The Latest on Food Hacks: Page 24

Peeling apples is pure grunt work, especially if you have a recipe that calls for a lot of 'em, like apple pie. You can make this task go by much more quickly if you use something from your tool box—your literal tool box, that is.

We all know that it's important to drink water regularly throughout the day. After all, it has so many benefits, including flushing toxins out of the body and maintaining kidney health and good bowel movements.

We've all been there: you're cooking along quite happily when you get to one or two ingredients on the list that you realize you don't have. You really don't want to run to the store or borrow something from a neighbor, so what do you do?

Most of you probably spread ketchup all over hamburgers and fries. Some of you may even drink it straight. But did you know that tame (and slightly addictive) condiment in your fridge is also a powerful cleaning agent?

True story: a friend of mine regularly started a fight with her boyfriend everyday at 4 p.m. Every day. This went on for years until he finally got the bright idea of shoving a granola bar at her the minute she came home from work. Shazam! The fights were a thing of the past.

Cooking spray is something of a gross necessity. The slimy, oddly-scented grease is perfect for keeping casserole dishes crust-free, but the oil splatter does a number on clean kitchen counters, and the lecithin ingredient can ruin nonstick cookware if not careful.

One booze hack that's been making the rounds for years is that inserting a spoon by the handle in a champagne bottle's neck will preserve its carbonation. This is one of those tips that I wish were true. Champagne is a great thing to have around on a special occasion, and it seems a shame to pour any leftovers down the drain once its lost its fizz.

If you have a good food processor or blender, there's no reason not to make your own nut butters, whether you like almond, cashew, sunflower, or the perennial classic, peanut.

"Does bottled barbecue sauce even taste that bad?" a friend of mine asked. Well, truthfully, no. But it also doesn't taste that good, especially if you've had truly great barbecue or even your crazy uncle's homemade sauce at a holiday cookout.

Most people give their fruits and veggies a cursory rinse under the faucet before eating or cooking them, but is that few seconds under running water really enough to remove any remaining dirt, pesticides, or wax clinging to the surface?

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.

The late, great writer Laurie Colwin once wrote that if she were allowed to have only one fruit in her kitchen, she would always choose lemons (or limes, since they can often be used interchangeably).

In this Food Network Video Bites episode, learn how to get the most juice out of a single lemon. The only tool you will you need to successfully do this is a microwave.

Cooking with Carmen Scardina - Italian Marinated Olives.

We decided to cook a Chinese Silkie the American way.

This video will show you a quick and easy way to peel the skin off of a kiwi fruit. Ditch the potato peeler!

Fresh salsa is so tasty. Who can resist the robust mix of spices, the mouth-watering heat of jalapeños, and the juiciness of fresh tomatoes? Alas, I don't always make my own and have to get the pre-made stuff.

One of my least favorite tasks is crouching in front of the kitchen oven or gas heater, and burning my fingers as I try to restart the pilot light with regular matches. I end up cursing the fact that I don't own extra-long matches or a stove lighter, but then I never go out and buy them, even though I know this issue will come up again. What can I say? I'm cheap.

Ordering delivery or takeout is an event. Most of the effort is put into actually choosing a joint to order from and figuring out what you want, so when you finally get the food, you don't want to have to worry about anything else—including dishes.

To flip, or not to flip, that is the real question. When you're nervously standing over the stove or grill, what do you do with that steak before you?

Don't ever put ice in your wine. Chill it with frozen grapes so you get a less diluted drink. Not to mention, grapes will only help bring out the other grape tastes in your wine.

Marinades are among my all-time favorite tricks as a cook for several reasons. They're easy like Sunday morning, they let time do what it's supposed to, which is work for you, and you get a huge return for relatively little effort on your part.

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?

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This video will show you how to make dippin' dots. It's extremely simplewith the exception of getting the items required for it. What you need is:

It's easy to take the food we eat for granted, but the truth is, there are a lot of bizarre, wonderful, and just plain weird things about what we eat and drink, the effects it has on our bodies, and vice-versa. Read on to learn how bugs provide food dye, the Japanese grow square watermelons, and more.

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.

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.

What can't Sriracha do? You can use it to upgrade your ramen, spice up your candy, or even try one of variousrecipes 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.

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?

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.

Letting wine "breathe" isn't just something that happens in restaurants in '80s teen comedies with snooty maître d's. It's really a thing, and you should learn how to do it at home, because it'll make just about any wine—including Two-Buck Chuck—taste much, much better.

You've probably used Google to search for recipes, or to find out what the heck that mystery food on the ingredients list is. But with all its built-in features, there are plenty of other ways the search engine can help you out in the kitchen.