8 Easy Kitchen Tricks

Today I thought I would share a few shortcuts for the kitchen.

1. How to easily slice an avocado.

Start by cutting it in half long way.  Next remove the pit.  An easy way to remove the pit is to hold the half in your palm and carefully hit the pit with a sharp knife embedding the blade in the pit and twist the knife.  The pit will lift right out.

Now to slice the avocado, use a regular dinner knife and make lengthwise cuts about every 1/4" or however thick you would like your slices, making sure not to cut the outer skin of the fruit. Then just take a spoon and scoop out the slices making sure to get all the way to the skin. Repeat with other half.

Perfectly sliced avocado, and no waste or unevenly cut avocado.

2. Stopping leftover avocado from turning brown.

Any leftover avocado can be stored in an airtight container with a peeled onion. Your avocado will remain green for 2 to 3 days in the refrigerator.

3. Simple way to peel kiwi.

Cut your kiwi in half cross way through the middle.  Now using a spoon just scoop out the fruit close to the skin of each half.  It is peeled  with one scoop and now you can either slice our dice each half.

4. No More strings on your bananas.

Peel your banana from the bottom end towards the stem end. Almost all the strings will come off with the peel.

5. No More silk on your corn.

I cook my corn in the microwave with the husks left on.  When the corn is cooked slice the bottom end of the corn off.  Holding the hot corn with a towel or potholder just shake it out of the husks, silk and all.  Cobs come out with no messy corn silk to deal with, the silk stays inside the husk.

6. Slicing  and skinning Mangoes

Start by slicing the two cheeks off each side of the pit.  Carefully cut the fruit not cutting into the skin. Either cut into slices or cubes.  Now hold one half of the mango in the palm of your hand with the narrow end towards your fingertips and gently slide the fruit into a wine glass using the edge of the glass to separate the fruit from the skin. The skin will be paper thin, no pulp left and the fruit will be in your wine glass nicely cut and ready to use.

7.  Perfect hard cooked eggs

Using a clean needle puncture a hole in the fat end of each egg.  Now place your eggs in cold water making sure your eggs are completely covered with at least an inch of water.  Next bring the water to a boil.  I like to boil the eggs for a couple of minutes before removing the pan from the heat.  Leave the eggs in the water for about 12- 15 minutes then plunge them into an ice bath.  Centers should be hard boiled and shells easy to remove.

8.  Chocolate leaves to decorate cake or cupcakes 

Melt your chocolate.  The easiest way to melt chocolate is in the microwave. Using 15 seconds at a time stirring between each 15 seconds until chocolate is melted. Now find some real edible leaves. Wash and dry them thoroughly.  Either citrus or camellia leaves work well.  Load the back of your spoon with chocolate and spread a thin coat over the back of your leaf making sure not to leave any bare spots. Refrigerate until hardened and peel off the leaf to use.

Happy Cooking!