Tag: Home-Cooking

Posted in #allrecipes

How to Create Perfect Cheeseboards Year-Round

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Let’s start with an apology. We’re sorry we didn’t bring this hack to you back in November. This was before all the holiday cheese boards and charcuterie boards. Trust us, if we had known about this trick back then, we would have shared it with you. 

Fortunately, cheese isn’t just a holiday food. It is everyday food for many of us. There are always occasions to make cheeseboards. Some occasions include birthdays and anniversaries. Valentine’s Day, an Oscar party, and the big bowl game are other examples. Even an average Tuesday is a good time, to name a few.

If you always volunteer to bring the cheese to an event, you should know about this trick. You like your cheese boards to look professional with uniform slices.

How to Use a Fork to Uniformly Slice Cheese

This viral cheese-cutting tip that spread.the.grub posted on Instagram is so simple and so genius. 

Here’s how it works. Grab a dinner fork (any regular old dinner fork). Grab your block of cheese. This trick seems like it would work best with a semi-hard cheese such as Cheddar, Gouda, Swiss, or provolone. It wouldn’t work very well with a soft goat cheese or Brie that isn’t easily sliceable. Hard cheeses, such as Grana Padana or Parmesan, would probably crumble under the knife. 

But for those cheeses that are cut into slices cleanly, this method will make easy work out of uniformity.

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Posted in #allrecipes

Why You Should Rethink Adding This 1 Ingredient to Mashed Potatoes

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

TikTok has become a go-to source for recipe ideas, cooking hacks, and prep tips that keep us scrolling for inspiration. Creators have brought us many brilliant ideas that are keepers. However, not all TikTok ideas are created equal, and some may be problematic.

Recently, the practice of adding instant yeast to already cooked mashed potatoes has been a hot topic on social media. It’s supposed to make the mashers fluffier and give them a savory, bready flavor. 

Traditional mashed potatoes are already fantastic, so adding a bready note to them might have you wondering, “Why bother?” But since the yeasted version is so popular right now, Allrecipes culinary producer Nicole McLaughlin had to try it for herself.

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The Best and Worst Fruits and Vegetables to Buy Pre-Cut

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

You might think that buying pre-cut foods — like diced, spiralized, or perfectly shredded fruits and vegetables — is all upside. But there are a few downsides to purchasing pre-cut items: additional grocery cost, a more limited shelf-life, the loss of nutritional value, and even the potential for cross-contamination.

What Are the Benefits to Buying Pre-Cut Foods 

But let’s be honest, sometimes saving time in the kitchen is worth a little extra expense. Besides, if purchasing pre-cuts helps you eat more fruits and vegetables, it’ll probably be a good habit, on balance, for the time being at least. Also, there are just some fruits and veggies that are worth getting pre-cut because they’re so tedious to prep — looking at you fresh coconut and butternut squash.

Lauren Harris-Pincus, MS, RDN, and author of The Everything Easy Pre-Diabetes Cookbook and The Protein-Packed Breakfast Club puts things into perspective for us. “We all wish there were more hours in the day. So buying pre-prepped veggies can be a huge advantage, especially when you are in a hurry or making a recipe with a lot of ingredients,” she says. “For example, pre-packed stir-fry veggies can save SO much time over buying each item individually and washing and trimming them and this can even save you money since you are only buying the amount you need.”

So if you are buying pre-cut foods, these are the best and worst ones to choose.

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This Clever Hack Makes Grating Cheese Much Easier

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Adding some freshly shredded cheese to your dinner may seem like an afterthought, but the truth is that your humble box cheese grater has merit that extends beyond a hunk of Parmesan (not that there’s anything wrong with that). You can (and should) utilize your grater to shred all kinds of foods, like ginger root, lemon zest, butter, and even herbs — and thanks to this clever trick, you can do so without making a mess.

The trick? Simply look at your grater from a different angle. Instead of holding your box grater vertically and not exactly knowing how much food you’re grating, turn the tool on its side and grate while it’s lying flat. Since you aren’t holding the grater up, you can use that now-free hand to keep the grater in place and exercise greater control.

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Posted in #allrecipes

This Is the Secret to “Legendary” Scrambled Eggs, According to One Creator

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

“I think this is legendary,” the video starts. In a recent TikTok posted by @intothesauce, the creator behind the account, Tori Falzon, describes how she discovered a trick for buttery, perfect scrambled eggswith one unexpected ingredient.

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