Food Hacks How-Tos
How To: Make Amazing Hard-Boiled Eggs That Are Easy to Peel
Hard-boiled (also known as hard-cooked) eggs are notoriously easy to mess up. We've all ended up with tough, rubbery egg whites and overcooked yolks that have that unappetizing gray-green ring around the edge. An ideal hard-cooked egg has a firm yet tender white, while the yolk is creamy and well-done without being mealy.
How To: Why You Should Be Using Less-Refined Sweeteners Instead of Brown or White Sugar
As a species, our cells are designed to use sugar for energy. Is it any wonder that as humans evolved, we grew to love the taste of sugar?
How To: Make Your Dirty Blender Clean Itself
Cleaning a blender thoroughly is a pain in the ass, especially when you try and get all the goop out from underneath the sharp blades without nicking your knuckles. Alas, it is a necessary chore, otherwise you end up with disgusting dried gunk that ends up in your next batch of pureed foods. Fortunately, there's an easier way to get your blender sparkling clean besides using easier-to-clean mason jars as you main jar, and the best part is that the appliance literally does all the work for you.
How To: The Essential Secrets for Perfectly Slicing Meat
Knowing how to cut and slice raw meat is a skill all omnivorous cooks need in their arsenal. However, raw meat's limp and gelatinous character can be challenging to work with, especially when you're trying to slice it into symmetrical, attractive sections for a stir-fry or a stew.
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: Make Garlic-Infused Olive Oil & Vinegar at Home
Garlic—it stinks so good! It's one of nature's most wondrous foods, being both delicious and incredibly healthy. What's not to love? Well, it is kind of a pain to prep, whether you're peeling a couple of cloves for a sauce or a whole head and trying to mince it finely. One way to get around the whole peeling and mincing issue every time you want garlic in a dish is by buying pre-made garlic-infused olive oil, except that stuff is pretty pricey. Learn to make it at home and you'll get all the ...
How To: One Thing You're Not Doing That You Should for Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
I have a theory that chocolate chip cookies are the gateway drug to cooking. The recipe is easy, no special equipment is required, and at the end, you get warm, fresh-from-the-oven cookies that are simply irresistible. It's how I got hooked on baking and cooking, and anecdotal evidence (i.e. me asking my other kitchen-obsessed friends and a few culinary students) supports me.
How To: A Beginner's Guide to Gluten-Free Baking
What is gluten, why do some people think it is pure culinary evil, and why are there more and more products devoted to being free of this mysterious substance? Here's what one person thinks: What Is Gluten Really?
How To: The Foil Lids on Your Snack Pack Foods = Handy Makeshift Spoons
You've packed your own lunch and can't wait to get to the little vacuum-sealed cup of dessert you brought along. You keep rummaging in the bottom of the bag, searching for the spoon you're certain you packed…except you didn't. Uh-oh.
How To: Make Truly Crispy Roast Potatoes in the Oven
A perfectly cooked roast potato is a study in contrasts: the outside should be crisp, crunchy, and salty, while the inside is tender and fluffy. Too often, however, roast potatoes come out overcooked, greasy, and tough.
How To: The Secret to Neutralizing Nasty Paint Fumes & Odors (Hint: It's in Your Kitchen)
A new coat of paint is an easy, cheap way to make your home look instantly better, but dealing with paint fumes for days afterward isn't so fun, especially if you have kids or pets.
How To: Make Milk-Filled Cookie Cups & Shot Glasses at Home
Food is a necessity, sure, but every now and then it's so satisfying to eat something because it is fun and delicious. While eating a whole tub of homemade ice cream might satisfy your need for gluttony, there's a way to take it even further—make your dinnerware edible.
How To: De-Stink Old Smelly Jars with Two Simple Ingredients
It's so nice to be able to reuse old glass jars for food storage. Occasionally, though, even the sturdiest container has to be recycled because it retains the smell of its previous contents. Usually the culprit was garlic, garlic-based, or something pickled, and you're certainly not going to store your fresh herbs or fruit in that. There is, however, a quick and easy way to get that old stink out of your jar and make it usable again. You just need two things...
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?
Labels Can Lie: What's Really in Your "Extra Virgin" Olive Oil?
Ever since the much-lauded effects of the Mediterranean diet became widely known, people have been buying olive oil by the gallon. A diet that prevents heart disease, is based on fresh, seasonal foods, and includes a tasty as hell fat like olive oil? Duh—that's a no-brainer.
How To: The One Trick You Need to Use When Microwaving Leftovers
There is and always will be a staunch anti-microwave camp, but they're a fact of life. The whole point of a microwave is convenience, right? But it's not so convenient when you pull out reheated leftovers and discover that your food is only partially warm.
No More PAM: How to Make Cheaper & Healthier Cooking Spray at Home
Cooking spray is super convenient to have around, but it can be expensive compared to regular old oil, and sometimes comes with some nasty sounding additives like dimethylpolysiloxane and dimethyl silicone.
Game of Thrones Returns: Celebrate with a DIY Feast of Westeros-Worthy Food & Drink
The wait is almost over. The sixth season of Game of Thrones kicks off this Sunday, April 24th at 9 p.m. (PT) on HBO, or at 5:57 p.m. (PT) on HBO GO and HBO NOW, with the first episode "The Red Woman."
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: Make Soggy, Wilted Lettuce & Other Leafy Greens Edible Again
Sometimes you've got a head of lettuce that you want to eat but it lacks a certain youth. In other words, it's wilted and browning at the edges. Other times, you get to the grocery store near the end of day and the only lettuce or greens available look a little on the sad side. Never fear. You're not doomed to a meal of fast food or mouthfuls of soggy salad. You can easily revive those leaves and have something crisp, green, and delicious for your next meal, so don't dump it in the trash.
How To: You've Been Eating Cupcakes Wrong Your Entire Life
There's a better way to do just about anything, and it's even more apparent when it comes to shoving food down your throat.
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: Make Perfectly Fluffy Mashed Potatoes Without Adding More Butter or Milk
Mashed potatoes are universally beloved, and for a good reason — they're cheap, tasty, and relatively easy to make. What's more, they're adaptable to just about every dietary regimen, whether you're vegan, gluten-free, or lactose-intolerant. And they're a staple for holidays such as Thanksgiving.
How To: Why Life Is More Fun When You Eat Bacon & Cook with Bacon Fat
I grew up in a household where bacon was considered its own necessary food group. My mom saved the bacon fat in a jar and reused it in other dishes, which my friends considered vile, unless they were also from immigrant families or the American South, where saving bacon fat has never gone out of style.
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: Make Your Own Nestlé-Style Butterfinger Candy Bars at Home
Look through the dessert recipes on any food blog and there's a pretty good chance you'll find something with chocolate and peanut butter. It's one of the most common combinations in candy bars and other sweets (not that I'm complaining).
How To: Dry Fruit in Your Oven—No Dehydrator Required
Dried fruit makes a great, healthy snack by itself, and it's a nice addition to both sweet and savory dishes. Most people assume you have to have a dehydrator to make it at home, but you don't really need one unless you plan on drying fruit pretty frequently. Your oven does the job just fine. Drying fruit in an oven is a pretty simple process: just bake it at a low temperature for a long time. It's usually cheaper than buying dried fruit from the grocery store, and a great way to use extra fr...
How To: Purée Fruits, Vegetables, & Other Foods Without a Blender or Food Processor
Yesterday, I was halfway through a recipe when I realized it called for puréed tomatoes, and all I had was diced. I definitely wasn't going to abandon ship and start over on something else, but I didn't want my sauce to have the wrong texture, either. So, I did a quick search and found that I could use my metal sieve to purée the tomatoes.
How To: You've Been Unwrapping Hershey Kisses Wrong Your Entire Life
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. To make this first-world problem go away, simply grab a Hershey Kiss in-between your index finger and thumb, then pull on the paper plume to yank the chocolate straight out of the wrapper. The plume was originally des...
How To: Make Crappy Cheap Vodka Taste Like the Good Stuff
Let's be honest, most of us buy the bottom-shelf vodka either because we're broke or because we're going to disguise the gag-inducing taste of it with juice or something fizzy. If you're cooking or baking with vodka (ice-cold vodka works wonders in pie crust), what's the point of buying Belvedere?
How To: Make Homemade Flavored Extracts for Baking & Cooking
Flavored extracts may seem like they'd be complicated to make, but there's a lot less to them than you'd think, and will cost you less in the long run.
How To: Squeeze Juice from Lemons & Other Citrus Fruits Without Any Special Tools
Store-bought citrus reamers and squeezers are great for extracting all of the juice out of lemons, limes, and oranges, but if you're not squeezing fresh juice every week, you probably don't have one—and have never even thought about buying one.
How To: DIY Ice Cream Sandwiches for the Lazy Snacker
Homemade ice cream sandwiches are delicious, but even when you use the slicing shortcut to make assembly easier, it still requires the planning and forethought to buy the ice cream and make the cookies. For the days when you have neither, you can satisfy your craving much faster with a bagful of Oreos and some milk.
How To: Make Blazing Hot Sriracha Salt at Home
What can't Sriracha do? You can use it to upgrade your ramen, spice up your candy, or even try one of various recipes to make your own. And if you want an easy way to add it to basically everything, you can make your own Sriracha salt, which is just as awesome as it sounds.
How To: Freeze Raw Meat So It Tastes Great After Defrosting
Ever wonder why when you defrost meat, there's all that pink liquid at the bottom of the plastic bag? That liquid is called "purge," and it's not good.
How To: Make Easy Homemade Buttermilk, Sour Cream, & Crème Fraîche
Cultured dairy products are great for topping chilis and soups, stirring into dips, and adding tanginess to breads and pancakes. They're extremely versatile and often interchangeable, and they contain probiotics that offer a long list of health benefits. They're also super easy to make at home with just a few basic ingredients. Here's how to make your own buttermilk, sour cream and crème fraîche.
Green Tea: It Cleans More Than Just Your Body
About ten years ago, Western research figured out that green tea was a nutritional powerhouse. After all, in Asian countries where green tea is consumed throughout the day, cancer rates tend to be much lower, although there are probably other factors contributing to that fact, like less processed food and red meat in the standard Asian diet.
How To: Caramelize Onions in Half the Time
Caramelized onions are one of those ingredients you can add that immediately makes any dish feel a little fancier. They have that delicious savory-sweet combination, they're great in almost anything, and they're surprisingly easy to pull off at home. So why don't more people make them?
How To: The Secret to Keeping Cut Avocados Fresher Longer
A lot of fruits start to turn colors once they've been cut due to an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase that turns the fruit colors when it's exposed to oxygen. You can prevent this reaction in apples with a honey-water bath, but what about avocados?
How To: Cook Tuna with Toilet Paper
Toilet paper isn't the first thing that comes to mind when you want a hot meal, but when you're camping or out in the field (i.e. military training), a little TP is the difference between cold tuna and luxury.