Slice, seal and sauce your way through these useful kitchen tips.  

Pack your snacks  

Implement these packing hacks to keep food safe and mess-free while on the road!  

• Utilise that container cupboard and make use of round plastic condiment containers or glass jars – these are easy to stack on top of each other.  
• Prevent spillage by wrapping plastic over the top of a container and wrapping around its body before closing with a lid.  
• If you don’t have clip and seal containers, secure your food in tubs using two elastics.  
• Place store-bought sauces (like oily pesto, dips, dressings) in resealable bags lined with kitchen towel.  
• Pack everything into your carrier bag or cooler box upright.  
• Use a bag that is just the right size. If it’s too big, the contents will roll around and could spill or break.  
• Ensure you bring a wet cloth, dry cloth and a portion of a kitchen towel along with you to clean up any spills.  
• Take an extra plastic shopping bags with you to put all your empty containers into once all the food
  is finished. This contains any last leaks or spills.  

Also read: Packing for a Road Trip 101 

Quick kitchen hacks you should know  

PEEL GINGER in seconds by using a teaspoon. Run the spoon down the length of the ginger to pull the skin away. This way, it’s also easy to shift and turn the piece to get into the nooks and crannies, creating as little waste as possible.  

EASILY SLICE POTATOES Hasselback-style by placing two wooden spoons along each side of the potato. Use a sharp knife
to slice thin slits along the width of the potato (see On Our Shelf on page 18 for a stunning visual). The wooden spoons keep the potato stationary as well as prevent the knife from slicing through the potato, splitting it down the middle.  

COOL LIQUID DOWN FAST by placing your bowl of sauce, broth, ganache or soup on top of a larger bowl filled with ice water. The ice water will chill the bowl, exposing the liquid to a cold temperature and cooling it as you stir.  

PREVENT YOUR MIXING BOWL FROM MOVING AROUND when busy whisking or beating together the ingredients by placing it on top of a damp towel. To keep a chopping board in place, put a damp piece of kitchen towel under the board, this will seal it to the surface. Both help reduce chances for injury and mess.  

REMOVE STUBBORN STICKY DOUGH from your hands by rubbing them together with a handful of extra flour. This will dry the dough out and flake the pieces off quicker than rinsing your hand under running water.  

Words: Sjaan van der Ploeg

Photography: Fresh Living Magazine

The post Clever snack-packing hacks for your next road trip appeared first on MyKitchen.

We’ve rounded up our favourite TikToks that share some genius peeling and cutting hacks that’ll become part of your regular kitchen prep in no time.  

Unless you’re a trained chef, cutting difficult fruits and vegetables can be challenging. However, with the right approach and technique, it can become a breeze. Bonus – buying uncut fruit and veg instead of prepared works out cheaper, giving you more bang for your buck.  

Safety tips:

• Lay a thick tea towel (double up if it isn’t thick enough) under your chopping board to make sure it doesn’t slide around while you work. 

• When chopping, always make sure you have a firm grip of the fruit or vegetable and that when you slice, you make a ‘claw’ so that your fingers are pointing downwards, not splayed out – this can lead to accidents. 

Avo 

There are many ways to peel an avocado, but if you want to keep the avo half smooth and intact, try this hack the next time you’re hosting a brunch and want your avo to look Instagram-perfect. After slicing the avo in half, take a sharp knife and cut off the tip of the avo, where the kernel is. Then start peeling away the skin, and voila! Slice the avo diagonally, making sure the slices don’t stick to your knife (you can wet the knife slightly if this is an issue). Then simply fan the avo out onto a platter so friends can grab them easily with a fork.   

@lowcarbstateofmind #howto cut/peel an avocado #learnontiktok ♬ Dissolve – Absofacto & NITESHIFT

Garlic 

Peeling garlic is a bit of a hassle, but by far the best hack we’ve seen is to microwave the bulb of garlic for 20 seconds (for individual cloves, shorten the time), then leave to cool slightly. The skin will slide off without you having to struggle and your fingers won’t be left with that pungent sticky residue. You can also shake them around in a jar after they’ve been microwaved to loosen the skins. 

Pomegranate 

Who doesn’t enjoy eating pomegranate, right? But deseeding one isn’t a task anyone on the MyKitchen team would have voluntarily wanting to do…until we came across the quickest and easiest way!  

@whatgreatgrandmaate How to remove pomegranate seeds easily without making a mess. #pomegranate #pomegranatehack #healthyfood #foodhack #paleo #vegan #fyp ♬ original sound – Jean Choi

Pineapple 

Many people are reluctant to purchase pineapple in its uncut form purely because of the labour required to peel it, and most ways of slicing it waste the precious fruit. Using a large knife, slice off the top. Then slice vertically down the pineapple to remove the outer layer, making sure not too take off too much flesh (don’t remove the ‘eyes’ just yet). Now take a smaller paring knife and, working along the natural line of each row of eyes, slice left and right to remove each of them. Then cut the pineapple into smaller sections and store. 

@kkearah.kkraus Reply to @the_real_charlie_puth here it is finally: how to cut a pineapple #cuttingpineapple #howtocutpineapple ♬ original sound – Kearah

Mango

This TikTokker offers two ways to peel a mango – the first approach (if your mango is very ripe) is to cut the mango into chunks and use a glass to ‘peel’ it, which will make sure you go as close to the skin as possible. The second way to get to the mango flesh easily is by cutting a grid into a slice of mango and inverting it so the ‘cubes’ pop out (this is great option for toddlers as they will enjoy gripping the cubes). 

@erin_dittmer Mango hack #lifehack #cooking #lifetips #fyp #mealprep #mealprepideas #fypシ #fypage #SmoothLikeNitroPepsi #viral #viralvideo #whenwomenwin #thisiswhatdreamsaremadeof ♬ Love You So – The King Khan & BBQ Show

Butternut

Many people use a knife to peel a butternut but doing it that way means you end up taking some of the flesh off unnecessarily. Cut the butternut in half, and simply use a sharp, sturdy vegetable peeler to peel the skin away before slicing it. If you want to remove the seeds, use a spoon so scoop them out (or simply roast them with the butternut!). 

@rosalynndaniels Here I am showing you How to cut a butternut squash. Save your money, and stop buying #prepackagedveggies #howtocutbutternutsquash #butternutsquashrecipes #kitchencuttingboard #kitchenhack #cuttingveggies ♬ Rich Minion – Yeat

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