5 Food Hacks That Will Improve Your Kitchen Life

Cooking isn’t always easy and sometimes we can all use a little help. Use these 5 kitchen hacks to help save time and make cooking easier.

1. Secure a wiggly cutting board – Chopping vegetables for dinner can be made into a task when your cutting board keeps moving on you. There’s an easy fix for that. Simply wet a few pieces of paper towel and place them flat underneath your cutting board. You’ll be slicing up your stir-fry veg in no time.

2. Ripen fruit faster – Sometimes you feel like eating a perfectly ripe banana, but more often than not the only bananas in sight at your grocery store are green. When fruit ripens it gives off a naturally occurring gas called ethylene. Pop those green bananas, hard avocados, or under-ripe peaches into a paper bag and set aside for a day or two. The gas will be trapped in the bag and you’ll have perfectly ripe fruit in no time.

3. Remove eggshells from your batter – Sometimes a pesky piece of eggshell sneaks into your cake batter when you’re cracking eggs. Trying to fish it out with your finger can be a frustrating task. Next time, use one half of the cracked eggshell to scoop out the missing piece. The cracked bits of egg are easily retrieved with the bigger shell, which means you’ll be eating cake sooner than later.

4. Soften hard brown sugar – Got a big lump of hard brown sugar in your pantry? Don’t toss it. Instead, simply pop it in a bowl and cover it with a few pieces of damp paper towel. Microwave on medium for 45-second increments and repeat until your sugar is soft. Let the cookie baking commence.

5. Peel ginger with a spoon – Sometimes when chopping ginger you lose a lot of perfectly good ginger root by chopping off the peel with your knife. Grab a small spoon and gently scrape off the peel of your ginger without losing any ginger at all. More ginger for everyone.