Hot Food Hacks Posts
How To: Make Lazy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches in Your Toaster
The lengths people will go to for a grilled cheese sandwich are amazing. They'll use irons, wafflemakers, or whatever appliance that produces enough heat to produce the perfect combination of golden, grilled bread and oozy, melting cheese. I personally favor my cast-iron skillet or the oven for making a really great grilled cheese sandwich. If I'm feeling lazy, then a toaster oven will do. But what if you're at work or in a dorm and the break room only has a toaster?
Weird Ingredient Wednesday: The Banana Flower
Flowers may be beautiful, but they're not usually appetizing. Sure, nasturtiums are hip in fancy restaurants, but they're primarily used as a garnish. Granted, fried squash blossoms are incredible, but the point remains: flowers are usually reserved for looking at, not masticating.
How To: Easy DIY Gourmet Chocolate Bars
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?
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: Clean "Uncleanable" Scorched Spots from Pots & Pans
You're in the middle of cooking and a car alarm, cute kitten, or neighborhood brawl made you step away from the stove for a few minutes longer that you should have. It happens to almost every home cook. Most of the time, nothing dramatic happens, but every now and then, you end up with something like this:
How To: 5 Tricks You Need to Know to Make Perfect Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Desserts always taste better when they are sugar-coated—and even more so when they're coated in powdered sugar. In particular, crinkle cookies—cake-y cookies that are chewy on the inside and crispy on the outside—are famous for the powdered sugar that creates their cracked appearance.
How To: Why You Should Stop Buying Spreadable Butter—And How to Make It Yourself
We've already taught you a few tricks for getting chilled, rock-hard butter to spread easily on toast, and some of you probably bypass that issue entirely by purchasing spreadable butter from the supermarket. But why waste your money when you can make a healthier, tastier version at home for a fraction of the cost?
How To: Make Perfectly Sized, Uniform Patties for Sliders & Mini Burgers Without Getting Your Hands Dirty
There is no such thing as a pulled pork slider. In fact, there is no such thing as a pork slider. Or a chicken slider. Or turkey or fish. The term "slider" actually means a lot more than just a hot miniature sandwich, and if it's not beef, it automatically missed the first cut. Sorry, but that is not a slider above.
How To: The Absolute Best Way to Clarify Butter... Period
Ah, butter—the (literally) heart-stopping star of the dairy world. Everything tastes better with it, from pie crusts and cookies to veggies and steaks. Hell, you can even fry things in butter if you want the best-tasting fried foods of your (short) life.
How To: Make Delicious 3-Minute Meringues in Your Microwave
Meringues are a French and Swiss dessert made of whipped egg whites and sugar, and they are light, sweet, and crispy confections. To make traditional meringues, you beat egg whites into soft foamy peaks, and then keep whipping as you gradually add sugar until the peaks become stiff. Once you've reached the right consistency, you bake them at a low temperature in the oven for a long time. They take both technique and time.
How To: 8 Tricks That Make Boxed Cake Mix Taste Like Homemade
Ask ten different people how they feel about boxed cake mixes, and you'll likely get ten different answers. Some baking purists will berate them and throw them in the same category as garlic presses and knife sets sold on infomercials. Many people will say that they prefer not to use mixes, but keep one in the pantry just in case. And I dare you to find a college student that doesn't sing their praises.
How To: Use Up Lettuce & Other Greens Before They Go Bad (Without Making Any Salads)
I love me some salad, but I'm also kind of a big baby when it comes to eating them. The greens have to be perfectly crisp and fresh, which is why I'm such a nut about storing them properly, including rethinking how I use my refrigerator, using a paper towel or dry cloth to wrap them, or even puffing a little CO2 into the plastic bag to keep them fresh. I've even developed an arsenal of tricks to restore life to soggy greens.
How To: Why You Need to Heat Up Store-Bought Tortillas (And the Best Ways to Do It)
Even though I often end the workday exhausted and just want to wrap rotisserie chicken parts in a store-bought tortilla and shove it in my eating hole, I generally try and take a couple of minutes to warm up said tortillas before I begin my meal. But if you're starving, do you really need to take the time? Do warm tortillas really make that much of a difference?
How To: Make a DIY Roasting Rack for Your Turkey
One of the golden rules to cooking a Thanksgiving turkey is to place it on a roasting rack before it goes into the oven. Missing this step and cooking it directly on the pan will burn the bottom of the bird, resulting in overcooked, dry meat.
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.
Cook Like a Chef: Use Parchment Paper Lids Instead
Simmering or poaching food is a total pain sometimes. The problems are numerous: a layer exposed to air often dries out and creates a gross skin that can ruin the texture of the sauce, the poaching liquid evaporates too quickly and causes the poached protein to burn, and so on.
How To: Ripen an Avocado in 10 Minutes or Less
Summer cookouts and barbecues come with a lot of delicious foods, but to me, there's nothing better than dishes heaped with avocados. From guacamole to simply eating an avocado right out of its skin, I devour this fruit constantly—but it's one that can be tricky to find perfectly ripe.
How To: The Secret Trick to Peeling Shallots More Easily
Certain foods like garlic, onions, and shallots are food staples for a reason—they're unbelievably flavorful and cost very little. However, with their papery thin skins, they're also a pain to peel.
How To: Quiches Don't Have to Be Savory—Try Your Hand at a Squiche
Squiche, also known as a sweet quiche, is the newest trend to hit the brunch table. For those who are not familiar with this delectable dessert, it's a close cousin to a custard tart, but less sweet and with the density of a savory quiche. It's also really simple to make—in whatever flavor you desire.
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.
Better Than Brita: Water Filters with No Plastic Parts
I used a plastic water filter for years. Who wouldn't? It cuts down on buying bottled water, which, as it turns out, is pretty much the same as unfiltered tap water. Plus, bottled water is terrible for the environment and your wallet, too. Water that costs only pennies a day and actually was purified as opposed to just saying it was? That's a no-brainer.
How To: Get Water Out of a Coconut Without a Drill
My first time opening a coconut was a confusing and frustrating experience. I remember the loud echoing noise as I hit it with a knife, a hammer, and my countertop. It took multiple tools, YouTube videos, and plenty of angry sighs for me to get it open.
The Science of Frothing: How to Make Your Own Milk Foam
Once upon a time in America, there was coffee and there was decaf. That's it. No capuccinos. No espressos. And certainly no Starbucks. Coffee was just coffee, something that you bought at a gas station or donut shop. If you made it at home, it was either in a metal pot or instant coffee.
How To: Spread Cold, Hard Butter Without Ripping Your Toast to Shreds
You have warm toast, but your butter is chilled to a rock-solid state. Sure, you could warm a bit of that butter up in a microwave before spreading, but chances are you're just as impatient as the rest of us, so you slap that frigid butter on and hope for the best. It always ends up the same, though.
How To: Why You Should Always Keep Canned Pumpkin in Your Pantry
Canned pumpkin is something I always stock up on and keep in my pantry, because it's endlessly useful when cooking or baking. Sweet, creamy, and mild, pumpkin can be folded into baked goods and savory dishes with ease.
How To: Why Kitchen Shears Are the Best Tool You Aren't Using
Listen, I'm not disparaging using really good knives—they can literally change your life, or at the very least, the way you work in the kitchen. However, there are many cutting and slicing tasks where you're better off using a sturdy pair of kitchen shears rather than a chef's or even a paring knife.
How To: Clone Taco Bell's Doritos Locos Tacos at Home
Doritos Locos Tacos were the brilliant concoction of a man named Todd Mills who never worked for Taco Bell, and never made any money from his creation. He originally pitched the idea to Frito-Lay, and when they said no, he took matters into his own hands by creating a Facebook page.
How To: Safely Put Out a Grease Fire (And Prevent Them Altogether)
Hopefully you never have to deal with a grease fire, but if it happens, how you handle it is important. A grease fire isn't like a regular fire, and trying to put it out the same way can make it worse. Grease fires are caused by letting oil get too hot, so the best way to prevent them is to never leave your kitchen unattended. Oil smokes before it burns, so if you see your pan start to smoke, take it off the heat before it has a chance to catch fire. If you're outside grilling, you can add a ...
How To: Why You Don't Really Need to Season Your Cast-Iron Pan
I love my cast-iron skillet, but I never seasoned it properly. Instead, I took that sucker out of its packaging, wiped it down with a damp cloth to remove any factory dust, and started cooking with it ASAP. And you know what? It works just fine.
How To: Colonel Sanders' KFC Recipe Revealed!
The Holy Grail of chicken has just been found by an unsuspecting reporter of the Chicago Tribune. Yes, that's right: The secret 11 herbs and spices in Colonel Sanders' Original Recipe chicken has finally been revealed, and it looks legit as hell.
How To: Make 2-Ingredient Pancakes That Are High Protein, Low-Carb & Gluten-Free
You only need eggs and bananas to make these tasty pancakes that fit almost every hyphenated category: dairy-free, Paleo-friendly, grain-free, gluten-free, low-carb, and high-protein. It sounds too good be true, but these pancakes are easier to make than traditional pancakes and don't have any of that troublesome white flour. I've also included a three-ingredient recipe below for a slightly thicker pancake recipe.
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: 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: Water, Lemon Juice, Vinegar, or Nothing: Should You Even Bother Rinsing Chicken?
There's an ongoing debate about whether or not it's safe or even desirable to rinse meat before you cook it. Many fall into the anti-rinsing camp, saying that it's not effective at dislodging bacteria, especially on poultry, as we've discussed before. Meanwhile, some argue that rinsing certain meats, like bacon, could be beneficial since it possibly prevents it from shrinking.
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: 10 Easy Tricks to Make Store-Bought Pasta Sauce Taste Homemade
There's nothing better than real, homemade tomato sauce, but to really develop the flavors, it usually has to simmer for a few hours. And while it's totally worth doing if you have the time, some nights it's just not an option. That's where the pre-made stuff comes in. Jarred pasta sauce certainly doesn't taste the same, but it's really easy to dress up when you need something quick. If you don't want anyone to know your "secret recipe," here are 10 ways to make store-bought spaghetti or mari...
How To: Turn Your Favorite Fruit Juice into Cheap Homemade Booze
Making your own alcohol at home sounds like fun, but it's a long, complicated, and sometimes expensive process. You need all sorts of equipment, and by the time you're finished, it's been a few weeks—even months.
Turkey Day Hacks: 7 Alternatives to Traditional Stuffing
When it comes to Thanksgiving, some people live for stuffing (or dressing, if that's what you call it). Personally, I love all stuffing, even the boxed kind. However, even the classics can start to feel a little staid and dull after a while.
How To: Do This Before Freezing Chicken, Turkey, & Other Poultry for Insanely Juicy Meat
I'm no coupon-cutter (I just don't have the patience for it, sadly), but I do love buying things in bulk to save a buck or two. And one of the staples on my bulk-buy list is chicken; I cook with chicken so often that trying to save money on it is a no-brainer.
How To: Thaw a Frozen Steak in Minutes
It's a basic law of cooking: whenever you're really craving something, you don't have it. All you want is a glass of wine? Chances are you finished the bottle while braising meat last night. Want nothing more than a sandwich right now? Yep, you finished the bread with breakfast. You'd kill for a steak? They're all in the freezer, and you don't want to wait while they thaw; you want your steak now.