Originally published in 2006

Okay, so you have a nice big onion and your recipe wants it diced.

Have you ever wondered if there's a best way to dice an onion?

I used to have all sorts of problems dicing onions nicely, until my uncle (who is practically a gourmet chef!) showed me how he did it. I've done it the same way ever since, and now dicing onions is a snap... even if I'm making a triple batch of salsa... when I need 18 cups of diced onions.

If you would like to watch the video tutorial, click here! This is a 6 MB WMV file and you can either right-click to save to your desktop, or just click and it will stream.

Here is the photo tutorial of what I think is the easiest way to dice an onion!

1. Start with a freshly-peeled onion. I always rinse the onion after I have peeled it, so it doesn't make me cry. (If you wear contact lenses, this won't be a problem for you, though!) Set the onion, root-side-down, on your cutting board.

2. Cut your onion in half.

3. Lay each half, cut side down, on your cutting board.

4. Slice one half of your onion as shown.

Slice thinly for minced onion, or thickly for coarsely-diced onion, or anywhere in-between as desired!

To get every last bit of your onion sliced, use one hand to hold the onion in shape and make the final slice or two.

5. Now, turn your sliced onion ninety-degrees to either the right or left, and...

6. Start slicing again, angling towards the middle of your onion. Make your slices thin for minced onions and thick for coarsely chopped onion.

7. Repeat steps for the other half of your onion.

And then you're done!

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1. Menu plan make-ahead strategies (Feel Good About Dinner)
2. Time-saving recipe bases (Davette Brown)
3. Split chicken breast tip (Living So Abundantly)
4. Oil vs. butter tips (Sunny Side Homestead)
5.

After a gorgeous Summer, Fall is upon us here in the Pacific Northwest! The breeze is chilly and a few dry leaves are littering our yard. If I leave a window cracked overnight, the house is cold when we get up. (Okay, 60's isn't really cold, but we've been spoiled with warmth the past few months!)

I've been enjoying making hot tea or coffee in the mornings again. I absolutely LOVE the AeroPress coffee maker that Joshua gave me on my birthday last year! One of my friends gave me this tip for brewing coffee:

Add a pinch of salt to ground coffee before brewing, then brew as usual. The bit of salt makes a smoother, less bitter cup of coffee.

I normally like salt in my food (I add it to my morning oatmeal without fail!) so as soon as I heard this tip I knew it was the thing I needed to change about my morning breakfast.

I've already tried adding ground cinnamon and other spices to my coffee beans before brewing, and salt is the perfect finishing touch!

Do you add salt to your coffee? :)

Bonus picture:

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

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1. Celery salt and ways to use it (Whole New Mom)
2. Pitting cherries (Sunny Side Homestead)
3. Softened butter tip (Living So Abundantly)
4. Peeling tomatoes tip (Recipes Happen)
5. Cooking with cast iron (Simply Made Home)
6.

Have you ever opened a box of pasta, used part of it for a recipe, and then later forgot how much pasta was left in the opened box? Well, I used to do that all the time. I usually buy big boxes of things like spaghetti and macaroni, and whether there's 8 or 12 or 16 ounces used, I can never seem to remember.

So now, when I open a new box and use some of the pasta, I mark the outside so I can remember later. I'm not sure why it took me so many years of guesswork to figure out this trick, but it sure makes things easier! :)

Update: Since this post was originally written (5 years ago!) I got this digital kitchen scale. I use it a lot -- more than I ever expected I would! :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

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1. Homemade popcorn (Western Warmth)
2. Space saving freezer tip (Feel Good About Dinner)
3. Getting wax off apples (Finding Joy in My Kitchen)
4. Frozen ginger tip (Sunny Side Homestead)
5. Pressing sticky baked goods (Living So Abundantly)
6. Fall pantry tips (The Local Cook)
7. Lattice pie crust shortcut (Black Fox Homestead)
8. Homemade tortillas tips (Recipes Happen)

I've been MIA online again... you see, Summer started here in Seattle in July, and it hasn't left yet. We have been enjoying every single day of sunshine and blue sky and cool breezes! I probably can't even count the number of miles we've walked, the picnic lunches we've eaten, or trips (all on foot) to the library or park.

(The good news? I'm still losing weight! And, we've added a few things to our family's outdoor activities... like tennis and frisbee and rollerblading.)

Anyway, here are a few miscellaneous tips from my kitchen; just little things we've been doing that really help. :)

Keeping the kitchen floor clean

With little kids, sometimes it seems like every meal requires a whole cleanup crew. I usually assign 1 child to pick up any dropped food from the floor, and another child to sweep with a small broom and dustpan. We have folding chairs at our kitchen table, so if the floor is really dirty, I also assign someone to fold up the chairs so the cleaning is easier. If it's really, really dirty, I assign a mopper.

Speaking of keeping the kitchen floor clean...

...going to the park for a picnic lunch is a great way to keep the kitchen floor clean. ;) We often take lunch along on our walks, because then we don't have to hurry back home to eat. (We're already working around nap time and make-dinner time!)

What do we like to take for our picnics?

The kids and I love PBJ sandwiches. I also try to have fresh fruit and veggies on hand to take along. I have the kids help with lunch -- making sandwiches, washing produce, and cutting it and putting it into bags. My oldest boys (ages 6 and 8) love getting to wash and cut cucumbers, celery, peppers, or pears! (I usually cut the harder foods like carrots or apples.)

Emergency Stroller Snack Tip

On our walks, I wear Channah in my Ergo and push Moshe (2) in the stroller. We pack our water and food and gear (frisbees, balls, library books, etc.) in the stroller. I keep a small container of whole almonds in the stroller as an emergency snack. If we stay out too long, run too hard, or forget one of our sandwiches at home, we'll still have something to eat besides carrots and celery. (I love fruits and vegetables, but walking on the hilly roads here makes me hungry!!)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

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1. How to get bread to rise (Recipes Happen)
2. Inexpensive water bottle alternative (Feel Good About Dinner)
3. Squash in the slow cooker (The Local Cook)
4. Preventing freezer burn (Sunny Side Homestead)
5. Making quick oats from old fashioned oats (Living So Abundantly)
6. Water kefir tips (Nourishing Treasures)
7.

Ripe bananas are easy to freeze for later! You can use frozen (thawed) bananas for baking, but my favorite use for frozen bananas is smoothies.

Tip: For easier smoothies, freeze ripe bananas in ice-cube-sized chunks on a cookie sheet. After the chunks are frozen, store in a ziplock freezer bag and use as needed for smoothies.

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Muffin tips (Western Warmth)
2. Peeling tomatoes (The Local Cook)
3. Ricotta cheese (Black Fox Homestead)
4. Freezer inventory (Recipes Happen)
5.

The winner of the Royal Berkey Water Filter giveaway is:

Melissa, who says:

My favorite thing that More Than Alive carries is the Berkey Filter. We have a small one, but we could definitely use an upgrade for our family of five.

Congrats to Melissa! I've emailed you to get your mailing address so you can receive your Royal Berkey water filter!

And, a big THANK YOU to More Than Alive for providing the Royal Berkey for this giveaway!

The 10% discount at More Than Alive is still good through today, August 31, 2012. Use this code to receive 10% off any order from More Than Alive: TL7A6

I like to use my dishwasher's "air dry" setting rather than the heated drying option. Especially in the warmer months, when our windows are open a lot and the house is already plenty warm, there's no need to produce more heat (and use extra electricity) just to dry dishes!

Two tips for air drying dishes in the dishwasher:

1. Run the dishwasher at the end of the day, so the dishes have lots of time to dry. I'm able to cram a whole day's dishes into the dishwasher (minus pans and other large items which I wash by hand) and run it once a day, in the evening. This gives the dishes all night to get really dry.

2. When the dishwasher's wash cycle is complete (no need to wait through the "dry" cycle), open the dishwasher. Pull out the racks and pick up the plastic items, or anything with ridges that collect pools of water, and shake off the excess water. Then set those things back on the rack to finish drying.

Doing this speeds up the drying process and eliminates the problem of waking up the next morning with lots of half-wet dishes still in the dishwasher! :)

Related:

Figuring out how to efficiently load a dishwasher 

Poll: How often do you run your dishwasher?

Help! How do I use a dishwasher?

2 tricks for washing small stuff in the dishwasher

11 Unusual Things You Can Wash in a Dishwasher

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

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Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. How to make crispy carrot or sweet potato fries (Feel Good About Dinner)
2. Using space wisely (Recipes Happen)
3. Naturally nice-smelling kitchen (Recipes Happen)
4. Peeling tomatoes (Living So Abundantly)
5. Toddlers in the kitchen (Sunny Side Homestead)
6. Meatloaf tip (Trial and Error Home Ec)
7.
8.

We love our Berkey water filter. One of my friends said we treat it like a member of the family. I guess Berkey is the guy we forgot to introduce... but you can't spend much time in our kitchen before you'll meet him! ;)

If you've been reading my blog for very long, you already know I can't stop talking about the Berkey! This week, I've got something more than talk: a Berkey discount code and a giveaway!

More Than Alive is generously giving a Royal Berkey Water Filter ($283 value) to one winner of this giveaway! I'm honored that they would offer this for readers of my website, and I'm thrilled that one of you will be blessed with a Berkey water filter for free! (See the end of this post for giveaway details.)

Our Royal Berkey is still going strong, with the original black filters that came with it when we purchased it 4 years ago. (I did recently buy a new set of black filter elements but haven't needed to replace the original ones yet.) The filters that come with the Berkey will filter 6,000 gallons of water -- bringing the cost per gallon to under 2 cents!

Sometimes the city water here (Seattle area) smells pretty good, but other times I am reminded again of how thankful I am for the Berkey. Along with removing all the yuckies we can't see or taste (plus colors we can see!), it totally takes away the chlorine smell from our water.

Seriously, one day Joshua picked up a jug of water on the counter and said:

"Did you put bleach in this jug of water?"

"No, I just ran that from the tap and was going to fill the Berkey. Why?"

"Because it smells like bleach water."

He was right. The tap water smelled like I had poured some bleach into the jug. I dumped the water (thinking it couldn't possibly have been supposed to smell like that!) and ran some more water and smelled it. It smelled just as bad.

Thankfully, our Berkey works great and I don't have to drink water that stinks! Or drag jugs of water to and from the store. Or pay for it. (We recouped our Berkey water filter cost within a year of purchasing it!)

I'm pretty crazy about our Berkey water filter. And no wonder -- when I tracked my water consumption recently it was 12-18 cups per day!

More Than Alive is the Christian-owned company where we purchased our Royal Berkey (using a 10% discount code). Now, the Berkey is my favorite product they carry -- but they have some other great healthy stuff I love like herbal tea blends, SuperMom vitamins, and coffee. Hey, coffee is "healthy stuff", right? ;)

The Giveaway (open Monday - Thursday, August 27-30, 2012):

I'm going to give you multiple entries for this giveaway, okay? Here's what counts:

Go to More Than Alive, then leave a comment here telling me your favorite product they carry. (Be sure to include a way for me to contact you if you win!)

"Like" More Than Alive on Facebook (comment here telling me you did this*)

"Like" Tammy's Recipes on Facebook (comment here telling me you did this*)

Share a link to this giveaway on Facebook (sharing details on my Facebook page -- comment here telling me you did this*)

*Update 8/28 -- Your comments here are your entries; "Facebook Likes" aren't entries, per Facebook guidelines -- if that makes sense. ;)

Winner will be chosen using random.org and announced on Friday, August 31, 2012.

Update: This giveaway is now closed. See winner announcement here!

The Discount:

More Than Alive sells quality bulk herbs, bulk foods, and more -- including our favorite household necessity, the Berkey Water Filter. If you've been waiting to order a Berkey water filter, this discount will give you $28+ off your order!

Use this discount code to receive 10% off your order from More Than Alive Monday-Thursday of this week, August 27-31, 2012.

Discount code: TL7A6

Full disclosure, as usual: I have always maintained that any product review I write will be completely honest. I would never recommend that anyone purchase anything that I wouldn't spend my own hard-earned money on. After we purchased our Berkey, we loved it so much we wanted to review and recommend it to others. More Than Alive asked us to be part of their affiliate program, and we earn a commission on purchases made through the links in this post. Thanks for your support! :)

I am not "on a diet", but sometimes it feels that way. Losing weight has meant eating fewer calories... to the tune of about -500 a day. Those have to come from somewhere, and since I'm still eating chocolate, I've had to be creative. ;)

When I'm trying to lose weight and I don't want to be hungry all the time, I need to eat differently from "normal". When I'm the only one in my family who wants to eat "different", this can be challenging.

Tip: I've been making our "normal" meals, but not "put together". By serving build-your-own meals, I can build mine a little healthier or lower-calorie than everyone else's.

My favorite build-your-own dinners:

Tacos, taco salad, or nachos
Burgers (see my "burger salad" here)
Chili (served with toppings like cheese, tomatoes, avocado, and greek yogurt)
Any three-things-for-dinner meal

Tips for building a healthier (or lower calorie) meal:

1. Make a sandwich into a salad.

For example, tuna salad spread onto a bed of lettuce and sprinkled with chopped onions, pickles, and celery = tuna salad minus the "sandwich". Grilled chicken served over a vegetable salad instead of bread, a hamburger served over it's usual "toppings", or even lunch meat and cheese diced and served with lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers will be fewer calories and extra veggies for you!

I find that having fresh diced tomatoes or avocados is often "juicy" enough that salad dressing or mayonnaise isn't missed. (I know avocados aren't low-calorie, but they're healthier than mayo!)

2. Use Greek yogurt in place of sour cream. I love this tip! Plain Greek yogurt is tart and thick and creamy enough that I don't miss my real sour cream... much. :)

3. Skip the bread, or make an open-faced sandwich. You might be eating with a fork while everyone else at the table is holding a sandwich, but... :)

4. Don't be afraid of "plain". Grilled meats, fresh veggies, fresh fruit -- it doesn't have to be fancy! I almost always serve fairly plain and simple fruits and vegetables with our meals. It's easy and usually healthier that way, too.

Bonus baby picture for the week (because I've been too busy picking berries and playing in the sunshine to worry about blogging!):

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Dishwasher rinse aid (Whole New Mom)
2. Pantry mixes and spices (Simply Made Home)
3. Cleaning Misto oil sprayer (Finding Joy in my Kitchen)
4. Chocolate chips substitute (Living So Abundantly)
5. Quick stir fry tip (Sunny Side Homestead)
6. Birthday cake tip (Simply Rebekah)
7. Freezing cherries (A Proverbs 31 Wife)
8. Apron from tea towel (Black Fox Homestead)

I've been using stainless steel cookware for years, and I love it. We bought our cookware 4 years ago and it gets tons of use and performs wonderfully for everything I've tried.

Before "the nice stuff", I had some older stainless steel cookware from a garage sale and a few Teflon pieces from another set we had purchased. The Teflon was flaking but...

One of my fears about getting rid of every last piece of Teflon cookware in my kitchen was... making eggs.

I grew up scrubbing eggs off of a stainless steel skillet after breakfast on the weekends. The "egg skillet" was the worst dish to wash, and getting married and (subsequently) having Teflon for cooking eggs was my dream-come-true as a dishwasher.

When I originally posted my tips for cooking with stainless steel cookware, I hadn't figured out how to make eggs without a big stuck-on mess.

Thanks to my fabulous readers, I learned the secret to making scrambled eggs on stainless steel without them sticking! Seriously, it still makes me smile when I pull off scrambled eggs (or an omelet!) and they're not burnt or stuck and the skillet is super easy to wash afterward.

However, it wasn't until last week that I mastered fried eggs in stainless steel. Those pesky little guys always stuck and often broke and were just generally a pain to try to make. I basically never made fried eggs for this reason.

Last week, Joshua mentioned that he was getting tired of hard boiled eggs. (I serve him 1 hard boiled egg every morning with his oatmeal for breakfast.) Neither of us really love hard boiled eggs, but they are easy and... easy. Joshua said he'd like to try a fried egg instead.

I remembered that my sister Bonnie had posted tips for making fried eggs. With just a few tweaks to my previous method, I turned out some perfect fried eggs... and I spent 0 minutes scrubbing my skillet afterward.

How to make perfect fried eggs in a stainless steel skillet:

1. Preheat empty skillet over medium-low heat.

2. Lightly spray skillet with oil. (I use a Misto.)

3. Crack egg(s) into skillet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

4. Reduce heat to low; cover skillet with lid. Cook for several minutes, checking for desired doneness.

Flipping the egg(s) is optional. When cooked at the lower temperature, very little egg should stick to the skillet.

After removing egg(s) from skillet, run a little water into the skillet (enough to cover the bottom) to soak. Within minutes or hours (or however long it takes you to get to your dishes... hopefully not days!) anything stuck on the skillet will be completely loose and can be wiped away... no scrubbing!! Yay!

Related: My best omelet tips

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Spreadable butter tip (The Earthling's Handbook)
2. How to dehydrate tomatoes (The Local Cook)
3. Roast cooking tips (Simply Made Home)
4. Peeling and cutting peaches (Simply Rebekah)
5. Eating healthfully at work (Recipes Happen)
6. Using bulgur wheat to stretch ground beef (Feel Good About Dinner)
7. Tips for buying organic produce (Modern Alternative Mama)
8. Frosting a cake (Living So Abundantly)
9. Flipping pancakes easily (Sunny Side Homestead)
10. 7 unexpected uses for ice cube trays (Plus Other Good Stuff)