Honey... I AM the HELP!

Since we just published our Cucumber and Tomato Salad recipe I thought it was very timely that I just now read an article about storing cucumbers. Years ago I was in Costco buying a whole container of tomatoes and who ends up standing next to me but the produce manager of a large local supermarket. When I commented that I didn’t know what they did to their tomatoes but they sure do last a long time he said that they’d last even longer sitting in a colander on my counter. Seems that tomatoes are one vegetable that really don’t like it cold.

I had a story catch my eye today about metallic spray paint for food. Yes, you heard me right, food. This was developed by some German company and I will not attest to how safe it is or isn’t for ingesting, but it definitely adds pizzazz to a tomato!

For a lot of people how to slice and dice food is intimidating. Why and when is it even important? Well is your food is all different size or thicknesses then it won’t all cook equally. Sometimes this isn’t so important, however when you are sauteing, say onions, garlic, or other foods you’ll want to be sure that they are somewhat the same size. So you see it’s not always about how it looks, but also how it cooks.

A good investment is a good chef’s knife. There are many on the market, however make sure that you get a good one that has one continuous metal tang that is held in place with rivets. You do not want a blade that is glued into the handle! You will have this knife for pretty much forever if it’s a good one so don’t be afraid to spend a little more if you can afford it. I tend to pass off my nice but not necessarily great kitchen accessories to my  kids when I can afford better and they love it when mom upgrades! I happen to like J.A. Henckels 8″ chef knives. There are better and worse but they are very well made and a good choice for most cooks that want to get the job done with less work.

So how do we slice and dice?