Hot Food Hacks Posts
How To: Don't Have a Special Cupcake Pan? Here's How to Bake Cupcakes and Muffins Without One
Love or hate 'em, you've got to admit that cupcakes really had their moment. They started rising in popularity back in 2003 with the opening of Crumbs Bake Shop in Manhattan, and quickly became one of the most annoyingly ubiquitous food trends to date. Seriously. Type "cupcake" into Google. While I wouldn't turn it down if you put one in front of me (red velvet, please), I can't say that I was particularly disappointed to hear that the cupcake trend is coming to an end. I'm more of a cheeseca...
How To: Revive a Stale Baguette Using the Miraculous Water Trick
Everyone talks about how great sliced bread is, but there's nothing better than the taste of a just-baked loaf of crusty French bread. Like most beautiful things in life, however, the beauty of the baguette doesn't last. The next day, it's rock-hard, and good for very little except for croutons or breadcrumbs. But there is a trick to make it like fresh again.
The Ultimate Onion Cheat Sheet: Which Onion Goes Best with What?
Most recipes don't specify what type they mean when they call for onions. While using whatever kind you already have won't necessarily ruin a dish, using the best one for what you're cooking will definitely make your food taste better.
How To: The Easiest Way to Make Quick Cheese at Home (Using Only 3 Common Ingredients)
As much as I love eating weird foods, when it comes to my favorite food, there is only one simple choice: cheese. Since cheese is my favorite to eat, it should come as no surprise that it's one of my favorites to make as well.
How To: Clone KFC's Nashville Hot Chicken
What began as a regional specialty has turned into a national trend that looks like it's here to stay: Nasvhille hot chicken has caught on like wildfire, with hot chicken restaurants popping up across the country—not to mention the 8 hot chicken restaurants that you can find in Nashville alone! The history of this Deep South dish is fascinating, and you can read more about it here.
How To: 5 Simple Tips to Upgrade Your Packaged Ramen Noodles from Instant to Gourmet
Instant ramen has been popular in the states for decades, and restaurants that serve the real thing in any variety you can imagine have been popping up everywhere in the last few years. But you don't have to go out or spend all day cooking to have a gourmet ramen experience.
How To: 11 Ways to Keep Cheese Fresh & Mold-Free for as Long as Possible in Your Fridge
Cheese is one of the most loved foods in the world, and there are hundreds of different types. Some prefer super expensive gourmet cheeses, others are fine with the cheaper processed stuff.
How To: Oops! Food Too Spicy? Here's How to Fix It
The headline above may have some spice addicts shaking their heads, but, believe it or not, there are people out there who either don't like or can't handle a ton of spice.
How To: The Formula to Making a Perfect Cake Without a Recipe
Baking a cake is relatively easy... if you happen to have a cookbook or some boxed cake mix nearby. And though you can use the internet or your favorite cooking app, it can be nice to just cook without a recipe. That seems impossible with baking, which is such an exact science, but it's actually relatively easy.
How To: Tell if Your 'Expired' Eggs Are Still Good to Eat
A lot of people rely on the date on the packaging to tell them when food has gone bad, even with eggs, but the sell-by dates are often somewhat arbitrary and are not expiration dates. If you've been tossing your eggs based on the dates on your carton—you could be wasting perfectly good food.
How To: Roll Sushi—The Ultimate Guide
Sushi rolls, known as makizushi in Japanese, are only limited by your imagination—and your ability to roll them neatly, of course. While it may seem like a lot of effort, rolling sushi is a snap if you have the right tools.
How To: Tired of Flat Soda? Use This Trick to Keep Two-Liter Bottles of Soda Fizzy Longer
A flat soda tastes awful. It's almost as bad as drinking a room temperature milkshake. Of course, you can always opt to buy single-serving cans or 20 ounce bottles, but that's always going to be more expensive than 2-liters.
Good Veggies Gone Bad: When to Throw Out Those Onions, Mushrooms, & Greens in Your Fridge
Most of us lead busy, work-filled lives, often clocking in a 9-to-5 five days a week. And when that clock signifies the hour to leave, the last thing on anyone's mind is: "Time to go to the grocery store to pick up more fresh produce!" (Well, to be fair... maybe more people are psyched about this, but I know with certainty that I am not one of them.)
How To: Steam Food Without a Steamer Basket
I'm not a big fan of single-use tools, especially ones that don't get used particularly often. And I'm especially not a big fan of seldom used single-use tools that take up a large amount of space.
How To: Why You Need to "Smash" Your Burger for Maximum Flavor
Many home cooks were taught never to press down on a burger as it cooks since that would ruin your all-beef patty by getting it to release the juices it needs to stay tender and moist.
How To: Skip the Oven—Microwave Your Fish
Fish are delicate, flaky, and can be damn tricky to cook; more often than not, you end up with a hard, dry block of flesh that makes your taste buds sad. And the best ways to cook fish that you know of—c'mon, who doesn't love a fried fish—take way too much effort for you to bother with on a weeknight. Or maybe you're looking for a healthier way to enjoy fish that doesn't require batter or frying at all.
How To: Zest Citrus Fruits Without a Zester Tool or Microplane
When I first started cooking, if I saw lemon juice or zest in a recipe, I almost always left it out. Unless it was a main component, I never thought it made much of a difference in the overall flavor of the dish, but I couldn't have been more wrong.
How To: Cut a Cooked Steak the Right Way
There is no greater food to master than steak. If you can make a steak that's only marginally better than your neighborhood Applebee's, you'll still have friends waiting outside your door for steak night. And if you can make steak as good as that expensive gourmet steakhouse you went to for your birthday? Well, your popularity is about to increase dramatically.
How To: Cook Frozen Steak & Fish Without Defrosting Them First
Can you cook a steak or salmon filet that's straight out of the freezer and get good results? Ordinarily, I would say no. Usually your steak ends up a sad grey mass fit only for the family dog and the fish is burned on the outside with an icy, undercooked center.
How To: Truss a Chicken (Or Any Other Whole Bird) With or Without Any String or Twine
You've probably seen someone in your family truss the turkey on Thanksgiving before roasting it, even if you don't recognize the word. To truss a bird or roast just means to wrap it up as compactly as possible before placing it in the oven, and it's usually done by tying it with string. Trussing a bird is a tradition that's been around for a long time, and a lot of home cooks do it religiously even if they don't know why. It's a highly debated topic with fierce supporters on both sides, but f...
How To: 10 Reasons You Need to Add Cinnamon to Your Coffee
Creamer, milk (whole or skim), sugar, or even butter—you've probably added at least one of these to your coffee to improve its taste at some point. If you're looking for something different, though, try a new twist with a dash of cinnamon. This sweet, sharp spice can do so much more than improve coffee's taste, and I've got 10 examples for you to consider.
How To: The Easiest Way to Smoke Food Without a Smoker
There's something primal about the smell of smoking food. Somewhere deep in the recesses of our souls, we remember a time when humans only ate by the fire. Or perhaps that's just something I tell myself. Either way, it's hard to smell smoke and food and not feel like you should be eating. And, as chef Edi Frauneder said in a recent Saveur article, "Grilling is convivial. There's something about this act of coming together over an open flame that just says vacation."
How To: Brita Filters Costing You a Fortune? Use These DIY Methods to Clean Your Water for Half the Price
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.
Hot vs. Cold Brew Tea & Coffee: Which Ones Are Better for You?
Cold brewing tea and coffee are all the rage, and for good reason: they're idiot-proof. I, personally, am a total dunce at brewing coffee. It either ends up strong enough to peel paint from a car or so weak that you can see through it. Meanwhile, I have friends who inevitably brew green tea to the point where it's painful to drink it.
How To: 5 Ways to Make Plain Potato Chips Taste More Like Gourmet
In my opinion (and I suspect in the opinion of the masses), there is no greater snack food than potato chips. They're crunchy, they're salty, they're fried, and they're bite size; what's not to love? But I believe that, like almost all foods, potato chips can get even better. Especially if they're the most basic garden variety type of chip: sea salt.
How To: Make Copycat Trader Joe's Spices at Home
The spice selection at Trader Joe's is both inexpensive and truly top-notch. According to their site, they deal with some of the highest-quality spice manufacturers in the world and, in working with them directly, they eliminate hidden costs spent on promotions, brand-building, and advertising. This allows the customer to experiment with new flavors and build up their spice rack—without the usual limiting factor of high cost. If you don't have access to a Trader's in your culinary neck of the...
How To: Make Homemade Jerky Without a Dehydrator
Jerky is one of the tastiest snacks in existence. It's packed with richness, saltiness, and spiciness, and it's one of those things that you can't stop eating once you start. It's also fairly expensive, unless you're opting for the gas station variety which is… er… jerky in the same way that Folgers is coffee.
How To: The Unexplainable Trick to Removing Bitterness from Cucumbers
Every now and then, you'll bite into the end piece of a perfectly good cucumber only to get an unwelcome bitter and acrid taste. This happened to me for years, no matter how carefully I selected my cukes, although I generally had better luck with ones I got from local growers and the farmer's market.
How To: Why You Should Use Boiling Hot Water for Faster Ice Cubes
It's a small but very real frustration: you want a chilled drink, but you open the freezer only to see nothing but empty ice trays. Fortunately, there's a simple way to make ice cubes quickly—use hot water. Yup, you read that correctly. Hot water freezes more rapidly than cold.
How To: Deep Frying Without a Deep Fryer: Which Pan Is Best for the Job?
I don't deep fry food that often, mostly because it uses a ton of oil, which is expensive, and the cleanup is a son of a mother. (That oil really splatters everywhere.) Plus, no matter how careful you are, you will get hit by hot oil at some point and it will not be pleasant.
How To: Why You Should Always Order Large—At Least When It Comes to Pizza
Check it out: you save more dough (ba dum bump) when you order a large pizza than with any other size. Why is this true? NPR reporter Quoctrung Bui's engineer friend pointed out that a medium pizza was twice as big as a small one, yet only cost slightly more.
How To: De-Gunk Your Dirty Grill Grates with Aluminum Foil
As you get barbecuing this summer, you're likely to encounter a few grills that aren't exactly the cleanest. At parks or campgrounds and even on your friends' grills (or, um, your own), no one wants to place food on gunked-up grill grates.
How To: Make Your Own Sore Throat Lozenges
It's that time of year again. The month after we exchange gifts, most of us tend to exchange germs. Cold and flu season always seems to creep up on us, often leaving us ill-prepared to deal with the ailments.
How To: Make Your Own Dippin' Dots Ice Cream with Liquid Nitrogen
Dippin' Dots are a fun way to enjoy ice cream, but the price tag is not so fun. Plus, the company filed for bankruptcy last year, so they may not be around much longer. The good news is that you don't need them—you can make your own at home with some ice cream and liquid nitrogen. Redditor hypoid77 posted instructions on how to make your own DIY Dippin' Dots Maker out of a Styrofoam cooler, a couple two-liter bottles, a thumbtack, and some liquid nitrogen. Use the thumbtack to poke a 3-inch p...
How To: The One Thing That Even Cheap Vodka Is Good For—Making You Smell Better
It's always tempting to grab yesterday's shirt and toss it on in a fit of laziness, but before you do and venture outside, it's probably wise to freshen it up a bit first. The most obvious way to do that is with some Febreze, but if you don't have any around, your liquor cabinet will do the trick.
How To: Turn Spaghetti into Ramen
Ramen has always been a go-to meal for frugal foodies, college students, and anyone else who loves a soothing, cheap, and easy meal. And while instant ramen is delicious (and can easily be improved), making a simple homemade ramen is even better, and nearly as easy.
How To: Rehydrate Rock-Hard Dried Fruit with This Clever Hack
Dried fruit makes a great snack or salad topping, but after a while, they tend to become fossilized, rock-hard versions of their former selves. At this point, most folks probably just toss them out, as they're unpleasant to chew on when eaten raw and even more unpleasant to eat in bread or cooked with other ingredients.
How To: 10 Quick & Easy Herbal Drinks That Relieve Aches & Pains
When a headache strikes, I reach for the nearest painkiller. Forget closing my eyes, laying down, or even applying an ice pack—I seek the quickest and most immediate relief possible, and normally that comes in the form of pills. However, fast relief can be found from another, more natural source: herbal beverages. So if you're tired of popping pills when you have aches and pains, try some of these herbal drinks out instead.
How To: Dry Salad Greens Without Any Special Tools
Salad spinners are one of the more divisive kitchen tools out there. On one hand, they're incredibly easy, efficient, and useful. On the other hand, they're a single-use tool that takes up a lot of space.
Weird Ingredient Wednesday: Liquid Nitrogen, the Trendiest Element in Modern Cooking
If you've ever turned on an episode of Iron Chef or Top Chef, chances are you've seen a contestant in gloves and goggles, yielding a canister that looks far more fit for a chemistry lab than for a kitchen. Wonder what's in the canister? Liquid nitrogen, the go-to tool/ingredient of molecular gastronomy, and one of the trendiest items in many gourmet chefs' kitchens.
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