13 Favorite Kitchen Shortcuts from Paula Deen

With school back in session, the lazy summer days are over, and our schedules are jam-packed with activities. That’s why we’re always looking to save time and make our lives a little easier. These are some of our favorite shortcuts in the kitchen to help us do just that.

Cool Drinks Faster: Add your drinks to a cooler or bucket, and pour ice over your drinks. Add some cold water and spin it a bit if you’re really in a hurry. Then, add more ice and top it all with course salt.

Prevent Brown Sugar from Hardening: Placing a few marshmallows into your sealed brown sugar container will help prevent your brown sugar from hardening.

Peel Garlic Quickly & Easily: To quickly and easily peel garlic, remove your cloves from the bulb, and place them in a bowl. Top that bowl with another bowl, and SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE! When you’re finished, the garlic cloves and the skin should be separated.

Grate Fresh Mozzarella: Fresh mozzarella is delicious but hard to grate with out this tip—freeze it first! Wrap fresh mozzarella in plastic wrap and freeze it for at least 20 minutes. When you pull it out of the freezer, unwrap it and it’s ready to grate.

Remove Eggshell from Cracked Eggs: If you have an eggshell in your eggs, use your larger eggshell as a scooper to remove it, instead of using your hands.

Soften Butter for Baking: Shred whatever amount of cold butter you need into a bowl. With more exposed surface area, small bits of butter soften faster than a full stick. Now there’s a lot less waiting around!

Get Maximum Juice from Lemons: To get the most juice from a lemon, first roll it on your counter before microwaving it for 15 seconds. Then, use a lemon squeezer to get all the juice out.

No More Watered Down Iced Coffee: Use leftover coffee to make coffee ice cubes. Instead of regular ice cubes, add these coffee ice cubes to your favorite coffee. Then add your cream and sugar!

Soften Hard Ice Cream: Run a sharp knife under warm water before making deep cuts in a grid pattern in the ice cream. Much like the butter, more exposed surface area will soften it faster. Now, run your scooper under warm water before scooping out ice cream.

Halve cherry tomatoes quickly: Put your cherry tomatoes (or grapes!) between two storage container lids and run a chef’s knife between the lids.

Clean a Blender Without a Sponge: Fill your blender a third of the way up with warm water, and add a few drops of dish soap. Run the blender for 10-20 seconds, and then rinse it out in the sink.

Chop Herbs with a Pizza Wheel: Put away the knife! Pizza cutters work great for chopping fresh herbs, and they can be safer too!

Cut Corn Off the Cob: Situate the corncob upright in the center of bundt pan, using the center piece. Hold the top of the corn, and run the chef knife down to remove the kernels. The kernels and juice will collect in pan, keeping all your mess contained.

Do you have any tips or tricks in the kitchen? Share them with us in the comments!

http://www.pauladeen.com/blog/13-favorite-kitchen-shortcuts/

Shared from our friend Paula Deen.