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Healthy Kitchen Hacks #56

Healthy Kitchen Hacks #56

* QUICK TRICK TO CLEAN CHEESE FROM YOUR FOOD PROCESSOR * HOW TO MAKE BEAUTIFUL BERRY MUFFINS * AN EASY WAY TO FILL FREEZER BAGS WITH SOUP *

Healthy Kitchen Hacks: QUICK TRICK TO CLEAN CHEESE FROM YOUR FOOD PROCESSOR * HOW TO MAKE BEAUTIFUL BERRY MUFFINS * AN EASY WAY TO FILL FREEZER BAGS WITH SOUP | @TspCurry - For more #HealthyKitchenHacks - TeaspoonOfSpice.com

Happy New Year friends!

We spent the last couple weeks somewhat unplugged and now it’s great to be back.

I also spent some of the holidays organizing. And while I’m pretty good at purging and donating most collections in my house, when it comes to cooking magazines, I’m a hoarder. But, the good news is that I found a great hack in an issue of Fine Cooking Magazine from 2001. (yikes!) I’ll be sure to recycle it now – even though that was one great issue. (And no, I don’t have all the issues since 2001, it was just a random one from June/July.)

Let me know if you try any of these hacks – or if you too have an issue with parting with really excellent cooking magazines.

1) Quick Trick to Clean Cheese From Your Food Processor
@Fine Cooking

Healthy Kitchen Hack: EASILY CLEAN YOUR FOOD PROCESSOR | @TspCurry For more #HealthyKitchenHacks - TeaspoonOfSpice.com

I’ll admit, only once have I used my food processor to grate cheese. It was such a sticky mess to clean, that I only use my box grater (and a lot of elbow grease!)

But this trick from Fine Cooking magazine worked pretty slick: Don’t use hot water to clean cheese from the food processor blade holes, it only gums up. Instead use cold water to make the cheese harden, then it comes right off.

I also found that spraying the blade with cooking spray before shredding anything helps too.

2) How to Make Beautiful Berry Muffins

Healthy Kitchen Hack: HOW TO BAKE BEAUTIFUL MUFFINS | @TspCurry For more #HealthyKitchenHacks - TeaspoonOfSpice.com

Summer berries are a distant memory. So I’m using lots of frozen raspberries and blueberries to add color and nutrition to my muffins, banana bread and other quick breads. Even if the berries are still frozen when added to the batter, and even if they are very gingerly stirred into the batter, streaking can still occur.

While the grey-green streaks made when blueberries are stirred into batter are certainly still delicious, there’s a way to avoid them. Don’t mix the berries into the batter; instead, spoon about a 1-inch layer of batter into the loaf pan then sprinkle in a layer of frozen berries and topping with more batter and berries, ending with batter.

This technique works great for muffins too. It also leads to more well-distributed berries, so that one muffin isn’t crammed with berries, while another gets only two berries. When making 12 muffins and using about 1 cup berries, spoon about 2 berries into the bottom of each muffin cup, top with 1 scoop of batter and gently push about 4 berries into each muffin cup of batter.

3) An Easy Way to Fill Freezer Bags with Soup
Kathy @House of Hills

Healthy Kitchen Hack: TRICK TO FILLING FREEZER BAGS WITH SOUP | @TspCurry For more #HealthyKitchenHacks - TeaspoonOfSpice.com

If you’ve resolved to do weekend food prep and then freeze it for quick weeknight meals, you will undoubtedly be faced with this question:

How am I going to hold this Ziploc bag up while I use both hands to pour this steaming hot pot of soup into it?

I stumbled across this solution from Kathy. But instead of her big purple cup, I found that the steep-sided, heavy bottomed bowl from my stand mixer did a better job of ‘holding’ my big gallon-sized plastic bag.

Inspired to get busy this weekend? Deanna’s Margarita Turkey Chili freezes beautifully.  Easy way to clean food processor + NEW #HealthyKitchenHacks via @TspCurry Click To Tweet

Will you try any of these hacks? Do you have any healthy kitchen or healthy living shortcuts to share? Shoot us an email (or share in comments below and we’ll try them out.)

Sharppebble Sharpening Supplies

Wednesday 15th of August 2018

Thanks so much for a healthy muffin that can be made in winter with frozen berries. Going to get the berries tonight. Another winning recipe!

Sharppebble Sharpening Supplies

Serena Ball

Wednesday 15th of August 2018

Great! Glad you can make yummy berry muffins any time. (:

Chelsey

Wednesday 4th of January 2017

I was so excited to read another edition of your hacks -- i love them all! And I don't hoard anything EXCEPT for magazines! I have SO many pages ripped out from high school and such (that's over 10 years)...so I totally feel you on that!

Serena Ball

Thursday 5th of January 2017

Oh good! I'm happy to hear I'm not the only one. Some of the old food mags I have are in the 'I'll travel there someday' pile and they are just SO hard to toss out! Thanks for letting me know Chelsey!

Sues

Wednesday 4th of January 2017

Love these posts!! That food processor tip is a good one... I would never think to use cold water, but that makes perfect sense!

Serena Ball

Thursday 5th of January 2017

Thanks so much Sues! I'm shredding cheddar like crazy...now!

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