Some random but totally awesome kitchen tips!

Sharing kitchen knowledge is a great way to stay connected to one another and progress in our kitchen endeavors. Little tips you learn along the way can help you be more efficient with your tools, ingredients and time, as well as make cooking and crafting more exciting! Learning kitchen secrets, which aren't always intuitive, is a skill worth honing! This is why I feel compelled to share a few completely random yet totally helpful kitchen tips that have been rocking my world lately. Pass it on!

• Soak potatoes to release starch (courtesy of mom!):  Love crispy homefries or hash browns? Potatoes have a lot of starch in them, which can cause them to be mushy and/or stick to the pan when frying. Soaking potatoes in cold water helps to remove a lot of that starch, allowing the potato to get nice and crispy, be it in home fry or hash brown form. Cut or grate the potatoes into nice cold water, let them sit until the water gets nice and cloudy (as it extracts the starch), rinse and repeat one more time. Rinse again and dry thoroughly before adding the potatoes to the skillet. Works like a charm!

Grated potato, twice-soaked in cold water, on its way to becoming crispy delicious hash browns! 

• Shaking garlic cloves in mason jar to remove skin (courtesy of chef Isaac): I don't know why, but peeling garlic skins just seems like THE biggest pain in the butt to me. Maybe it's because I use a ton of garlic in everything. If you feel the same way, you MUST try this incredible trick! Simple put individual cloves, or a whole head, of garlic into a mason jar, screw on the lid and shake baby shake! Get a nice vigorously up and down motion going so the garlic is beating against both ends of the jar. Like magic, the cloves are all peeled and ready to go! Beautiful!

• Vegetable scraps = totally easy and awesome vegetable stock: Minimizing food waste is like my number 1 kitchen priority. Making vegetable stock with vegetable scraps could not be easier or more convenient. Ya know how you always have ends of carrots and onions or hearts of celery or cabbage left after preparing for a meal? Well, throw all of those things into a crock pot with some water. Add sprigs of herbs, like parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme (thanks Simon and Garfunkel ;) ). Turn it on low and let it all infuse for as long as you want! Set it and forget it! You can add absolutely anything to this, like apple cores (from making all those apple pies!), citrus rinds, squash skins, beet juice from boiling beets - anything. Just filter it once its done, put it into a big mason jar and have it on hand for all sorts of things, like making soup or boiling potatoes or rice. 

Seasons Eatings!!