I recently discovered a new kitchen tip.  I’m geekily excited about this new tip.  Let me explain.

I live in Texas.  It’s insanely hot here for many months of the year.  After moving here I began to understand the concept of a “summer kitchen.”  An outdoor space where you can cook and not worry about heating up your house.  At our house that’s the barbeque grill, but I do a lot of cooking inside anyway.  So I’m always looking for ways to maximize the use of my oven.  If I’m going to roast a chicken there are other things going into that oven so I can squeeze as much in there taking advantage of the heat as possible, without having to turn on the oven any more than is truly necessary.

My newest kitchen trick?  I just discovered that you can cook eggs in your oven.  Well…yes, we all know that we can cook eggs in the oven.  But it turns out you can hard cook (can’t say boil if you’re not boiling, now can you?) eggs in the oven.  325 degrees for 30 minutes.  They come out great.  And the best part?  They peel like a charm.  For me the peeling is often a problem as I get my eggs from a friend who raises pastured eggs.  Often I get them within a day or two of laying.  And in my experience, the fresher the egg the harder it is to peel.  But it turns out when they are baked they peel perfectly.  Every. Single. Time.  I love it!

Then I started thinking about other kitchen tips and tricks and decided to share a few of my favorites here with you.

2. Baking Rice – this is a great way to make rice without having to watch the pot or be as concerned about sticking. When I make rice in the oven I have never had it stick.  1 cup of brown rice + 1 3/4 cups of boiling water or broth + a pat of butter + a pinch of salt.  When the water comes to a boil, add the other ingredients, cover, and slide into the oven to bake for 25 minutes.  Perfect every time.

3. Cutting Round Vegetables – cut a small slice off the “bottom” and you’ll have a flat surface to help keep the vegetable from rolling.  Sounds silly but it took me a long time to figure this one out.  I used to cut everything in half and then cut from there.  You get a nicer presentation and more even pieces if you cut off a small slice.

4. Ice coffee or tea – when making coffee or tea take your leftovers and freeze them in ice cube trays.  Then when you need to cool down your drink (a necessity in the summertime if you live in Texas — or any place hot) you can cool it down without diluting it.  Delicious!

4.a. This goes for wine as well.  You can freeze that last little bit to use for sauces.  [Unless you’re making vinegar, then it goes
into the vinegar pot.

5.  Back to eggs – crack eggs on the counter, not the edge of your bowl.  You’ll be less likely to get shell fragments in your dish if you do that.

6. Stacked Baking – when you need more room in your oven consider putting one baking sheet on the shelf. Then put a raised cookie cooling rack sideways across the baking sheet.  You have just created another space for another baking sheet.  I use this all the time, especially during the holidays when trying to get as much as possible into the oven.

7. Order of operations – this is so important it probably should have gone first.  Write things down.  If you’re cooking multiple things in your oven write down how long everything takes to cook, what temperature, and then figure out when things need to go in and out of the oven.  When you’re cooking for a big family dinner, for a party, or doing a once-a-month cooking spree this is very helpful to maximize your oven time.

8. Crockpots outside – in the summer you can plug your crockpot in on a screened in porch.  This way it doesn’t heat up the house but sits there cooking away until dinner time.  I do recommend that it’s in a screened space though to prevent any unwanted visitors from checking out your delicious crock.

9. Saving Jars – I save jars all the time.  They’re great for storing spices which I buy in bulk, fabulous for filling with last little bits of leftovers (rather than in plastic), and in a pinch make a great lidded containers for protein shakes.  But I don’t like all of the labels on them and peeling them is messy, messy, messy.  Until I discovered this trick.  After you’ve emptied the container rinse it (but don’t run it through the dishwasher yet).  Fill it with boiling hot water and let it sit for about 2 minutes.  For the majority of the jars I’ve ever dealt with this loosens the glue and the label peels right off.  There is a bit of glue left on the jar but this washes off pretty easily.  Then run the jar through the dishwasher and voila! Another great storage container.

10. Lemon Dust – I love to use lemon flavoring in a lot of things, for baked goods, for sauces, to sprinkle over roast chicken.  I make my own very easily.  When juicing a lemon (which I do almost every day – it’s an alkalizing addition to water) first peel the lemon.  Then cut it in half, squeeze half into your glass and save the other half for the next time.  Take the peels and lay them out on a plate allowing them to air dry.  When they are dry I collect them in a jar.  When the jar is full I run them through my food processor turning them into dust.  A pinch at a time, it’s a delicious addition.

If you have a favorite tip or trick, I’d love to know about it.  Please share in the comment section below.

photo: cyclonebill