I want your kitchen tricks I will share some of mine

[stopbeeping]

I am looking for tips for things you didn't do until recently that changed your cooking

Some of my faves atm are

II microwave small potatoes that I've hassle backed for about 10 mins then I put them into a baking tray with oil and seasoning of my choice, I paint them with a silicone brush it really gets in there it's changed our potato love in this house and then into oven for around 40 mins it's like having par boiled potato but less mess before roasting, can also squash them when cooked in microwave instead of cutting them into a hassle back

Also I make fajitas but now I put them into a baking dish put some salsa and cheese and herbs into them kind of in a taco shape with all the fillings into each one and then I put that in the oven for about 15 mins and it's so so much tastier then normal fajitas, also stops my kids from making such a mess!

Any tricks I can steal?

Thank you!

If you have fresh ginger, peel it with a teaspoon. Sounds unbelievable - but it is incredibly easy to do so.
Then, as PP have said, freeze the rest.

Grated frozen ginger is so much better than chunks frozen in bags. Ditto chillis and garlic.

My one major hack is a remoska oven. I've never made a bad meal with it. Also makes smooth mash as there is no water involved so it cooks through and mashes like silk.

I'm not quick at making gravy. It stresses me to have to whip it up in a hurry, and sometimes it doesn't come out right.

Instead, I use gravy from the freezer which I made from the previous roast. After tonight's dinner (maybe even tomorrow), I'll use tonight's drippings to make gravy to freeze for next time. I especially like the convenience of gravy from the freezer on Christmas day.

My MIL used to heat serving dishes in the oven so the food wouldn't go cold on the table. I admit it did the trick, but it's a hassle and the dishes often came out of the oven hot enough to burn people.

Last week I realised that when draining boiling water off vegetables, I could stand the colander/sieve on the serving dish in the sink. The boiling water drains into the serving dish, heating it instantly. A few seconds later, tip the hot water out of serving dish and tip the veg from the colander into the hot serving dish.

A shake of beef granules in your lasagne ragu does incredible things. Even a lobbed-together-shitesagne is elevated to god-like status with some Bisto .

Wholegrain mustard in mash is good too!

Not cooking but kitchen tip: store some things upside down to save space.
I put spatulas and big spoons upside down in the drawer so that they fit together and don't catch at the top when opening/closing.
I also put the colander upside down on top of the saucepans.

Alison good to see another Remoska lover ... they are very rarely mentioned yet they cook wonderfully and are very economical... surely they do the same as an Air Fryer? . My most used 'gadget'.

Made a delicious Boeuf bourguignon the other day - but DH doesn't like mushrooms so I added chestnuts instead. Delicious!
My main tip is to avoid having to scrub flour off your worktop after rolling dough of any kind - put down baking paper and roll it on top of that. And you can put baking paper on top as well and roll it between both sheets if you don't want any mess at all!
Easy meatballs - roll of sausage meat. Take off the plastic, cut into quarters lengthwise, chop into meatball sized chunks, roll into balls with set hands, drop into boiling water for a couple of minutes to set and then cook however you want to. Mediterranean meatballs were a favourite in my family. Tin of tomatoes, tin of baked beans, meatballs, garlic, oregano, mix and cook in the oven for half an hour or so. Serve with crusty bread. Cheap and cheerful!
Another tip... Don't ever use your oven for just one thing. Depending on what you're cooking, you should be able to cook a couple of meals in there and heat up the second in the microwave the next day, or you can use the residual heat from cooking something hot to cook something at a lower temperature afterwards.

You can buy frozen mash from Tesco. It's perfect and really quite cheap

Shop at Iceland! Frozen mash, chopped carrots, chopped onions, chilli, garlic, ginger and herbs. Makes things so much quicker!

Stock cubes get rid of any meaty weird smells. I use them in curry's, home made lasagne sauce, cottage pie.

If you're cooking frozen peas, don't add water. Just put them in a hot pan and keep stirring. The water that's in them from freezing is enough and they taste much better too (not water clogged)

Everyone who's tasted it loves my cottage pie, so much so that if I make it on a Sunday, my teenage DD's always insist I cook extra portions so they can take some to school for lunch on Monday - their friends always ask me to make it when they come round for dinner too!

The fact is, it's the easiest thing in the world - I literally chuck minced beef, red Bisto, diced onions and carrots, some hot water and a couple of dashes of Worcestershire sauce into the slow cooker and leave it for a few hours. Obviously I top it with mash (with butter, milk, salt & pepper) and some grated cheese and put it under the grill to finish it off, but it's only about 15 minutes of actually doing anything, and it's my whole family's favourite meal!

My other really, really simple, but really, really delicious thing I make is leek and potato soup. Boil diced potatoes in water with a veggie stock cube mixed in, sweat chopped leeks in a tiny bit of oil, add the leeks to the potato pan (do not drain the potatoes!), blend, add salt & pepper to taste, et voila!

Do cheese on toast in the oven, not under the grill. Bread gets crispy (but not overly so) and cheese doesn’t burn like it does under the grill.
You might all do this already, but I ‘discovered’ it about a year ago and now I feel like Nigella!

Grate onions instead of chopping - quicker, and the tiny, mushy pieces cant be identified and pulled out of things by fusspots who don't like onion.

Cook cous-cous by putting it in a wide, flat dish, and just about covering it in boiling water (and a stock cube) and a plate. It will cook in the steam in 10 mins.

This is a baking one but--dusting with icing sugar is best done with one of those round, single person tea strainers. If you're taking the cake somewhere, scoop the icing sugar into the tea strainer, pop into a snap lock bag, and dust fresh when you arrive.

I'm lactose intolerant.

Most people take milk in their tea and coffee so I freeze milk in an ice cube tray, you can just drop a cube into a cup of tea.

You don't need to peel potatoes for mash, just mash the skins in and you won't taste them, also the skin contains nutrients.

You can regrow spring onions.

I live alone so instead of freezing a pack of pita breads or tortillas I put 1 or 2 in a bag to freeze.

If you are running out of freezer space, say you have come home from shopping and you didn't realise your freezer was full instead of playing 'freezer tectrix' decant things into riplock bags, tear off the cooking instruction and put them in the bag with the food.

On the other hand if your freezer is fairly empty put newspaper or bread (or something else cheap) in to run the freezer more efficiently.

If you want to make an Asian broth (Asian as in Thai or Vietnam not India) a cube of frozen garlic and a cube of frozen ginger in hot water makes a good base, you can add meat/veg/tofu to it and other spices.

Ooh I do similar with the potato and leek soup!

The only thing I do a bit differently is I chuck some chopped garlic in with the leeks when I'm sweating them in a bit of butter. And then at the end, I add a big swirl of Elmlea cream and it makes it taste REALLY decadent. I used to do it without the cream but honestly the addition of a relatively small amount of cream is a game-changer! Apparently you can alternatively chuck in a bit of Philadelphia and you'll get the same effect, but I've not actually tried that.

If I've got any leftover chicken, sometimes I'll chuck that in too to make chicken, potato and leek soup.

My DP grumbles about eating soup but actually ASKS me to make this - which is unheard of for soup usually!

Some great ideas here!

Freeze sliced lemons - ice n a slice all in one for drinks.

I can't tolerate anything too creamy/milky, and have found that coconut milk makes excellent creamy soups, and a good base for curries.

My top tips:
Invest in a soup kettle, really good for soup lovers and knocks up a simple soup with skate veg. I always add butter beans for thickening

Bolognaise type tomato sauces, add a small teaspoon of jam to take away the bitterness of the tomato

Add wine to any sauces or gravy dishes

I've started adding chopped rectangles of cheese to cottage pie mash, just before I put in the oven - you get the occasional burst of lovely melted cheese if you like that taste!

Or go to a restaurant, saves that mucking about with grating etc. 🙂

Microwaving them with no water is even easier & frees up a ring on the cooker (I started doing this when I didn't have a free ring)