All of us have treasured bits of culinary wisdom that we learned as children, often simply by watching the cooks in our family move around the kitchen. To this day, I still peel hard-cooked eggs with a spoon the way I’ve watched my mom do it, I always add a pinch of sugar to pasta sauce because that’s how my aunt did it, and when I cook rice in a pot, I measure the water with my fingers like my grandmother did.

There are so many little tricks for dealing with everyday kitchen tasks, and we’d like to hear yours. After all, our goal here at Tasty Kitchen has always been to create a community where everyone can share favorite family recipes. So why not share all those favorite family kitchen tips as well! I, for one, am excited about this because it’ll be like learning from all of your food heroes. I think that’s pretty cool.

So today, we’re kicking off our own version of a fireside chat. Except this is a two-way thing, so it’ll be more like a stovetop conversation. Warm oven banter. A hearth-to-hearth talk. (Har dee har har.)

Let’s start!

This week’s topic is ONIONS. Specifically, chopping onions without ending up in a pool of tears crying for your mama and reaching for the bottle of onion powder instead. Of course, it helps to know how to chop an onion in the first place (thanks, Ree!). But how, pray tell, do you keep those pesky tears at bay once you’ve cut into it and unleashed the evil lurking inside?

I’ll go first and say that my favorite trick is to ask my husband to do it for me while I go and pour myself a glass of wine. Done! Okay, but what do you do when he’s not around, you ask? When that happens, I just chop/slice/dice/mince as fast as I can, or I do it in batches, walking away from the counter periodically to breathe in fresh air and wipe my eyes. I’ve heard that lighting a candle and keeping it close by while chopping helps but I’m afraid to try it. I get so easily distracted that I might see some cool new commercial on TV, walk over to the living room, and 3 episodes of Castle later, my cutting board is on fire. Me no likey that kind of fire.

Betsy says she read once that if you keep your mouth closed while chopping, it minimizes the tears. So she always does that. She’s not sure it works but thinks there must be something to not breathing through the mouth. Nanci says she’s heard some people hold a match between their teeth but she tried it once and it didn’t seem to work for her, so she just cries.

I heard that same match trick mentioned in the movie “The Help” and I figure there must be something about the sulfur in the match head reacting with the tear-inducing gas from the onion. However, I haven’t tried it to see if it works because I never have any matches lying around. (See previous paragraph about not liking fire.)

Some of our contributors chimed in as well to share their tips! A few involve some kind of physical barrier protecting the eyes. Adrianna says that wearing her contact lenses yields a better overall onion-cutting experience because the contacts offer some protection from the onion’s gases. Maria says she and Josh wear ski goggles. Erica is a gal after my own heart: She asks her husband Reuben to chop them for her if it’s particularly bad (he wears contacts). That’s what Maggy does too—she’ll grab anyone in the house with contacts and make them chop.

Gaby is emphatic: “Knives! They are a must! They make cutting an onion a hundred times easier and you won’t cry.” Calli agrees. She says she’s tried many different tips, even spraying a little vinegar on the cutting board (via Alton Brown) but she chops too many onions to be bothered with using the tips on a regular basis. She swears by simply keeping her knife sharp and knowing how to cut an onion efficiently so it goes fast. If you need a very fine dice, say for meatballs or meatloaf, Laurie suggests skipping the chopping altogether and using a grater instead.

Jessica likes to stick the onion in the freezer for half an hour or so, making it easy enough to still chop but not so bad on the eyes. Faith peels the onion first and lets it soak in cold water for about 5 minutes before cutting it. Finally, Georgia includes this tip in her forthcoming book: “Some may call this an old wives’ tale but it has always helped me considerably. If your eyes tend to weep while you chop onions, put a toothpick between your teeth and clench down before chopping.”

There ya go! Those are a handful of tips to get us started. Now it’s your turn. If you have a foolproof tip that works for you, we want to hear it! Shout it out below and maybe you can help someone discover his or her new favorite onion-chopping tip. Our weepy eyes thank you in advance.

Happy cooking (and chopping), everyone!

 
Ah, bacon. What is it about bacon that makes hearts go aflutter? Even just the aroma of bacon cooking is sometimes enough to stop people in their tracks to follow the scent trail to its source. People have added bacon to just about everything you can think of, including ice cream and chocolate martinis (served in glasses rimmed with maple syrup and bacon bits, no less). Grocery shelves house bottles of bacon salt and bacon spray. Cooks stash precious jars of bacon grease in the refrigerator, and I promise you using a dollop of that instead of oil will kick up your favorite fried rice recipe a few notches.

Bacon pretty much makes almost everything better—and special. Toss it with some tomatoes and pasta and you have a super simple yet incredibly tasty Bacon Tomato Capellini, which is where the photo above comes from. (If you love bacon and pasta, you’ll definitely want to check that out.)

Since we’ve established there are endless ways to use bacon, let’s talk about cooking bacon.

What’s your favorite method or technique for cooking bacon?

For Betsy, lately it’s been on a foil-lined baking sheet (with sides, of course) in the oven. She loves not having to babysit it on the stove, and the less is mess. She says her mom microwaves it but she thinks doing it that way makes the bacon shrivel and it doesn’t get as crispy. She tried using a wire rack once but her bacon just stuck to the rack, so she likes the foil.

I do pretty much the same thing, but for a different reason. See, my husband doesn’t like the smell of bacon in the house. (Shocker, I know.) So I cook it in the oven on a foil-lined baking sheet, like Betsy. (I skip the wire rack not because my bacon sticks to it but because I don’t enjoy cleaning it.) As soon as the bacon starts to sizzle and the edges look slightly crisp, I shut the oven off and let the bacon finish cooking in the residual heat. That way, when I open the oven door to retrieve the now-crisp bacon, much of the bacon smell will have dissipated inside the oven.

Nanci, on the other hand, is a stovetop kind of girl. She swears by her favorite 12-inch Griswold cast iron skillet and fries several batches of thick cut pepper bacon in one morning. Then she drains the bacon on paper towels, lets it cool, the wraps it up in clean paper towels. All that bacon goes into a bag to store in the freezer for quick microwave heating on weekday mornings. Smart!

How about you? Do you have a favorite method for cooking bacon? Or maybe a favorite bacon trick? It’s your turn to share and we’d love to hear your tips! (Or maybe you just want to profess your undying love for this marvelous piece of porky goodness. That’s okay too. We understand.)

 
Okay, today’s post starts with a little exercise. No, I’m not going to ask you to get on the treadmill—after all, where would you hang all those clothes piled on top of it? It’s very simple and you won’t even break a sweat. Ready?

Quick, go to your kitchen. Think of all the great meals you’ve made in there, the happy recipe accidents that ended up even better than the original, the day you finally conquered pie (yay!), and all the smiles on people’s faces after you’ve fed them something they love. Now look around and tell us:

What are some of the things in your kitchen that you consider absolutely essential? Stuff you just can’t live without?

Got it? It can be anything at all: tool, gadget, appliance, food item, or even something as simple as a step stool. (I have tall cabinets and not-too-tall legs. Things are constantly beyond my reach.)

Now here’s a follow up question:

What is the one kitchen item you don’t have but wish you did?

I’ll start us off. I have lots of tools and gadgets I love (like cookie scoops and Mason jars of all sizes) but I have to say I can’t live without my rice cooker. What can I say? I’m a rice girl. Sure, I know how to make rice in a pot. But I’ve been using a rice cooker almost all my adult life and I love the convenience of not having to worry about a pot on the stove and always having warm rice available.

I pretty much just make do with whatever I have, so I had to think hard to figure out what I wish I had. Does a wood-burning pizza oven count?

Betsy loves her Le Creuset Dutch oven, especially this time of year. It’s perfect for soups, braises, everything! She adds, “I’ve never had a high power blender, so I’d love to have one of those someday. I think I’m waiting for my old one to conk out on me.”

Ree chimes in too! “I can’t live without my inexcusably high stack of half-sheet pans/baking sheets. They are worn and scratched and well-loved. I use them for cookies, roasting vegetables, baking biscuits, roasting chicken legs … everything!”

Now we want to hear from you! What’s essential in your kitchen, and what’s at the top of your wish list? Let us know!

Do you have any tips for keeping produce fresh longer? Come join the conversation!

  The start of a new week, month, or year aways feels like a good time to make changes, or at least attempt a few. At the top of many lists is the resolve to be healthier, which is a nice change from simply wanting to shed pounds. Being healthier means being stronger, less ill, […]