7 Kitchen Tips & Simple Solutions

I discovered a great kitchen shortcut: using the water some feta cheese comes in as the base of a cheesy sauce for pasta. You pour the water in from the container into the same pot you used to make the pasta while it's still hot, put in little pieces of cheese (I used feta and goat), and presto, you've got a winner of a pasta sauce. Adding a few raw in-season cherry tomato halves and/or some fresh corn kernels shaved off the cob to the cheese sauce and you've got something seriously delicious.

Don't you hate it when you open up the vegetable drawer and spot that plastic produce bag at the bottom that's filled with green slime that used to be herbs? You can extend the lifespan of washed herbs and greens by several days by rolling them up in damp paper towels and placing them in zipper-lock bags with the seals left slightly open. The paper towels will even give you a built-in freshness indicator. At the first hint of decay, you'll see darker spots of liquid forming on the paper towels. This is a good sign that you should use up your herbs and greens within a day or two. For chopped or picked herbs, store them in a small deli container with a folded up damp paper towel on top of them.

We all know that restaurant food tastes great because chefs season things with salt at every stage of the process. Here’s one more secret: balancing acid is just as important as getting salt levels right when it comes to making things delicious. A squeeze of lemon juice in your sautéed vegetables will brighten them up (try them in mushrooms with a dash of soy sauce). A dash of vinegar can alter your soup or stew from heavy and leaden to fresh and flavorful. I keep several different types of acid on hand at all times—lemons, limes, white vinegar, red wine vinegar, sherry vinegar, and rice wine vinegar for starters—and use them judiciously when the occasion calls for it.

Save your Parmesan rinds (or any hard cheese rind) after you finish off the cheese and store it in a sealed bag in the freezer. It can be used to add intense flavor to broths, soups, and stews by adding it to the simmering liquid for 20 to 30 minutes.

Slicing meat to grind or cook in a stir-fry can be tricky even with a sharp knife. To make it easier, place the meat in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes to stiffen it up.

There might be worse things than spending the time to make a full-blown meatloaf only to discover that it doesn't have enough salt in it, but I can't think of any off hand. Here's a simple solution: when making meatloaf, sausage, or meatballs, take a small chunk of your mixture and fry it in a skillet (or even faster, microwave it for 10 to 15 seconds) and taste. Adjust seasoning levels in the mixture accordingly.

I used to have storage anxiety. Every time I opened up my tupperware cabinet, I knew I'd be faced with a baffling array of containers in all shapes and sizes, none of which would have a matching lid. But no more. These days, I order inexpensive packages of plastic deli-style containers in three different sizes (half pint, pint, and quart) to take care of 90 percent of my storage needs. It's easy to see what's inside them, they're flexible, which makes them great makeshift pourers and funnels, they stack super-efficiently, they're dishwasher safe and reusable, they have tight-fitting tops, and best of all, provided you stick with one brand, they all use the exact same lid.