Tips & tricks in the kitchen

I love gathering these types of cooking tips; it's part of my never-ending mission to become a little more confident in the kitchen. I find them all over the place: on

, on food bloggers who gather them from God knows where, on How-To sites, etc. I've been gathering them for a while now, stashing them in a draft email and waiting for them to somehow sink into my subconscious and become second nature, but that hasn't happened yet!

Regardless, here's a few of my favourites, and below, I've gathered a few links you can visit to find similar type tips.

Ripening and Keeping Bananas: Separate banana fingers from the "pack" when you get home from the grocery. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.

Storing Cheese: Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!

Peppers: Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating. Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.

Cooking Ground Beef: Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.

Creamy Scrambled Eggs: To make scrambled eggs or omelets rich and creamy, add a couple of spoonfuls of  sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and beat.

Mint Brownies: For a cool brownie treat, make brownies as directed. Melt Andes mints in double broiler and pour over warm brownies.  Let set for a wonderful minty frosting.

Garlic Flavor: Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic  and at the end of the recipe if you want a stronger taste of garlic.

Candy Bar Treat: Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert.  Simply chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples. Place them in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes!!!  Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream. Yum!

Reheat Pizza: Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet  on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza.

Easy Deviled Eggs: Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up.  Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture  into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.

Expanding Frosting: When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your  mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per  serving.

Reheating Refrigerated Bread: To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.

Measuring Cups: Before you pour sticky substances  into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup.  Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter or honey, and watch how easily it comes right out.

Check out these sources:

Useful Tips Around the House:

17 Tips to Make Your Life Easier:

10 Must-Know Handy Household Tips:

Household Helpful Hints: