This week's Kitchen Tip Tuesdays is being hosted by Heather at Feel Good About Dinner. Head over to Feel Good About Dinner to read her kitchen tip and share yours there!

If you're cooking fresh pumpkins this month, don't forget to drain it well before pureeing for your favorite baking recipes. :)

This year my brother (who lives in Eastern Washington) brought us a huge box full of pie pumpkins from their garden! They are so flavorful and less watery than the big pumpkins I've often been given. I did still drain a bit of water out of them after cooking.

Just place the cooked pumpkin in a strainer in a clean sink or big bowl and allow to drain for a few minutes.

Tip: This year I have an immersion/hand blender and it makes it super easy to puree the cooked pumpkin right in a big bowl. Other years, I just mash the pumpkin with a potato masher and that works sufficiently well for everything I've tried.

Some of our favorite pumpkin recipes are showcased here.

I love baking with pumpkin... probably even more than apples. :) I'll be making my signature pumpkin dinner rolls for Thanksgiving next week and I can't wait! :)

For more kitchen tips or to add yours, visit Feel Good About Dinner! :)

This week's Kitchen Tip Tuesdays is being hosted by Bonnie at Recipes Happen. Head over to Recipes Happen to read her kitchen tip and share yours there!

The kids and I left Seattle last week and flew to Ohio to visit my parents and siblings there. We're having a lovely visit and my mom is making some of her wonderful food for us.

Even though I have many of my mom's recipes, there are a few of her signature creations that I rarely make -- like tapioca pudding (Yehoshua's favorite), energy bars (the kids' favorite breakfast), and beef chop suey (one of my favorites!).

Like last time, my parents (still) don't have internet access at their house. We drove to the local library this evening so I could post this kitchen tip! :)

Lunchbox Storage

Just like my husband has, my dad has always taken a packed lunch to work. I learned a couple helpful hints about lunchbox storage from my mom.

Tip #1: Have an easy-to-access storage spot for the lunchbox(es) when they are not in use. My mom uses the top of her fridge for any lunchboxes that are at home.

When more of my siblings lived at home, the top of her fridge was home to numerous lunchboxes. Having a dedicated storage location kept the lunchboxes from cluttering the counters.

Tip #2: Store lunchboxes with the lids open so they can air out. This keeps the lunchbox smelling fresher. If the lunchbox is washable or has a removable/washable insert, wash it at the end of the work week.

Alternately, wipe the inside of the lunch box with a soapy dishcloth after emptying it of dirty containers and then store open to dry/air out.

Bonus tip #1: Keep yogurt cold for on-the-go without using an ice pack

I discovered that it works beautifully to put homemade yogurt or Greek yogurt into a serving-size container and then stir in some frozen berries or other bite-size chunks of frozen fruit.

When you're ready to eat your yogurt a few hours later, the fruit will be thawed and the yogurt will still be cold. (This may not work in super hot climates -- but worked great in our Washington summers.)

Bonus tip #2: Pack your lunch ahead from the freezer

Before I left last week, I cooked and froze serving-size containers of pinto beans for Joshua's lunches at work. He told me it's worked great for him to pack his lunch the night before by pulling a container from the freezer and putting it in his lunch box. It's thawed by lunch time (and then he heats it in the microwave at work).

More of my lunchbox tips are in this post.

For more kitchen tips or to add your own, visit Recipes Happen!

This week's Kitchen Tip Tuesdays link-up is being hosted by Katy at Purposely Frugal. Head over to her blog to read her tips for making homemade corn tortillas and submit your own kitchen tips!

I've lost 36 pounds in the past 7 months... and I've eaten a ton of celery.

I don't love celery, but it's not too bad and it's cheaper than cucumbers and a nice change of pace from lettuce and carrots. :) When I need a mess-free take-along snack, I often go for celery sticks.

One day this summer, we ended up taking a long walk to a park that didn't have a drinking fountain to refill our water bottles. The HUGE bag of celery sticks I had brought quenched my thirst. Celery is 95% water, after all.

With all this celery munching, I had to come up with a quick way to cut celery sticks. Here's what's been working for me:

Wash celery without separating the stalks from the head. I run water inside and all over the celery until it looks clean.

Without separating the stalks from the head, cut off the brown tops of the celery.

Turn celery around and cut off the bottom of the head of celery. Put the tops and bottoms in your compost, garbage disposal, or trash.

This is what you should have now: A bunch of long celery sticks, some with leaves.

Cut the leaves off. I don't like leaves on my celery sticks, but they are perfect to add to soups or tuna salad sandwiches later.

Now that the leaves are trimmed, all you need to do is cut into smaller sticks for snacking.

Two cuts and you're finished! Beautiful, perfect celery sticks... and this whole process takes about 4 minutes. :)

The main "tip" to remember is: Save time by trimming celery tops and bottoms first, instead of separating stalks and trimming each stalk individually.

Now, head over to Purposely Frugal to read more kitchen tips and leave your own! :)

The winner of Not Your Mother's Make-Ahead and Freeze Cookbook Giveaway is:

leatha.arant@

Thanks, everyone, for your enthusiasm over Jessica's new book! :)

This week's kitchen tip is one I learned from Joshua's grandma. I noticed that the condiment bottles in her fridge all had dates written on them: The date each item was opened.

What a brilliant idea! How many times have I opened a carton of cream that says "Use within 10 days of opening" and I can never remember how long it's been open?! Having the date written on it is a great reminder to use it before it expires!

For salad dressings, writing the dates on them when you open them would allow you to easily see which bottles your family is using regularly and which ones take years to empty.

Hint: If something's been in your fridge for a year and it's only barely used, you could probably skip buying it next time it's on sale... ;)

More condiment tips:

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. 8 ways to save money on beverages + leftover beverages tip (Cooking Up a Sale)
2. Condensed milk substitute -- dairy-free (Whole New Mom)
3. Pie crust tip (Recipes Happen)
4. Flavoring pasta (Moms Frugal)

Joshua went to the linen closet/pantry to retrieve something and proclaimed, "You're a genius!"

While this trick hardly makes me a genius, it is worth sharing for those of you who use natural peanut butter which separates in storage. :)

I buy the big jars of Adams peanut butter from Costco, and getting a new jar "ready to serve" used to require some serious stirring power. The jars are also filled quite full so I usually ended up with sore hands, an oily drippy jar, and maybe even a bent metal spoon by the time it was finally mixed!

Now, I know some people have a special peanut-butter-stirring device, but I don't normally go for single-purpose items. (Plus, I don't think those stirrers come with a variable lid size, and my jars have huge lids.)

Others recommend dumping the whole jar of peanut butter into a big bowl and using the mixer to stir it, then returning to the jar. I don't mind dishes but that still sounds like a lot of bother to me!

My solution -- recommended by a reader, if I recall -- is: Store natural peanut butter in the jars upside down. When ready to open and use, it will be much easier to stir because all the oil will have separated to the bottom instead of the top! :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. 7 Ways to Save Money on Produce (Cooking Up a Sale)
2. Prep ahead (Recipes Happen)
3. Favorite wheat flour (Western Warmth)
4. Freezer tip (One Daily $$$ Tip)
5. Bread baking doneness tip (Anne Jisca's Healthy Pursuits)

Powdered sugar is one of those messy pantry ingredients, at least in my house. A couple years ago I tried making my own powdered sugar which was a disaster. (Now that we own a Vitamix blender, I'm pretty sure it would work.)

So, I usually buy a bag of powdered sugar at Costco which lasts us something like 2 years. And Joshua did this handy storage trick to keep it from puffing everywhere when I rummage through my Lazy Susan looking for other stuff.

Look! Two twisters! This bag can be picked up or shoved around without puffing powdered sugar everywhere!

And then we stuck it in this plastic canister I had laying around and wasn't using. My Lazy Susan is looking much more organized. (But I think that should be a whole separate post... how to tame the Lazy Susan which is so handy to just throw/push/squeeze/squish everything inside!)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Gluten-free enchilada substitution tip (Western Warmth)
2. Fruit fly trap (Whole New Mom)
3. Reducing tomato sauce (A Dusty Frame)
4. Tomato sauce tip (Trial and Error Home Ec)
5. Freezing bananas (Anne Jisca's Healthy Pursuits)
6. Evenly dusting sugar or spices without a shaker (Sabby Ink)
7. Secret to crispy fried potatoes (A Proverbs 31 Wife)
8. Old socks become cleaning rags (Recipes Happen)

 

Originally published in 2006

Okay, so you have a nice big onion and your recipe wants it diced.

Have you ever wondered if there's a best way to dice an onion?

I used to have all sorts of problems dicing onions nicely, until my uncle (who is practically a gourmet chef!) showed me how he did it. I've done it the same way ever since, and now dicing onions is a snap... even if I'm making a triple batch of salsa... when I need 18 cups of diced onions.

If you would like to watch the video tutorial, click here! This is a 6 MB WMV file and you can either right-click to save to your desktop, or just click and it will stream.

Here is the photo tutorial of what I think is the easiest way to dice an onion!

1. Start with a freshly-peeled onion. I always rinse the onion after I have peeled it, so it doesn't make me cry. (If you wear contact lenses, this won't be a problem for you, though!) Set the onion, root-side-down, on your cutting board.

2. Cut your onion in half.

3. Lay each half, cut side down, on your cutting board.

4. Slice one half of your onion as shown.

Slice thinly for minced onion, or thickly for coarsely-diced onion, or anywhere in-between as desired!

To get every last bit of your onion sliced, use one hand to hold the onion in shape and make the final slice or two.

5. Now, turn your sliced onion ninety-degrees to either the right or left, and...

6. Start slicing again, angling towards the middle of your onion. Make your slices thin for minced onions and thick for coarsely chopped onion.

7. Repeat steps for the other half of your onion.

And then you're done!

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Menu plan make-ahead strategies (Feel Good About Dinner)
2. Time-saving recipe bases (Davette Brown)
3. Split chicken breast tip (Living So Abundantly)
4. Oil vs. butter tips (Sunny Side Homestead)
5.

After a gorgeous Summer, Fall is upon us here in the Pacific Northwest! The breeze is chilly and a few dry leaves are littering our yard. If I leave a window cracked overnight, the house is cold when we get up. (Okay, 60's isn't really cold, but we've been spoiled with warmth the past few months!)

I've been enjoying making hot tea or coffee in the mornings again. I absolutely LOVE the AeroPress coffee maker that Joshua gave me on my birthday last year! One of my friends gave me this tip for brewing coffee:

Add a pinch of salt to ground coffee before brewing, then brew as usual. The bit of salt makes a smoother, less bitter cup of coffee.

I normally like salt in my food (I add it to my morning oatmeal without fail!) so as soon as I heard this tip I knew it was the thing I needed to change about my morning breakfast.

I've already tried adding ground cinnamon and other spices to my coffee beans before brewing, and salt is the perfect finishing touch!

Do you add salt to your coffee? :)

Bonus picture:

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Celery salt and ways to use it (Whole New Mom)
2. Pitting cherries (Sunny Side Homestead)
3. Softened butter tip (Living So Abundantly)
4. Peeling tomatoes tip (Recipes Happen)
5. Cooking with cast iron (Simply Made Home)
6.

Have you ever opened a box of pasta, used part of it for a recipe, and then later forgot how much pasta was left in the opened box? Well, I used to do that all the time. I usually buy big boxes of things like spaghetti and macaroni, and whether there's 8 or 12 or 16 ounces used, I can never seem to remember.

So now, when I open a new box and use some of the pasta, I mark the outside so I can remember later. I'm not sure why it took me so many years of guesswork to figure out this trick, but it sure makes things easier! :)

Update: Since this post was originally written (5 years ago!) I got this digital kitchen scale. I use it a lot -- more than I ever expected I would! :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Homemade popcorn (Western Warmth)
2. Space saving freezer tip (Feel Good About Dinner)
3. Getting wax off apples (Finding Joy in My Kitchen)
4. Frozen ginger tip (Sunny Side Homestead)
5. Pressing sticky baked goods (Living So Abundantly)
6. Fall pantry tips (The Local Cook)
7. Lattice pie crust shortcut (Black Fox Homestead)
8. Homemade tortillas tips (Recipes Happen)

I've been MIA online again... you see, Summer started here in Seattle in July, and it hasn't left yet. We have been enjoying every single day of sunshine and blue sky and cool breezes! I probably can't even count the number of miles we've walked, the picnic lunches we've eaten, or trips (all on foot) to the library or park.

(The good news? I'm still losing weight! And, we've added a few things to our family's outdoor activities... like tennis and frisbee and rollerblading.)

Anyway, here are a few miscellaneous tips from my kitchen; just little things we've been doing that really help. :)

Keeping the kitchen floor clean

With little kids, sometimes it seems like every meal requires a whole cleanup crew. I usually assign 1 child to pick up any dropped food from the floor, and another child to sweep with a small broom and dustpan. We have folding chairs at our kitchen table, so if the floor is really dirty, I also assign someone to fold up the chairs so the cleaning is easier. If it's really, really dirty, I assign a mopper.

Speaking of keeping the kitchen floor clean...

...going to the park for a picnic lunch is a great way to keep the kitchen floor clean. ;) We often take lunch along on our walks, because then we don't have to hurry back home to eat. (We're already working around nap time and make-dinner time!)

What do we like to take for our picnics?

The kids and I love PBJ sandwiches. I also try to have fresh fruit and veggies on hand to take along. I have the kids help with lunch -- making sandwiches, washing produce, and cutting it and putting it into bags. My oldest boys (ages 6 and 8) love getting to wash and cut cucumbers, celery, peppers, or pears! (I usually cut the harder foods like carrots or apples.)

Emergency Stroller Snack Tip

On our walks, I wear Channah in my Ergo and push Moshe (2) in the stroller. We pack our water and food and gear (frisbees, balls, library books, etc.) in the stroller. I keep a small container of whole almonds in the stroller as an emergency snack. If we stay out too long, run too hard, or forget one of our sandwiches at home, we'll still have something to eat besides carrots and celery. (I love fruits and vegetables, but walking on the hilly roads here makes me hungry!!)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. How to get bread to rise (Recipes Happen)
2. Inexpensive water bottle alternative (Feel Good About Dinner)
3. Squash in the slow cooker (The Local Cook)
4. Preventing freezer burn (Sunny Side Homestead)
5. Making quick oats from old fashioned oats (Living So Abundantly)
6. Water kefir tips (Nourishing Treasures)
7.