10 Genius Food Hacks
1. Balloon Jar Trick
Okay I found an old jar of pickled ginger in the back, it’s actually expired but let’s pretend it’s not and let’s pretend I lost the lid and let’s pretend I can’t find a Tupperware box to put this in but I want to store it. What do I do? I just take a balloon, blow it up, then press it on top, apply pressure and then let go of the air. Sealed, done!
2. DIY Vacuum Seal
This here is a vacuum sealing bag and a vacuum sealer, basically it’s a machine that removes air from a plastic bag so you can store food for a longer time or Sous Vide it. Now here I’m going to show you how it works. You put it in and it will remove the air from the air and seal it. Now usually you use this with meats or other products that need to be away from oxygen, but here I’m going to show you with fruit because frankly it looks really good on video. As you can see it’s removed all the air out and now it seals it.
Now these are great devices but I understand that not most of you will have these things at home since it’s kind of a specialty thing. But as you can see it’s removed most of the air from this package and the fruit would stay good for quite a while. Now here a way you can do it at home without the Sous Vide machine, just take a Ziploc bag and put your camera friendly fruit inside. Then you place it underneath a water bath and actually push it down, the water will displace the air out. Just make sure to seal it with the seal still above the water level and this works reasonably well, it removes most of the air out. I’d say 95-96% of the air, but there’s a better method and this here is a better method.
Now as you can see if I seal the bag normally there’s a lot of air in this, but if I open it up and just stick a straw in there and make sure you stick the straw all the way down to the food source so it’s close to that and then you seal the back from the opposite side of the straw until you get as tight as possible closed to that straw. Then you just want to suck the air out with your mouth as much as you can, so just suck really hard and take it all o8ut and once you’ve got all the air out then you want to move the straw out while still sucking and just seal it with your finger like that. There you go, this is taking I’d say 98-99% of the air out and it’s pretty good, like the fruit doesn’t move about, you can’t move it around. It’s not as good as professionally sealed one but it’s really good for just a straw and Ziploc bag. It’s a great option for those of you that don’t have a Sous Vide machine at home.
3. Nutella Milk Shake
Alright, so once you finish your Nutella product there’s always so much Nutella stuck on the walls of it, so annoying to scrape off and very difficult. There must be an easy way to clean it. Well there is, just pour a little bit of warm milk in there until you fill it up about halfway. Then you just want to put the lid back on and seal it on nice and tightly. After that just shake like crazy, just keep shaking and shaking and shaking and after you’ve shaken some just shake some more.
Once you’re doing you’ll see the chocolate paste start to release itself from the glass jar, just like that – I’m just going to shake a little bit more. Once you feel it’s clean enough then you can just open it up and as you can see there’s no more Nutella on the inside of the glass. Now you just take a glass and just pour it out, pour out that delicious Nutella infused milk or Nutella milkshake and you can enjoy it just like this. But my recommendation is just add a little bit of whipped cream on top like this, maybe a little bit of chocolate sauce, throw some sprinkles on there and enjoy! Add some straws, great. Delicious!
4. Cherry Tomato Cutting Trick
Cutting cherry tomatoes can be a little bit annoying, cutting them one by one can just be a long and agonizing task and especially if you need a lot of them. So there is a better way and I’m sure a lot of you have seen similar tricks like this on the internet before. You just place a bunch of cherry tomatoes on a plate and then you place a plate on top and then you take a long sharp knife and just slide it in between the two plates and cut through all the cherry tomatoes in one go.
This is great although it does dirty two plates in one go and a knife. So that can be a little bit annoying but it does a great job of cutting cherry tomatoes really quickly. Now another way if you’re up for it is you take the cherry tomatoes, just place them on a cutting board and group them together then place your hand over it and slide the knife horizontally across making sure not to contact your hands, and there we go, a simple quick way to slice your cherry tomatoes if you’re confident enough.
5. Rubber Band Pan Lid
Imagine you just cooked a big pot of sauce and it’s full of sauce and you want to transport it, but this lid would just fly off and sauce would go everywhere and you don’t want to dirty another Tupperware box. Just take two elastic bands and place them from handle to the middle handle with a crossover like this and then place on more elastic band going from handle to handle, and then this lid is securely fastened. It is not coming off. You can take this and transport this wherever you want and feel safe and secure. You’re welcome!
6. Ice Coffee Trick
On a hot summer day I love having a little iced coffee. This way you have some ice cubes and you pour some hot coffee over it and it just makes a delicious cold coffee drink. The only problem is the ice cubes melt and it dilutes the coffee flavor. The solution to this is you take some coffee and just place it into some ice cube molds just like this and once it’s full you guessed it – place it into the freezer and then freeze until it’s nice and rock solid.
Once they’re done just pop them out and you can keep these inside a Ziploc bag in the freezer for whenever you need a little ice coffee cube. Now take your ice coffee cubes place them in a glass and add your hot coffee on top and now you’ve got a full flavored nice iced coffee for the summer that does not become watery or diluted down. Great, now you can also take the ice coffee cubes and cover them with milk and then you’ve got a delicious milk ice coffee for the summer. Now if you don’t like coffee you can do the same with milk chocolate and milk chocolate ice cubes and add milk to it.
7. Popcorn Bowl Trick
Alright so you just cooked some popcorn and when you open the bag you can eat it straight out of the bag like this, but the only problem is when you stick your hand in you touch the walls of the bag and you get grease on your hands and it’s just dirty. Now a solution to this is you can just put your popcorn in a bowl and then you can eat from the bowl, it seems pretty simply.
That’s great, you can just eat out of it, but then you’re dirtying a bowl and then you have to clean the bowl later and you’re just making a mess. There must be a better way and there is. Once you’ve cooked your popcorn bag, just take a knife and cut three cuts, one here, one right here and the last one this way just to make a flap that you can fold over. Once you’ve done the cuts just pull it over and flap it over like this and there you go, you’ve got a bowl made out of the popcorn bag itself which you can just eat straight out of. Now this is way better because once you’re done you won’t have to clean it, you just throw the bag away.
8. Chip Bag Origami
Alright so you just finished eating some chips and you’re full, you don’t want anymore. It happens to all of us. Now to store it, what to do, you can’t seem to find your clamp or your other clamp or this final clamp. Well there’s a simple way just flatten it and make sure there’s no air there, then fold it over two to three times like this, then turn it around and bring the corners into the center just like so, then turn it around one more time and you take this little flap and turn it over itself just like this. And there we go, you have basically done some origami folding with a chip bag and it’s sealed, the chips can’t go out and you didn’t need a clamp of any kind. Success!
9. Chip Bowl Hack
So you want to eat some chips, don’t open the bag, no, no, no and don’t dirty a bowl with the chips. Instead just take a knife and pinch the middle of the pack like this and do a small little cut. Then you just want to take your finger and just unravel it in a circular motion just going round and round until you have big enough opening that suits your needs. Just keep going around and round and look at that, look at that massive opening. There we go, you’ve basically just made a chip bowl out of your chip bag and you can easily just eat these in a party without having to dirty anymore bowls.
10. Juice Ice Cubes Idea
I know this looks like a Coca-Cola add but I assure it’s not. I just really love frozen raspberries with Coke, especially in the summer they just add such a nice flavor. It’s way better than just normal ice cubes. The only problem though is it does fizz up your Coke a lot and at the end you’re left with a little bit of a goopy mess of raspberries that are melted. There must be a better way to do this and there is. Just place some fresh raspberries into your juicing machine. I prefer to use one of these cold press juices for raspberries because it extracts way more juice than the central fusion ones. But yeah that’s up to you. Look at that thing go, I love this part. This is the best.
Okay, once you’ve got enough raspberry juice, and you’re going t need quite a lot of it. Then you want to place it into your ice cube molds just like this and once they’re full just put them in the freezer for about two hours so they can freeze rock solid. Once you’re done you can have a cube like this and as it melts with the coke it will release flavor into the Coca-Cola and it’s so much better than cherry Coke, it’s unbelievable. I urge you to give it a try with different flavor combinations, this here is just some orange juice and kale ale, but give it a try with your favorite fruit. Just freeze it into ice cubes and add it to your favorite beverage and magical things will happen.
Source How to make Sushi Youtube Channel
