kitchen tips

I'm snickering at myself because I'm not known for being the "tipsy kind of house wife" who comes up with nice efficient shortcuts to streamline my daily work.  I'm more the kind of person that looks at what I have to do on any given day and then I proceed to find the most difficult and complicated way to accomplish my tasks.

It's craziness.

More often than I wish to admit, my husband will walk into the kitchen and after a glance or two at what I'm doing he will offer some smart little tip to help ease my workload.

So. Having kitchen tips to offer today gives me a small sense of smugness. If you've already incorporated these tips long ago in your kitchen, laugh if you must, but only to yourself of course.

Here we go. I have a whop'in 2 tips to share with you today.

 I used to HATE any recipe that called for you to 'cut the butter into the dry ingredients'. By crumb, it never worked right for me. Then one day I came across this tip in a specialty bread recipe book. My life has been changed. I now LOVE to cut the butter into the dry ingredients.

Ready for kitchen tip #1 ???

Ok.

Here it is:

1. Keep a stick of butter in your freezer. Frozen butter will grate beautifully. Simply stir your frozen grated butter into the dry ingredients and............TADA.........perfect biscuit dough...pleased cook.....happy family!!!!!

  Just in case you haven't noticed, cupcakes are somewhat of a rage right now. I used to HATE making cupcakes because I would always get the batter all over my muffin tins and to add to the injury, my cupcakes would turn out ALL. DIFFERENT. SIZES. Of course, I just pretended that I was trying to make custom sizes for different sized appetites. Honestly though, I was frustrated because even though I don't enjoy tarrying long over food preparation, I still really want the outcome to be pleasing to my eye.

This moves me on to kitchen tip #2 of the day:

 

 

A cookie scoop (or ice cream scoop) works perfectly to minimize the mess and produce symmetrical cupcakes. And, I must add, it's easy and quick. I see more cupcakes and muffins in my future.

 

 

Now. Since short cuts and helpful little tips are not my strength, I'd love to hear a few of your kitchen tips!!! What have learned along the way that makes your life in the kitchen more enjoyable and easier?