squash lengthwise and roast, microwave, or steam it. Often, it comes out overcooked and underwhelming.

There's nothing in this life that we love more than making one ingredient or one food tool do multiple things. It saves money! It saves time! It makes us look smart at cocktail parties!

One of the best things about summertime is that there's lots of outdoor cooking, whether you're on a camping trip or grilling. And what better way to end your meal than with the classic dessert, s'mores?

Your waffle maker might just be the most underutilized tool in your kitchen. This one appliance can make bacon, eggs, hash browns, cupcakes, falafel, mac and cheese, and cinnamon rolls much more quickly and with less mess than traditional methods. Plus, the results all come out waffle-shaped—what's not to love?

Marmite: either you love the stuff or hate it. ("Love" meaning you are British and grew up eating it, and "hate" meaning you are everyone else.)

Removing the thin aluminum foil wrapping from a Hershey Kiss isn't necessarily a difficult thing, but even the easiest of things can be annoying sometimes. For instance, getting chocolate under your fingernail when you're trying to peel the wrapper off, or making a wrapper mess.

Using breadcrumbs in the kitchen is the perfect way to add crisp and crunch to the usual salad, entrée, or dessert. As chef and media personality Mario Batali once said, "There's almost nothing I wouldn't put homemade breadcrumbs on."

You've heard the old saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Well, the same goes true for snow. When Mother Nature dumps loads of the white stuff onto your neighborhood, then make the most of it with treats like maple snow candy, snow ice cream, and snow cocktails.

There's no shortage of ice cream recipes out there, but one ice cream shop in London has found a unique recipe to sell to its customers, and of course it's controversial—breast milk ice cream.

When I was younger, my family would go to fancy restaurants and I would invariably order a Shirley Temple. (Ironically, the real Shirley Temple actually didn't like it much.) But it's hard to really find anything offensive in this kiddie cocktail: It's ginger ale with a splash of grenadine. There's also the less famous Roy Rogers, which is Coca-Cola with grenadine. The grenadine, red and sumptuous, always made its drinks look and taste much cooler.

A salad can mean everything from fruit to meat and everything in-between, but it never means finger food. Forks are required. So that means that even though salads are versatile, delicious, and customizable, they are hell at cocktail parties. How do you hold your glass and take a bite of your salad at the same time? It's awkward.

The oven is arguably our most essential kitchen appliance (right alongside the fridge, freezer, and yes, even the microwave). But even though we've been using them for a few millennia, many of us know so little about our ovens that our cooking or baking can feel like a roll of the dice sometimes.

Don't leave your tongs out by the grill, as they are one of the most useful and versatile cooking tools to have in your kitchen. In my house, they come in a very close second to chopsticks, which I cook with everyday. Like chopsticks, they make it easy to delicately flip and turn food with precision. But unlike chopsticks, there's no learning curve, so anyone can use tongs for easier, simpler cooking.

With the explosion of food blogs in the last couple of years, there are more recipes available at the tip of your fingers than ever before. Craving chocolate chip cookies or Sriracha-flavored anything? You're guaranteed to have several thousand versions to choose from.

We've showed you how to make Butterfingers and Kit Kats, as well as custom-shaped chocolates, but have you ever thought about making your own gourmet chocolate bars?

Valentine's Day can seem like Singles Awareness Day if you're newly broken up, but that's all the more reason to treat yourself on this pink-and-red consumerist holiday. Whether you're happily single or bitter and bitchy, there's definitely something on this list of Anti-Valentine's Day treats to fit your mood. Remember: cake is still cake!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that food molded into fancy shapes somehow seems tastier. That's true even with chocolate, which is inherently delicious. Now, while you can buy chocolate that's been pre-molded into fancy shapes, you can have a lot of fun and save a few bucks by making your own specialty chocolate molds. All you need to get started are items you most likely already own.

Sometimes the simplest solution is the best solution. You will need: 1 binder clip. That's it. Another simple life hack. Enjoy.

Even if you've put aside your percolator and have gone the way of the pod coffeemaker, there are still dozens of ways to use your leftover coffee filters. Incredibly cheap, absorbent, and shaped with a ruffle, coffee filters are useful in the kitchen, garden, and around the house.

We're a little butter-obsessed here, and that includes topics on why butter should always be browned, the rationale behind clarifying butter, and even how to make a DIY butter candle. And while some may consider the problem strictly one for the first world, we're always very interested in ways to spread cold butter on toast without ripping the bread to shreds. If you read that post, you know the ingenious solutions are many and range from grating your butter to buying a heated butter knife.

No matter what the clean freaks out there try to tell me, I still drink my Los Angeles tap water without a care in the world. I figure that I've already consumed much more heinous things in my lifetime. Street vendor "steak" burritos comes to mind.

Lemons and limes might be among the most useful fruits in the kitchen and even beyond. Their bright, tart flavor livens up just about any dish, while their mildly acidic nature makes them incredibly useful when you want to clean your house safely.

Look on any bistro or pub menu in America and you'll likely find the term caramelized onions as an option for your burger. The word "caramel" may conjure up images of candy, which is somewhat correct.