Beth Gallagher
Well-known member
Have a kitchen story you'd like to share? Put your random kitchen stuff here. To get started, here are a few interesting hacks. I particularly like the 2nd one, cooking a poached egg.
Kitchen Tricks, Hacks, and Funnies
- Thread starter Beth Gallagher
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Beth Gallagher
Well-known member
Beth Gallagher
Well-known member
Beth Gallagher
Well-known member
OK, who else baked the little paper bag of giblets inside their first Thanksgiving turkey? I can't be the only one. 
Marie Miller
Well-known member
May sound funny now - chocolate chip cookies are round so you bake them in a muffin tin. Absolutely and you remove them with a chisel.
Beth Gallagher
Well-known member
Thanks! I'll have to give that a go.
Mary Stetler
Well-known member
I did that and I also used granulated sugar in the frosting of the first cake I made. It was like eating a beach with cake in it.OK, who else baked the little paper bag of giblets inside their first Thanksgiving turkey? I can't be the only one.
Krystal Shay
Well-known member
Ok, I can't quit laughing. 
These are all too funny and relatable. Excluding the tricks and hacks. Some of those are very clever.
These are all too funny and relatable. Excluding the tricks and hacks. Some of those are very clever.
Beth Gallagher
Well-known member
I just made some pretty good-tasting popcorn with the stuff I bought from Amazon. I used butter-flavored coconut oil and a popcorn seasoning product called Flavacol. The Flavacol was only $2, Amazon says "typical price" is close to $7. Since you only use 1/2 tsp per batch, you'll probably want to share the 2# box with friends.
You heat 1.5 TB of the oil until a test kernel pops, then throw in 1/4 cup of kernels, 1/2 tsp of the Flavacol, and stir for about 15 seconds to get it all well-mixed. (I think the Flavacol flavors the oil since it can't stick to the kernels...I couldn't tell if it dissolved.) Then pop. The "recipe" I grabbed said to add 1TB of "buttery topping." I melted some butter and put on it, but I think the popcorn tasted better right out of the pot without it...the combination of butter-flavored oil plus actual butter was a little much. Without the extra butter, it's pretty close to movie theater taste.
It's the first time in many years I've made popcorn on the stove top rather than in the microwave. Next time I'll mix the Flavacol in the melted oil, toss the kernels in it, and pop it in the microwave...the internet says adding oil helps it to pop better in the microwave, so I'm not breaking new ground.
For those who care: Flavacol is made of salt, artificial flavor, FD&C Yellow #5, and FD&C Yellow #6. (The EU has banned certain red and green food dyes, and none of the yellow ones.) Dunno what the artificial flavor is. You definitely do not need to add salt when you use this.,,and I like salty popcorn. 1/2 tsp = 1,870mg salt (57% of the RDA), but some was left in the pot. The organic coconut oil contains neither salt nor artificial flavor.
You heat 1.5 TB of the oil until a test kernel pops, then throw in 1/4 cup of kernels, 1/2 tsp of the Flavacol, and stir for about 15 seconds to get it all well-mixed. (I think the Flavacol flavors the oil since it can't stick to the kernels...I couldn't tell if it dissolved.) Then pop. The "recipe" I grabbed said to add 1TB of "buttery topping." I melted some butter and put on it, but I think the popcorn tasted better right out of the pot without it...the combination of butter-flavored oil plus actual butter was a little much. Without the extra butter, it's pretty close to movie theater taste.
It's the first time in many years I've made popcorn on the stove top rather than in the microwave. Next time I'll mix the Flavacol in the melted oil, toss the kernels in it, and pop it in the microwave...the internet says adding oil helps it to pop better in the microwave, so I'm not breaking new ground.
For those who care: Flavacol is made of salt, artificial flavor, FD&C Yellow #5, and FD&C Yellow #6. (The EU has banned certain red and green food dyes, and none of the yellow ones.) Dunno what the artificial flavor is. You definitely do not need to add salt when you use this.,,and I like salty popcorn. 1/2 tsp = 1,870mg salt (57% of the RDA), but some was left in the pot. The organic coconut oil contains neither salt nor artificial flavor.
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Since I got the butter flavored coconut oil and the Flavacol popcorn seasoning, I've been making popcorn almost every night (to the point I'm worried about all the saturated fat I'm eating, but that's a different topic regarding animal sat fat vs veggie sat fat vs coconut sat fat.) I've gone back & forth between making it on the stove top (some number of unpopped and partially popped kernels) and in my microwave popper (pops way better but a highly spattered oily mess all over the lid.) I came across a method to get nearly 100% popped kernels on the stove top.
After heating the oil until a test kernel pops, put the popcorn in the oil, remove it from the heat, and let it sit for 30 seconds. Then put the pan back on the heat and finish popping. This is supposed to get all the kernels up to temp and on the verge of popping, rather than them getting tossed around away from the heat after the initial kernels pop. I tried it last night. It works really well. And it all pops rapidly.
After heating the oil until a test kernel pops, put the popcorn in the oil, remove it from the heat, and let it sit for 30 seconds. Then put the pan back on the heat and finish popping. This is supposed to get all the kernels up to temp and on the verge of popping, rather than them getting tossed around away from the heat after the initial kernels pop. I tried it last night. It works really well. And it all pops rapidly.
Faye Fox
Well-known member
Concerning the title, Tricks Hacks and Funnies ... The last biscuits I made covered all three. It was funny that I put too much time on the oven timer, and it was a trick when I hacked at the biscuits, testing for edibility. They weren't fluffy! I thought maybe they would qualify as hardtack and maybe the reason so many cowboys had missing or gold teeth. I found during my research, that hardtack was edible, after soaking, these unfluffy little disc of petrified dough, were not. I was wishing I had my old geology text so I could determine what period in history these might represent. I am thinking the Mesozoic, but I could be off by a few years. 
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