Go Go Gadgets: 30 Clever Uses
An egg slicer will make uniform slices of more than just hard boiled eggs: You can slice mushrooms, soft fruits (such as strawberries, kiwis, bananas), olives, deli cheeses and more. Great for garnishes too!- A pizza cutter will slice everything from pizzas, fudge, pancakes, french toast, chicken strips and more. If you have small kids, this is a big time saver!
- Melon ballers are great for shaping balls of melon, but also for coring fruits like pears and apples, hulling strawberries, seeding tomatoes, shaping mini-meatballs and balls of herbed butter. They’re also ideal for hollowing out cherry tomatoes. Another suggestion: form perfect thumbprint cookies by pressing the melon baller in each before baking.
- Clean the seeds and membranes from peppers with a serrated grapefruit spoon, cleans them up nicely! Also ideal for removing seeds from squash, melons, tomatoes and fruits.
- Greasing muffin tins, bundt & cake pans is a breeze with a pastry brush first dipped in melted butter or shortening. A pastry brush also makes cleaning graters quick work–just brush off the bits clinging to the grater before washing.
- Use a pastry tube and decorative tip for more than just decorating pastry, try making fancy butter pats for baked potatoes, pancakes, rolls or filling deviled eggs decoratively.
- Stash a sewing gauge ruler in the utensils drawer, they’ll accurately measure the thickness of pastry and doughs.
- A small funnel will separate eggs neatly.
- Use your blender to grind coffee beans and spices, see details here.
- Ice cream scoops will scoop out batter for perfectly even sized muffins, filling tarts or cookie dough (smaller scoops). A spring loaded scoop measures 1/4 cup shortening and it comes out cleanly and easily.
- Keep a pair of scissors aside just for food, you can snip herbs (saves on chopping), rhubarb, green onions and other fresh vegetables as well as trim fat off meats and snip bacon along the edges so it won’t curl.
- A vegetable peeler does the trick when making chocolate curls and will cut strips of zest from citrus fruits.
- Stash wooden chopsticks in pantry canisters, they’re great for leveling off measured items like flour and sugar.
- Fill a turkey baster with pancake batter and gently squeeze onto a hot griddle for perfectly sized pancakes. An empty ketchup bottle (squeezable) does the trick too.
- A potato masher will nicely press rice krispy treats and puffwheat cake into pans, just give it a light spray of non-stick spray first. Quickly mash ground beef while it’s browning too.
- Muffin tins are useful for more than just baking muffins & cupcakes, you can also make large ice cubes for punch, freeze portions of homemade stock, freeze fresh lemon juice, cook items such as mini-meatloaves and stuffed food such as peppers.
- Fill ice cube trays with leftover wine, homemade stock and fresh lemon juices. Freeze then pop them out and seal in a freezer bag.
- A rock nicely crushes garlic, ice and other jobs.
- Forget pump spray bottles for vegetable oil–they never last long. Instead, try an old fashioned condiments squeeze bottle with a tip. Squirt out just the amount you need with no trouble. Find them at the dollar store for less than a buck.
- Try a shoe horn to shuck corn.
- Here’s a clever–and quick–way to skin a kiwi: Trim both ends of the fruit; ease a tablespoon between the flesh and the peel. Turn the kiwi, pressing the back of the spoon against the peel as you go. The fruit should slide right out in one piece–ready for slicing.
- Remove the smell of garlic from hands by rubbing your fingers over a stainless steel spoon or the sink tap.
- Save those sturdy plastic reward cards and put them to work as pot scrubbers.
- Keep an unused toothbrush in the kitchen to scrub things like mushrooms and corn on the cob to remove the silk. It comes in very handy!
- Save non-stick spray can caps as cookie cutters–dough pops right out with a slight squeeze.
- Wash freshly picked strawberries & then take a wide plastic straw and insert it at the bottom of a strawberry–then push the stem out.
- DIY Non-Slip Bowls: No need to buy expensive mixing bowls with rubber bottoms–just set a bowl on top of a damp cloth and no more worries about it sliding around while you’re mixing something. You can also take a large sheet of paper towel, lay it on top of the cutting board and pour a bit of water on it. Pat the wet towel on the board to make it stick then flip the board over so the wet towel is underneath. The board will not move or slip around while chopping.
- Open Tight Lid Jars: If tapping around the lid with a knife won’t loosen a jar lid, try putting on a pair of latex gloves then twisting the lid off. This gives a good grip that won’t slip. Another helper: a square of leftover nonslip shelf liner. More ideas found here.
- A steamer basket will cook potatoes for mashing (instead of boiling them). The flavor is much better and you never have to worry about your potatoes being watery.
- Place raw fish on a coffee filter before steaming it and you can lift out the cooked fish in one piece, the fish won’t fall apart into pieces this way.
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What a fun kitchen tips blast, I already knew many of these but some are new to me too. I particularly like the chopsticks and plastic reward card scraper ideas, so easy and yet so handy.
Great article and great tips. The veggie peeler is my personal favourite, can’t wait to try it over Easter with some chocolate eggs.
Just came across your blog this evening…Love it! Great kitchen gadget tips. It’s amazing how many ways we can save time with little techniques like these. I eat a lot of fresh garlic so my fav tip is the run a tablespoon over your hands to remove garlic smells. Nice!!
Another way to get the smell of garlic off your hands is to crumble a couple of saltine crackers in your hands an rub them together. I learned thid at Elliot’s Oyster House in Seattle.
As a former chef I will happily devulge my best recipe for removing all scents from your hands: Used coffee grounds from the coffee filter and the juice form a small wedge of lemon. Why does it work? Without going directly into the science… rough skin traps food and odor particles, the coffee grounds act as a mild abrasive and help trap odor particles the lemon is a perfect disinfectant. Then simply wash everything off with a little soap and water.
A new baby hair brush, so soft, easily cleans mushrooms or any tender fruit or veggie.