Most of the time, such a dislike comes from not knowing all the fun ins and outs of the field. The kitchen is such that there are many things one learns as they keep cooking, that can’t be found in any official cookbooks; little tricks you might miss if you’re not a savvy, attentive little bugger in the kitchen. Tricks that leverage certain details you learn of as you keep cooking, keep failing and succeeding, keep experimenting.
Well, a benefit to things such as the internet and media, is that such knowledge is very easily shared, so aspiring cooks such as yourself and others may easily find that cheeky hidden knowledge that boosts their morale and love for cooking to new heights. So worry not, fellow cooking enthusiasts, you don’t have to spend the next decade (I’m exaggerating) painstakingly discovering those tricks through constant, reiterative trial and error. Here are several of the, as cool people say, Cookinglife Hacks for you:
- If you’re the kind of kitchen nerd to own an egg slicer, in which case bless you, you can use those bad boys to slice up your fruits and vegetables as well, and it will yield even slices! Slice up your kiwis, mushrooms, and much more, in one fell swoop, and without the risk of slicing your finger on the mandoline too!
- For you, soup enthusiasts out there, ever had leftover soup? It’s annoying to store, isn’t it? A big bowl of liquid, waiting to tumble over and spill its contents at a moment’s missed attention. Well, you might consider freezing the stuff! Pour them onto ice cube trays, and put them in the freezer! The next time you’re craving some soup or broth, but are feeling too lazy to get up and cook yourself some, pop one of those frozen soup cubes into the pan and melt that right into some steaming hot liquid goodness! Pro-tip for you, you can do the same to drinks like coffee, or if you’re over the legal drinking age, some wine too. The benefit here is that these drinks can be drunk cold, so you’ve saved even more work.
- Are you a sweet hound? Can’t resist cakes? Well, the next time you want to bake a cake, consider doing it in a mug rather than a pan! You won’t have to resist the temptation of a double serving if it isn’t there in the first place. How smart is that! Coat the mug with non-stick spray to save yourself from a nasty cleanup job. Pro recipe: Crack an egg in and whisk it till it’s even inconsistency, then stir in a quarter(1/4th) of a cup of nut butter or Nutella. Then put it in the microwave for 60 seconds for a delicious sweet treat.
- Ever cracked an egg, then spent too much time and focus trying to get one tiny, annoying piece of shell that just cracked too far and fell into the egg? Here’s a pro tip: don’t toss away the broken half of the shell. Instead, use it as a scoop to pick up those bits and tiny pieces of shell that get into your egg. Guaranteed to add to your mess no more than any fancy tools, it will attract those shell fragments like a magnet.
- If you own a muffin tray, now you have a way to cook multiple snacks which are savory instead of sweet as well! Pour a tablespoon of water into each of those muffin cups, then crack in an egg in each of the cavities. Then put it in to bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 13 minutes, and get ready for set whites and oozing yolks. You just cooked yourself a good enough poached egg, no six of them, to enjoy as is or use them with other preparations such as Benedicts!
People will keep cooking, and disliking and liking cooking, and we will keep discovering new ways to cook. But it is up to us in the present generation to keep it up, so those that come after us can pick it up from us. So, as we just talked about, keep cooking, keep failing and succeeding, and never give up on the cooking life!
