Reader Caroline emailed with a question about what foods I preserve each year:

I love your blog and I wanted to make a future topic suggestion if I may be so bold. I notice you talk a lot about putting up your own fruits and veggies. I would love to hear how you do it, how much you put up etc. I'm planning to hit as many you-pick places as possible this summer in our family's effort to eat more local and do more scratch cooking.

I've done some reading on extension sites but there is nothing better than reading someone's tips and suggestions. My mother didn't do this sort of thing so I have no idea how to do it. I'd mainly be interested in freezer ideas as canning scares me to death.

Hi, Caroline! :)

I do some food preservation each year, but not really what I would consider a lot. My mom is the real expert, and I'm blessed to have her help! :)

What we do:

I do get a lot of fresh food from the garden (I share a garden with my parents, who live about 15 minutes from us) each summer, and my mom and I can lots of tomato products. From our tomatoes, we make pizza sauce, diced tomatoes, salsa, tomato soup, and spaghetti sauce -- which for us is actually a half-and-half mixture of our pizza sauce recipe and our tomato soup recipe.

I don't can much besides tomatoes, though sometimes my mom gives us a jar or two of her dill pickles. ;) I have canned sour cherries for pies, but a few quarts of cherries will last us all year. :)

Read the rest of my reply... :)

A while back, I posted about our plastic squirt-bottle dispenser for sour cream. If you ever wondered how we got beautiful swirls of sour cream on our taco salads (or have ever actually tried to get sour cream into a hard taco shell using a spoon!), now you know our trick! :)

We recently discovered another handy use for these plastic bottles. Joshua, who prefers Ranch salad dressing, put some Ranch in a bottle (not completely full) and then increased the dressing by about 1/4, by adding water to the bottle.

After shaking to combine, we now have a thinner dressing (that spreads more easily on the salad rather than being thick blobs!) that has 20% fewer calories, because of the added water (plus, the bottle from the store will last longer this way!). And of course, a squirt-bottle is easier to use than the open-topped dressing bottle we had. :)

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. If you don't have a blog but would still like to share a tip, just leave a comment here with your tip! Everyone's ideas are appreciated. :) Note: Please link to your individual post, not your blog's main/front page! Thanks for participating! :)

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Annie emailed me with questions about purchasing ingredients in bulk:

I've read several times that you buy your flour, yeast, etc. in bulk to keep costs down. I would love to do this, since part of the reason I cook from scratch is frugality (that and it smells yummy and is more healthy!). Unfortunately, I can't find any where that sells these things in bigger than the 1-2lb packages at the grocery store. For the yeast, the only kind I've been able to find is the little packets that come in threes. Those are used up quickly and are expensive.

Where do you find bulk cooking ingredients? I'm not completely sure where you live, but I live in Florida and it seems we are a different culture altogether when it comes to stores and shopping. We have chain stores, but no Aldi's or Krogers. We also have several health food stores, but none of them carry anything in bulk. I can buy smaller boxes of flax seed or wheat germ or whole wheat flour, but it's three or four dollars more than the typical grocery store.

Hi, Annie!

My pantry staples come from a variety of sources, and I'd be glad to share how I've been able to find various things in bulk. I've lived in Ohio and Missouri, but perhaps some of my readers live in Florida and could give suggestions that are even more relevant for you! :) Read more...

My tip for this week is about slicing fresh tomatoes. This isn't rocket science or anything, but as I was enjoying our fresh tomatoes this week, I thought I'd share about my favorite kind of knife for slicing them! :)

My favorite kind of knife to use for slicing fresh tomatoes is a thin, serrated knife. (I think mine are actually steak knives!) The jagged edges catch the peeling and slice the tomato without bruising it. My mom always used a thin, very sharp paring knife, but since most of my paring knives are rather dull, I tried using a serrated knife one time and found that it worked wonderfully! :)

What have I been making with my tomatoes lately? Well, besides eating them sliced (with salt and pepper on top!) and putting them in taco salad or nachos, I also enjoyed some Tomatoes and Black Beans over Pasta, a yummy summer dish that the children and I had for lunch one day. I took pictures, but they didn't turn out as good as this one I took last year. :)

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. If you don't have a blog but would still like to share a tip, just leave a comment here with your tip! Everyone's ideas are appreciated. :) Note: Please link to your individual post, not your blog's main/front page! Thanks for participating! :)

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Shannon wrote to me with this question:

I was just wondering if you have ever experimented with making crescent rolls? There are a lot of fun recipes using the Pillsbury ones but I just refuse to buy them. They do taste good but I can't get beyond the expense or the fact that they're full of stuff I prefer not to eat. I did find a recipe one time that was supposed to be like them but except for being rolled and shaped the same they weren't anything alike.

Hi, Shannon! I'm going to have to refer you to my readers here, since I have actually never even tasted the store-bought crescent rolls that come in tubes!

I have made crescent-shaped rolls (very delicious cornmeal cescent rolls... a slightly sweet cornmeal yeast bread), but from looking at the label of the store-bought crescent rolls, I'm guessing they are greasier (hello, trans fat!!) and maybe flakey... ?? :)

Have any of you made crescent rolls that tasted like the ones from the tubes in the grocery store? And were they worth the effort? :)

My tip this week is actually just a simple way to use leftover chicken nuggets. :) (And no, I don't make homemade ones... unless chicken parmesan counts! :D)

Tear leftover chicken nuggets into bite-sized pieces, and toss them on a green salad! This is handy when you have just a few nuggets leftover. If you want a healthier meal, you can do this to begin with, rather than eating chicken nuggets all by themselves. ;)

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. If you don't have a blog but would still like to share a tip, just leave a comment here with your tip! Everyone's ideas are appreciated. :) Note: Please link to your individual post, not your blog's main/front page! Thanks for participating! :)

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As I've mentioned in the past, I dislike making cookies. But my husband really likes cookies. (And I do too, actually!) I think I might have discovered the key to making cookies more... approachable for me, at least in this season of my life (young children, pregnancy, etc.).

I almost hesitate to share it as a kitchen tip, since it actually doesn't save time or resources in any way. However, it breaks up the task, and I'm going to be much more inclined to make cookies using this method.

This past weekend, we mixed up a huge batch of chocolate chip cookies. We refrigerated the dough, and then rolled it into logs, which we then wrapped with waxed paper (secured with masking tape) and then with foil. (Actually, Joshua did all of this!)Then we froze the logs of cookie dough.

Today I baked some of the dough. I sliced the frozen log and then baked it into cookies. It was pretty easy. For some reason, it just seems easier to make up a huge batch of cookie dough and then bake a few as needed. I guess I need tasks broken up into "bite-sized pieces" right now. ;)

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. If you don't have a blog but would still like to share a tip, just leave a comment here with your tip! Everyone's ideas are appreciated. :) Thanks for participating! :)

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When I make bread, I usually use the bread machine's "dough cycle" to knead the dough for me. (This is such a time-saver!!!) Sometimes the dough is a little sticky -- not necessarily too sticky, just too sticky to handle with my hands.

My pizza dough, especially, I try to make a little stickier, which helps with spreading it across the pan.

So, here's how I handle the pizza dough: First, I set my bowl/container of dough near where I am working. Using my (clean!) hand(s), I liberally grease the pizza pan with butter*. Then I rub a little more butter into my hands, and plop the dough onto the pan. Using my buttery hands, I spread the dough out to cover the pan. :)

*Using oil to grease baking pans can leave a residue that's difficult to remove after baking.

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. If you don't have a blog but would still like to share a tip, just leave a comment here with your tip! Everyone's ideas are appreciated. :) Thanks for participating! :)

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If you've ever wanted thin-sliced meats (for stir-fry, philly cheese steak sandwiches, fajitas, etc.) here's the trick to slicing your meat:

Put your meat in the freezer until it is partially frozen. Then take the meat out and cut with a sharp knife (we use a thin, serrated knife). The partially frozen meat is easily sliced into thin slices, which will be very tender when cooked! :)

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. If you don't have a blog but would still like to share a tip, just leave a comment here with your tip! Everyone's ideas are appreciated. :) Thanks for participating! :)

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A reader named Beth wrote to me with a question about preserving washed lettuce:

I would like to know what you have found to be the best way to wash and dry lettuce that helps it to store the longest. I buy my lettuce right now, and I usually get 1 leaf lettuce and 1 iceburg.

I read from Emilie Barnes that it's great to wash them well, then spin them in a lingerie bag in your washing machine. I have done that, and it does work very well, but my husband thinks it has to be getting germs on the lettuce.

Do you have a tried and true method that will allow the lettuce to safely be refrigerated for several days?

Unfortunately, I don't have any lettuce-tricks to share. When I wash and tear lettuce from the store, it seems to only keep for a day or so in the fridge, before getting brown spots (which Joshua dislikes!) or starting to go bad.

I just rinse my lettuce under running water and then shake over the sink, or sometimes, dry on a dish towel. I personally wouldn't spin it in the washer (even inside a lingerie bag) because I wash some pretty icky things in my washer, and I don't use bleach very often at all.

I have noticed that fresh lettuce from the garden that's been washed lasts much longer in the fridge than the lettuce from the store. But I only have limited availability when it comes to lettuce from the garden. ;)

Also, tearing the lettuce should help it last longer than cutting it with a knife, since using the knife tends to bruise it more. (Although I am guilty of often cutting my lettuce, since I seem to be in a hurry most of the time!) If I do use a knife, I like to use a sharp serrated one.

Help! Does anyone else have any great lettuce storage and preparation tips to share?! :)