Four Basic Kitchen Hacks For Dummies

Picture this: cutting your fingers while trying to break a coconut or crying like a baby because of an onion. Sounds tough, right?

Cooking can be a lot more fun when you spend less time in the kitchen peeling, grating, cracking open and whatnot (unless you find pleasure in all of these).

These hacks will have you thinking, “Why didn’t I know this until now?”

Garlic
Garlic can be pretty small, yet peeling it can be a big deal. Gather all your garlic together, place it in a large container and shake for 10 to 15 seconds. You’d be surprised to see how much cloves have come off.

Garlic

Tomato Paste
Having a lot more tomatoes than necessary can be exhausting. An easy way to preserve your tomatoes is to pour a small amount of vegetable oil on the top. This will help prevent bacteria and air from getting in. With this method, your tomato paste can last for as long as four months.

Preserved Tomato

Butter
Your butter can be as hard as a rock when you bring it out from the refrigerator. This is especially frustrating if you need to eat breakfast or prepare a meal in less than 5 minutes. Get a small jar, heat it up in a microwave for a few seconds. Take the hot jar out of the microwave and cover the butter by placing it upside down over it. Remove after a minute. Cut and spread.

Melted Butter

Coconuts
Coconuts are literally a hard nut to crack. Did you know you can crack it open using just your hands? Ask the Indians. Here’s how you crack the nut: If you look at the eye of the coconut (the three eyes) carefully, you’d notice that a straight line runs from the top to the bottom on the side. Smash the vertical line in the middle against a sharp-edged rock. It’d crack open horizontally. Talk about the cross sign.

Cracked Coconut