Labor Saving Hints & Tips

This was an article I wrote 3 years ago, just before Labor Day - some of these I already shared with you but there are more hints and tip in here......I hope you enjoy!

Labor Saving Hints and Tips!
Making Cooking Fun

In pondering over what to write about for this coming Labor Day celebration, I decided that the best thing would be to share several labor saving ideas, hints and tricks that can make your cooking time more relaxed and fun all year `round!

Even though I love to cook, I prefer to not have to spend the whole day in a hot kitchen. Through the years I have found and collected all kinds of neat ways to make several jobs that are normally a bit of drudgery, easier or time-saving. Some of the ideas also have the advantage of being money savers!

If you have any tried and true hints and tips of your own, I would love to hear about them and of course will pass them along and share with all.

Some of the following ideas are my own and some are adopted from friends. Now I share them with you and they are yours to play with!

For many of the following ideas, the freezer can be your very best friend and ally!

Storing Macadamia Nuts
I go to the Kona side of the island a couple of times a year to buy macadamia nuts in bulk. The Kona Coast Macadamia Nut & Candy Factory below Captain Cook is a place where you can get what they call "off-grade" just because the nuts might have chipped a bit when shelling and can't be used for selling roasted, flavored or chocolate dipped.
They are packed in 3 pound bags, already shelled and raw. I usually buy several of the bags and they can last several months in the freezer. Call them ahead of time, as they don't always have the "off-grade" on hand.

*Freeze at least one pound whole, raw nuts in freezer style zip-lock bag.

*Chop or grind in a food processor one pound and freeze, raw in zip-lock bag.
*Chop or grind in food processor one pound and "toast" to desired color in cast iron skillet. They burn fast so you need to stir continuously. When cool, store in the freezer in a zip-lock bag.
*Store in the freezer ready for holiday baking or to use for desserts, cooking or in salads.

Tasty Eggs
Eggshells are porous and easily absorb the taste of foods around them when stored in the refrigerator. I'm not sure if I have shared this tip with you before, but you can make an omelet or a quiche that tastes like it contains lots of expensive mushrooms such as truffles or porcini by just letting them "share space" for a little while. The following is a cooking tip from chef and cookbook author Jacques
Pepin during a cooking class that I attended long ago:

*When you have some truffles, porcini or shiitake mushrooms and don't want to waste them, you can make them go farther by placing a few in a plastic bag with some fresh eggs (the fresher the better) and store in refrigerator for a few days. You can then use the eggs
for omelets, a frittata, quiche or even as hardboiled eggs in salads or for deviled eggs. The eggs will have absorbed the taste of the mushrooms through their shells."

Saving Fruit Juices
This is a neat way to save the harvest from bumper crops when citrus trees produce more than you can use at the moment.

It can be saved for later use if you juice batches of the fruit and freeze in ice cube trays. After they freeze, pop out of the trays and place in double layers of freezer-style Ziploc plastic bags. The reason for this is that if you leave them in the trays, after a while they somehow shrink and evaporate and a regular cube will turn out to be a little bitsy sliver.

If you do several different fruit juices, be sure to mark the bags accordingly. I use them for cooking and seasoning and dropping into iced tea glasses. They can also be used for making citrus-based desserts or syrups.

Hard lemons or limes will release more juice if they are
first `zapped' briefly (seconds only) in the microwave.

Saving Canned Fruit Syrups
When I use canned fruits that need to be drained, I save all the juices or syrups in a plastic container in the freezer, or sometimes I put it in ice trays and make cubes. You can use them in ice tea, or you can use them in fruit punch if you save enough.

Making Saffron Stretch Farther
Saffron gives certain dishes a very distinctive taste, but it is very expensive. Here is a tip that I have used for years and years. My sister in law, who lived in Spain many years, taught me this trick.

To get more flavor and color out of using the least amount of saffron threads juice a lemon or lime and put in a small glass bowl. Drop the saffron threads in it and sort of mash it with the rounded bottom of a spoon. Let it steep for a bit while you do something else. Mash some more, or use a mortar and pestle. Your few saffron threads will yield more color and flavor. You can then mix it into your dish,
lemon juice and all!

When making large quantities of pesto or if you have leftover pesto from a recipe, freeze some of it in ice cube trays.  When frozen pop them out and store in freezer zip-lock bags.  Can be use to drop in soups, stews, mix with pasta or as toppings for crostini.

Instant White Sauce
Here is a little trick that someone posted in one of the Internet cooking groups in which I am a member. I thought it was simple, very convenient and it works like a charm!

Blend together until crumbly 1 cup soft butter and 1 cup flour or Bisquick ®. Pack evenly into an ice cube tray and chill or freeze. When firm, remove cubes and store in a plastic bag in the freezer.

To make medium-thick sauce, drop 1 cube into 1 cup of milk and heat slowly, stirring as it thickens, or drop a cube into any dish you would like to thicken a little bit. You can season them with herbs if you wish. I like to add a touch of soy sauce to half the cubes.

For a creamy pesto sauce, add a cube or two of pesto to the white sauce.

When Using Pasta
When making lasagna or many other dishes that call for pasta and sauce mixed together, there is no need to boil the pasta first. Simply add it to the dish as you layer and then cook or bake. The sauce will cook the pasta at the same time, saving a messy step.

Staging Your Meals
Have you noticed how the chefs in cooking shows will usually have all of the ingredients in front of them, pre-measured when they start to put a dish together?

First read the recipe and get all of the ingredients together. Do all of your prepping work; wash, peel, chop, and dice whatever you need; pre-measure your spices, seasonings and other ingredients.

Place it all in front of you before you get started. This will save on legwork and keeps you from forgetting an ingredient and it is all ready, right in front of you when you need it.

When Frying Fritters
If you add a teaspoon of vinegar to your batter, the fritters will not absorb as much oil when frying.

Ginger-Garlic Mix
Many of the recipes I use call for grated ginger and grated garlic (or minced ginger and minced garlic, which to me does not make much difference!)

I like to take a large piece of ginger, cut into chunks and peel, then grate it all, regardless of how much a recipe calls for. I take a whole head of garlic and peel and mince (*) all the cloves. I mix the two in equal portions and store in a small glass jar that seals with a glass lid and rubber gasket and clamp. Store in refrigerator and use as needed. This saves a lot of time when you are preparing a single recipe that calls for just a little bit of both. It can last up to a week.

(*) I prefer to use a sharp bladed knife to mince. Some people use a garlic crusher, but I don't like using them (just personal preference) as the consistency of the garlic is different.

Storing Fresh Ginger
Since I use a lot of ginger and buy large pieces, these are my favorite methods for storing.

I already shared one way to do it in the previous hint (mixing ginger and garlic in jar and storing)

I also take peeled or unpeeled (depends on how industrious I feel) chunks and store in a glass lidded, rubber clamped, glass jar (I collect them) and fill with a good Spanish Sherry, almost to the top. You can also use Sake or any type rice wine. This imparts a great flavor to the sherry or the rice wine, while it keeps the root from rotting while it lingers in the refrigerator.

Use the root as you would normally. You can also use the resulting ginger sherry or wine to flavor dishes.

Making Vanilla Sugar
Place a couple of whole vanilla beans in a jar of granulated sugar. In a week or two, the sugar will acquire the vanilla bean's smell and taste. An ideal way to use it is for desserts or to dust the top of pastry after baking.

If you need to use the vanilla beans in other recipes, for example boiling it in milk for puddings or other desserts, make sure that you have dried the bean really well after use and before inserting back in the sugar. If the beans are not dried well, they can become moldy.

After several uses, it will be best to make a slit on the side of the bean before reusing. Scrape the seeds and use them in recipes. Wonderful when making homemade vanilla ice cream.

Making your own vanilla extract

Add a few vanilla beans to a bottle of vodka or dark rum.  You can cut a few of them to release more taste.  Keep in pantry for a couple of months before using.

I prefer to use the Jamaican Myer's Dark Rum.  Seems to give my vanilla a better, stronger taste.

You can decant some to another bottle for using and then add more vanilla beans and rum to the original bottle.

Keeping Salad Greens Fresh Longer
Different people have different methods, but we found this method the best for us when we owned the deli. I still do it in a smaller scale.

We saved 3 gallon plastic tubs with snap-on lids (our ice cream came in them), but any good plastic container with a good lid can work.

Line the bottom with a few layers of paper towels. Snap the core of the lettuce or other greens off (we did not use knives to cut as knives tend to oxidize the greens faster). Pull leaves and wash very well. Dry using a vegetable spinner to get rid of excess water.
Place leaves in the plastic tub, cover with a few more layers of paper towels and store in refrigerator.

We bought our lettuce every Wednesday and every Saturday at the Hilo Farmer's Market. Sometimes our lettuce would last a week to ten days if not used fast enough. Since, I have found that sometimes it can last even longer with this system.

Storing Other Fruits and Vegetables
Some fruits or vegetables do better if not stored in the refrigerator.

*Tomatoes ripen and taste better if not refrigerated. Keep on a kitchen windowsill until ripened then use. Refrigerate only after cutting or slicing.

*Potatoes, garlic and onions last longer if they are kept where fresh air circulates. Keep them in wire mesh three-tiered hanging storage baskets, which are available quite inexpensively in many stores and markets. But be sure to keep them separate. If onions and potatoes are stored together they will decompose sooner.

*The only onions that should be refrigerated for storage are the "sweet" onions, such as Maui, Vidalia, WalaWala or Texas Sweet.

*Fresh citrus fruit can also be stored in the three-tiered hanging baskets. They will release more juice if not refrigerated first.

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