Bell Pepper Tip

Now that I've been using bell peppers more and more, I've slowly been learning the easiest ways to chop them. They're far easier to chop from the inside out. The skin on the outside is slippery and makes it hard to slice all the way through. I'm usually chopping them so I'll share what I've learned about the easiest ways for chopping and whatnot.

After chopping the pepper in half, and cleaning out the seeds, I cut it into strips, cutting from the inside of the pepper, dragging my knife to slice. Then, if I'm chopping it, I lay the strips down, with the insides facing away from me, the slices on their side (I'll explain this.) and begin chopping. I've found that if I try and slice from the side of the skins, it's not very effective, like I mentioned. If I lay them skins down and chop them from the inside of the pepper, it won't always cut all the way through, not slicing all the way through the skin. So I've learned that if I lay them this way, when I chop I still cut through the inside of the pepper, but by laying the slices on their side, I'm able to slice all the way through the skins too. Many times I've slices through the pepper and when I've gone to move them, they've all still been attached by the skins, and I've had to manually separate them or re-chop them.

So this is my proven method for chopping your peppers without any problems. I hope all that makes sense!

Stress Tip

So, this may be kinda silly, and mostly funny, but it really worked for me and ultimately made a veggie packed dinner!

The other day I was having a rough day with the kids and had started snacking. I didn't do bad, but got frustrated since I've been working real hard lately to lose a few pounds. So I wanted to find something to do that wasn't snacking. So I decided we were having stir fry and started chopping vegetables.

First it was carrots, then celery, bell peppers, and garlic. By that point I was so into the veggies, that I started to add canned veggies and other things we had around the house. Needless to say, the stir fry was a little heavy on the vegetable side. But it was really good for us and better that than cookies or candy, right?

Snack Tip

I love this new snack/storage tip. It works awesome! We started saving plastic and glass containers for reusing in an effort to use less plastic bags. These empty peanut butter containers are awesome. They've got a really wide mouth and are clear so you can see what's inside. This not only reminds you what you have in there, but you know when you're getting low. They're super handy. I often grab the cheese or carrot sticks when running out on a playdate so we'll have a nice snack while we're gone.

Flaxseed Tip

I know I've mentioned a bit before how flaxseed is an easy addition to punch up the health of your meal. In last month's Reader's Digest, there was an article all about the great benefits of flaxseed and they had some suggestions for using it. I used one, and it was so easy. I thought I'd share it with you as well some reminders of nice and simple ways to add flaxseed in your meals and snacks.

Sprinkle it on your peanut butter when making a pb&j. I put mine together and then remembered to take a picture, so it's on both sides. But I originally just covered my peanut butter in it and then closed it to eat. I couldn't taste any difference.

Other great and easy ways to use flaxseed:

breadings (for fish or chicken)

any red sauce (chili, spaghetti)

sprinkle it in yogurt

blend in a smoothie

add to muffins

I'm sure there are a million other ways to use it? Are there any that you've used that I didn't list?

Bacon Tip 2

Read this on the package of my bacon. Who knew the handy things they printed on there worked?  This was just an easier way to separate your bacon without pulling and stretching and ripping it in pieces. Stick your spatule between the pieces as you slowly pull them apart. It worked like a charm. I was left with fully intact, long strips of bacon.

Chopping Tutorial

Here's my second video tutorial. This is all about chopping! And let me tell you, once you really master chopping (as me and my mom can attest) it's totally therapeutic. I love chopping!



Sorry if the audio doesn't match up. It doesn't when I watch it. Hopefully it'll work alright on your computers!

Egg Separating Tutorial

This is my first video tutorial. I did this while separating egg whites for the angel food cake.

Trash Tip

Another one courtesy of Miss Rachael Ray. This is something kinda simple, but really effective. I've watched Rachael Ray a few times, and seen her do this every time. You just set aside a bowl for your scraps, trash, etc. This works great when you're doing a soup, or just chopping a lot of onion, garlic, etc. You just toss everything in the bowl, and then after you're done with it all, then you throw it away. Just saves you a lot of back and forth, and keeps your cutting board clear of scraps.

Garlic Tip

This one is courtesy of Rachael Ray. It's just an easy way to get the stuff off your garlic for chopping. Take the clove, remove as much of the stuff (I don't know what that's called. Anyone?) as comes off easily. Then place it under your knife, like shown in the picture, and bang on it once or twice nice and solid with your fist. Then, the garlic stuff should come right off. The clove might be slightly broken or mashed. But if the actual clove is completely smashed or falling apart, you hit it a touch too hard.

Pancake Tip

This isn't anything revolutionary, but just something I'm beginning to do regularly that makes pancakes easier.

I believe I'm holding a 1/4 measuring cup here. It makes smaller pancakes, but very nice and consistently sized pancakes. They all cook evenly and it's just nice. If you prefer bigger pancakes, use a 1/3 measuring cup. (My griddle holds 4 pancakes this size, at a time. The picture is only far away enough to show 3. You could probably put up to 6 if you chanced putting them close together. That, however, would take pancake flipping skills that I do not yet aquire.)

Chicken Tip

This is a two-fold tip. First you can use for cooked or raw chicken. Kitchen scissors. Scissors are such an awesome kitchen tool for things other than opening packaging. They work wonders for cutting up raw or cooked chicken and it can be easier than using a knife at times, especially depending on how much snipping you need to do.

The second tip is one I use for the following post (Chicken Biscuit Bake). I do this whenever I have a recipe that requires the chicken cooked before I put it into the dish. The tip is: microwave it. I know for some that may be kinda gross. But to me, it's so much more effort to cook it on the skillet, just to chop it up and throw it into something else that bakes additional time. Microwaving the chicken in my following recipe saves me major time and in the end tastes the same. (I think) When you have a recipe where the chicken is added to the dish already cooked, and without seasoning, I find that doing it on the stove isn't worth the time, where the microwave is a huge time saver. Then you can proceed to cut it with a knife, or with scissors. Whichever you prefer.

Bacon tip

This isn't anything revolutionary, but something I just realized recently was pretty handy and figure others out there might not've had the revelation yet either. We enjoy bacon with breakfast type meals, but I hate popping bacon grease, and the constant attention that bacon needs on the stove top. I also don't like using up all my Pam doing it in the microwave Dad style. Anyway, I noticed that bacon always has baking directions. On some packages it is even the recommended cooking method. Anyway, I've started baking my bacon in the oven and it has a few perks. No popping grease for one. It also leaves you completely freed to make whatever else you wanted with your meal and the bacon is completely independent to cook without worry. It's really nice.

This is my method. Then if you need the drippings for anything, you can pour them out. (I of course had more than 4 strips on here originally.) Putting them on the drying rack keeps them from getting stuck to the pan and breaking in pieces when you remove them.

Onion Tip

I learned this from my mother in law and put it to the test. It totally works. To keep from crying while you cut up onions, chew some gum. You have to make sure you don't stop chewing and just have the gum in your mouth. You have to be chewing it. But I've done it twice now and haven't cried. Okay, once I started to, but I hadn't been chewing for two minutes. I started chewing again and the tears went away. Amazing I say. Amazing.

Cinnamon Sugar Tip

So I grew up eating cinnamon sugar toast. So yummy. Still like it. Anyway, we always had a container that had a cinnamon sugar combo in it. I have continued the tradition, but since upgraded. Instead of keeping it in a tupperware deal, I used an empty seasoning bottle. So now I just have to sprinkle it on and snap the lid when I'm done. It's extremely convenient, and very useful in my next recipe: Cinnamon Rolls.

This one is now empty and needs refilling!

Lemon Zest tip

So I've had lemons around since I started making homemade lemonade.  I also used it in a fish recipe the other day and in that recipe it needed some lemon zest as well. I don't have a real lemon zester, but I have a cheese grater that's the super fine kind. So I use that. It works just as well. Anyhow, Aaron wanted to make the lemonade a few days before I was ready to use the zest, so I zested my lemons and put it in a container in the fridge. I wasn't sure how it would keep, or if it would work, but I figured it was worth a try. To my surprise, when I pulled it out to use it the other day, it was great! It was dry, but still had all the lemon flavor (you could smell it.) So from now on, I will never toss a lemon rind after I juice it. I will zest it first, store the zest, then juice it.

I use lemon zest mostly for lemon tea cookies (the best ever!!) or blueberry muffins. (I'll probably be making one of the two soon since I bought lemons today. Maybe even both!)

Cabbage Tip

I have a hard time finding enough things to do with cabbage to warrant buying an entire head. I know some stores will cut the cabbage in half, so you don't have to use as much. I wish I could do that. However, our store doesn't so I'm stuck trying to figure out what to do with it if I needed it for one recipe (usually my fish tacos.) Here's my tip. My cabbage is usually shredded from fish tacos, so I keep it in a baggy and slowly incorporate it into our green salads. It doesn't have a strong taste, but it has a nice texture, so it can liven up the salad a bit.  Anyhow, it's how we've started using our extra cabbage.

Cilantro tip

I bought some cilantro yesterday for the fish tacos. I learned a while back that buying fresh cilantro can be hard. You can only buy it in bundles, and it's hard to use that much cilantro. But we really enjoy it and do use it sort of often. So a while back I googled ways to keep cilantro longer. Anyone who's bought it fresh knows it doesn't always last too long. The best tip I found is this: Put it in a glass container or cup filled with water and cover it with a plastic bag. When the water turns yellow, empty and put in fresh water. Store it in the fridge. This keeps the cilantro much longer. I also try to plan meals that use fresh cilantro within a few weeks of buying it, so I can really utilize the cilantro bunch. Luckily for us, our recipes using fresh cilantro are varied and different, so we don't have to have many similar meals close together just to use our cilantro. However, if you find it hard to use it fresh, I have found it freeze dried. It's not as potent, obviously, but offers some of the flavor.