24 brilliant kitchen shortcuts you’ll wish you knew sooner

Thank high school science for this neat trick: Remember, metal conducts heat. Place meat in a plastic bag, then put it on top of an upside-down aluminium pot. Fill another pot with room-temperature water, and set it on the meat. In five to ten minutes, your meat will be defrosted. Follow these 5 food safety tips for proper food handling.

Before you toss suspect-looking leftovers, know this: firm foods are more likely to be salvageable than soft foods. Mould generally can’t penetrate deep into hard cheeses like cheddar, so it’s OK to cut off a couple of centimetres. The same goes for firm produce like bell peppers and carrots. However, chuck mouldy-looking foods with high moisture content – yoghurt, soft cheeses, cooked leftovers and bread. Porous foods are likely to be contaminated beneath the surface. Find out the 13 foods you should never, ever eat past their expiration date.

Use an egg slicer to quickly chop strawberries for fruit salads and desserts. Or cut avocados for sandwiches and uniform mozzarella slices for salads and pizza.

For perfectly round fried eggs (handy for breakfast sandwiches), heat a pan and spritz Mason jar rings with cooking spray. Place the rings on the pan, and slowly drop one cracked egg into each of the rings. Cook for about 5 minutes for a medium yolk. Use tongs to remove the Mason jar rings, and serve.

Rub a pat of butter on the bottom of a mug; fill it to the top with chopped bread. In a separate cup, mix one egg, three tablespoons of milk, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Pour the mixture into the mug and microwave for one minute.

Sign up here to get Reader’s Digest’s favourite stories straight to your inbox!

Source: RD.com