How to: Freeze Bananas

You may think this is the stupidest post in blog history. It’s possible you’re right, but it’s also possible you’ve spent a long fifteen minutes getting freezer burn while trying to peel a frozen solid banana. This post is for the second group of people.

The first group? Those who never heard “Oh, just freeze your ripe bananas and use them for baking later” and promptly stuck the entire fruit, skin and all, into the freezer then looked on with dread when you wanted to use it? You guys can move right along. I’ll see you soon!

How to: Peel Garlic Quickly

When I first started experimenting with cooking I knew a couple things: I loved onions and I loved garlic. Both are still true today, but I today I actually know how to prepare those ingredients. When I started cooking alone, I could figure out how to chop an onion fairly easily (the hardest part was gaining enough confidence to slice evenly) but it took me a while to figure out how to get the garlic out of its skin. I used to slice off the bottom (where it attached to the bulb) and then try to get the knife tip underneath the skin and slice upwards.

As you can image, this resulted in more than one bloody knuckle.

This technique is one of my favorites. You basically smash the garlic clove while it’s still in its skin. This allows you to easily peel the skin off and gets the clove nice and flat, making it all the easier to slice for usage. Plus smashing things with knives is just cool.

How to: Skin a Fruit Easily

Man that sounds a little “Silence of the Lambs” doesn’t it? In any case, many recipes call for skinned peaches or tomatoes and using a peeler doesn’t work as well on those as it does on a potato or apple (trust me on this one). While you may look at the following trick as more hassle than it’s worth (what I have to boil the water and make an ice bath? What part of this is easy again?), being able to use your fingers to remove the skin from a peach after about 1 minute of effective cooking time is awesome.

How to: Poach an Egg

Poached eggs are amazing, but can be intimidating to attempt if you aren't sure what you're doing. My first attempts were ugly, ugly things. Luckily, I have kind parents who when I call them for advice are willing to talk me through the tricks of making a good poached egg. And only laugh a couple times.