5 Kitchen Hacks I've Learned This Month at Brainfood

One of the perks of being a Brainfood teacher is that as we go through the curriculum with our students, we pick up lots of culinary tips and tricks ourselves. We're all self-taught home chefs who love learning new things in the kitchen, and this job provides plenty of opportunities to learn about cooking alternatives, shortcuts, and tricks! Though of course the focus of our work is first and foremost youth development, the food and cooking piece is fun to focus on sometimes too. We're not even a month into the year, and here at Brainfood we've packed in plenty of learning during January classes. Today I thought I'd share some little kitchen gems I've picked up in Kitchen All Stars during the first few weeks of the New Year.

Five Kitchen Hacks I've Learned in 2015 at Brainfood

1. Toothpicks make great appetizer-size kebabs! For "Beef on a Budget" day, we made mini versions of some classsic recipes.  For a bite-size variation on the full-size skewers, toothpicks did the trick.

                                                                                                                                                                                       2. Cooling racks can be used in the oven to keep breading on the chicken, rather than stuck to the pan. To achieve the sought-after crunch (without all the unnecessary oil used in frying) on our Brainfood classic "Fake Flake Fried Chicken", we use cereal and crackers as breading and then bake chicken in the oven. Even with the flour dredging and egg wash we use, sometimes the breading comes off the chicken when it's baked. It turns out that using a cooling rack misted with cooking spray, on top of an aluminum-foil-lined cookie sheet, is the magic combination to prevent breading mushiness or loss.

3. Stuffed peppers are very versatile -- this recipe traditionally uses rice, but it turns out quinoa works just as well! We also swapped kolhrabi greens from our garden instead of the spinach the recipe called for. We used Gimme Lean soy meat substitute rather than ground turkey in one batch, and we used fresh tomatoes one day and canned tomatoes the next. This extremely adaptable recipe is a great way to turn a hodgepodge of ingredients you might already have in your cupboard and fridge into an impressive dish!