The Latest on Food Hacks: Page 13

McDonald's is probably the most recognizable fast food chain in the entire world, with over 34,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries. In may not be the healthiest place to get a meal, but like millions of kids in America, I grew up on McDonald's unquestionably delicious products—and I'm still alive.

Grilled cheese is one of my favorite foods, ever. However, there are times in my life when I haven't had access to a full kitchen, and it's pretty hard to make a good grilled cheese sandwich without one.

Chicken and waffles are so yesterday. Well... it's not that we won't always love them, but it's time to move on to bigger and better things, such as the pizza waffle.

Stock is a crucial ingredient for so many recipes: soups, gravies, and risottos depend on stock; quinoa and rice are both more flavorful when cooked with it, too. So, chances are that broth is a staple on your weekly shopping list.

If you consider yourself a regular coffee, tea, or hot chocolate drinker, you probably have a kitchen cabinet full of stained mugs that refuse to scrub clean. Thankfully, there is a better solution that doesn't involve continuing to fight those stains with a sponge, bleach, and elbow grease.

Almost every bread recipe will tell you to look for a golden brown crust or to tap on the bottom of your loaf and listen for a hollow sound. That visual and sound technique will work most of the time, but it can still come up short, leaving you with a soft and gooey spot in the middle of your loaf.

Home cooks are often quite intimidated when trying to reproduce the delicious ethnic dishes they enjoy at various restaurants. Thankfully, there are definite flavor profiles and spice/seasoning/herb combos that are very specific to various regional cuisines and cultures; with a little guidance, you can create dishes that are tasty homages to the cuisines you love to eat.

Many home cooks struggle to cook duck breast because they cook it as they would chicken. But not all poultry is created equal, and duck is definitely unlike chicken.

Kitchen tools are a personal thing. One hard lesson for me to learn is that just because something is popular doesn't mean that it's right for me. Take the slow cooker, for instance. Many rave about it, but I never cottoned to the thing. However, the more research I do, the more I think the pressure cooker might be a game changer for my cooking style.

With all due respect to the fine folks at DrinkTanks, it's a little surprising that no one came up with their idea sooner. After all, last I checked, beer was pretty darned popular.

These ideas are simply brilliant

For generations, parents have been struggling to come up with innovative ways to get their kids to eat their vegetables. They'll cut them into fun shapes, bake them in cheese, batter, and deep-fry them.

Whether it's college football, the NFL, basketball, soccer, or baseball, sporting events are prime opportunities to entertain. No matter what the sport, food that's easy to eat is a must. Your guests should be able to mingle, eat, and talk trash... all at the same time! So a meat and cheese plate—also known as a characuterie board— is sure to be a crowd pleaser.

Great news: you don't have to give up grains if you're avoiding gluten.

The way in which cooking can be used to both illustrate science and create a beautiful bite of food is fascinating to me. And emulsions, the results of combining liquid fat and water, are a fantastic example of science in harmony with great cooking.

It's a well-known fact (supported by myriad sources, including Fitness Magazine) that in order to lose a pound, you need to cut and/or burn 3,500 calories... which, divided by the number of days in the week, equals 500 calories a day.

Back in the days when June Cleaver was our role model, stay-at-home moms eagerly greeted their offspring's arrival home from school with fresh-baked cookies. But in the current vernacular, "Ain't nobody got time fo' dat!"

Bottled water is a rip-off. Not only is it pretty much the same stuff that comes out of your tap for free, but plastic bottles are rarely recycled and thus account for a huge amount of the waste that's overflowing our landfills.

Even those of us most comfortable in the kitchen can be daunted by the idea of cooking for a whole houseful of people. Whether you have a large, well-equipped kitchen or a small one with just the essentials, it can prove to be quite a task to prepare food for a dozen or so people.

There are myriad wrong ways to cut an onion, a few right ways to cut an onion (including this one)... but only one ultimate way to dice onions, and that's what I'll be sharing with you today.

I hate wasting money. To be fair: I doubt there are many people out there who relish the idea, but I especially hate it. And I also dislike spending in excess of what I need. This happens all too often, I feel, when it comes to recipes that involve using sausage.

I'll be the first to admit that I have a problem: I'm utterly addicted to tea.

When roast chicken is concerned, perfection is hard to attain.

Juicing fruits and vegetables is very beneficial to your health. For some, it's a trend; but to me, it's a part of my morning routine.

I have a weird fondness for the texture, if not the taste of Velveeta (and Kraft American cheese slices). No other cheese has quite the same amount of slip or smoothness and manages to stay that way, undoubtedly because Velveeta contains sodium alginate, an algae derivative that helps it stay so silky-smooth even as it heats up. It also contains a high level of protein-to-fat ratios, which is what makes it a champion melter.

If you're gluten-free, on a diet, or just cutting the carbs like me, eating a sandwich can be a dangerous game. There are traditional alternatives such as lettuce or egg wraps, but they have their drawbacks: they can't hold as many ingredients, they can be lack flavor when raw and un-rendered, and it's hard to layer the toppings and condiments to create your perfect bite.

A trip to any grocery store's produce section will quickly reveal that bananas are often picked from the tree well before their prime—which is necessary for them to arrive at our local store without going bad. In fact, bananas are refrigerated en route to our supermarkets in order to stave off the ripening process... which makes sense, since they travel quite the distance (from the Tropics around South America or Africa to our proverbial doorstep).

Nowadays, it feels like you can't talk about eating healthy without bringing up quinoa. Quinoa (KEEN-wah) has been the "superstar" of the health movement for a while; 2013 was declared the International Year of Quinoa by the United Nations, and has only continued to grow in popularity with both health nuts and culinary experts alike through the past few years.

My daughter moved into her first apartment last year, a huge rite of passage in any young person's life. With a mother and two grandmothers who are good cooks (to say the least, in the case of the latter), it's not surprising that she turned to us for some advice about how to improve her own skills in the kitchen. Without question, the single best piece of advice we have given her is to employ mise en place each and every time she prepares a meal.

Soda bread, corned beef and cabbage, and colcannon are all great dishes to serve up on St. Patrick's Day, but desserts really let your inner leprechaun come out to play. Not only can you have fun incorporating all kinds of tasty Irish liquors into baked goods, you get to dye things green.

Most people are familiar with the fact that vinegar adds sourness to a dish, in varying degrees from light acidity to puckering acid. However, vinegar can also be used in lieu of salt when seasoning the final touches to sauces, soups, and stews.

Any beer aficionado who's been to Ireland will always talk about how the Guinness there "just tastes different." But save your eye rolls, skeptics: it turns out your favorite lagerhead actually has a valid point.

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.

When we were kids, Saint Patrick's Day was a green-hued holiday that promised green eggs in the morning and green mashed potatoes in the evening... along with some traditional corned beef and cabbage, of course.

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.

When I finally saved up some cash and got my first good chef's knife, I vowed to do everything by the book: clean it properly, hone it regularly, sharpen it faithfully, stand by it in sickness and in health, blah blah blabbity blah.

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.

Regardless of where you happen to live in the United States, you can always count on Caesar salad being on a menu nearby. The restaurant may be top dollar or a humble diner, but this ubiquitous salad prevails in every region and at every price point.

Switching your favorite facial cleanser isn't an easy choice. Since everyone's skin type can range from dry, to oily, to some complicated combination of both... well, let's just say that the conventional wisdom is to stick to what you know works.

I've been a fan of potatoes ever since I can remember... but mainly because they weren't a big part of my daily diet (which usually consisted of rice). And because my experience with potatoes was so limited, I only knew of two varieties growing up: big, brown Russets and sinewy sweet potatoes. As for cooking with potatoes—well, I'm embarrassed to admit that the only time I cooked potatoes when I was a kid was with the instant kind.