Friday, July 20, 2012

Awesome Kitchen Tricks

I'm going to share with you my favorite kitchen tricks. These tricks save me time and money. Two very important things.

You might notice I cook a lot with fresh ginger. No I don't have a ginger farm in my backyard. I used to waste a lot of ginger. Buying a whole piece of ginger and only needing an inch of it. I threw away a lot of moldy ginger. One day I was at my friend, Jennifer's house and she was cooking something that called for ginger. That day she showed me her secret which I will share with you today.
She freezes her ginger.
Seriously she wrapped her ginger in foil and froze it. Now I buy ginger by the pound, wrap each piece in foil and freeze it all in a bag like this:
Instead of chopping it which is a pain when the ginger is frozen, I grate it. Rarely do I need to chop it so grating has worked for me. Yay for no trips to the store for ginger! Yay for not wasting ginger!

I stopped buying chicken breasts. Gasp! What? No more chicken breast? Yup, I only buy chicken thighs now. Boneless chicken breasts are usually around $7.99/lb. Boneless chicken thighs are usually around $5.99/lb. I find the thighs have more flavor and stay juicier than the breasts. There's a small nutritional difference and a lot of people don't like dark meat but neither of those are factors for me. Price usually wins with me.

I like to buy in bulk. When buying in bulk people think cereal or dried beans. But I like to buy meat in bulk. If I come across a good deal, I buy as much as I can afford and freeze it. At the recommendation of one of Tai's coworkers I bought a Foodsaver vacuum sealer. At the time I didn't think I'd really use it. But it was $10 (on sale) so I figured why not try it. I definitely got my money's worth. I vacuum freeze fresh fish and when I cook it later there is no taste difference between fresh and frozen. I also cook meals for Dad and freeze them with the vacuum sealer in individual portions so he can heat what he needs. The vacuum sealer bags are microwaveable so it makes things simple for him.
If you are interested I bought a mini FoodSaver. Mine didn't come as part of a kit which is why it was so cheap. I use mine about 2 times a month for the past six months and I've gone through 3 rolls of bags. FoodSaver tends to run deals frequently (50% percent off) so keep an eye out for a deal.

Do you have any kitchen tips to share?

2 comments:

  1. Great tips!! I only buy chicken tenders when they're on sale. In fact, we will be having those tonight on the grill! My family likes dark meat so thighs have long been a hit at my house. Grate the ginger...I will remember that. And I have to invest in the food saver. With the drought by the end of the year meat prices will be out-of-sight so buying and freezing now will save my family a lot of money!!

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  2. Thanks for these awesome tips! I've been wanting to use more ginger and freezing it is definitely a tip I could use (I love adding a bit of ginger to my home-made smoothies). And we stock up on meat too when there's a sale, since we go through a lot of it - we buy both boneless chicken breasts (mostly for salads) and thighs.

    Tanya Patrice
    Girlxoxo.com

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