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How to basic by Nigor - Illustrated by me - Ourboox.com

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How to basic

by Nigor

Artwork: me

Joined Mar 2018
Published Books 2

Boiling is the quickest and most convenient way to peel a tomato. The skin lifts easily from the vegetable-erm, fruit-and the partial cooking helps preserve the tomato’s fresh flavor and plump texture.

Cored tomatoes having x-shaped cuts put into their sides by a knife

Step 1: Prepare the tomatoes

Wrangle up a large saucepan and fill two-thirds of it with water; bring to a boil. As the water heats, use the time to give the tomatoes a little prep. Give them each a gentle rinse in the sink and remove their cores. On the bottom of each, make a small X-shaped insertion with the tip of your knife.

Step 2: Boil, boil, boil

Using a slotted spoon, carefully add the tomatoes into the water, one at a time. Cook for 30-60 seconds. You’ll know they’re ready when the skin at the “X” mark begins to loosen.

Test Kitchen tip: Keep careful watch over the tomatoes as they cook. If left in the water too long, the tomatoes will become mushy.

Tomatoes being removed from boiling water in a saucepan with a slotted spoon to be deposited into an ice bath

Step 3: Cool them quick

When each tomato looks about ready, remove it from the pot. Immediately transfer it into a large bowl filled with ice water. This will prevent any further cooking.

Using a knife, a person is carefully peeling a tomato starting at the x-shaped cut from before

Step 4: Peel!

At last, your tomatoes are ready to peel. Pierce the outer layer with the tip of a knife and lift. The skin will glide right off.

Test Kitchen tip: Stubborn skin? Plop the tomato back into the boiling water for a few more seconds and try again.

When You’re Craving Extra Flavor…

Roasting is a hands-off technique that gives tomatoes a robust, smoky flavor that’s great for making salsa or spaghetti sauce. This method works well with smaller, less juicy tomatoes such as plum tomatoes.

Halved tomatoes scattered on a baking sheet

Step 1:Prep

Give each tomato a gentle rinse under the sink and remove the core. Cut in half lengthwise and place cut side down in a lightly oiled rimmed baking sheet.

Test Kitchen tip: For an awesome pasta sauce, toss the tomatoes in oil and Italian herbs before roasting. Use the peeled tomatoes (and the fragrant oil from the pan) in your recipe.

Step 2:Roast

Dial the oven up to 425° and bake until the edges of the tomatoes are well browned. This can take 30-35 minutes. Or you can broil the halved tomatoes 6-8-inches from the heat for 8-12 minutes. Remove when the skins are split and charred.

Halved and wrinkled tomatoes on a baking sheet that a person is reaching into to remove their peels

Step 3: Peel

Let the baking dish cool slightly. Then, have at it. The easiest way to peel off the skin is with your hands.

When You Want to Save Them for Later…

Have a handful of tomatoes that you can’t use all at once? Clear some room in the freezer to store for a rainy day. (Yes, you can freeze tomatoes-and tons of other fresh summer produce!) Once thawed, the tomato skin lifts off clean. Use the frozen tomatoes in cooked foods such as soups, sauces and stews, not salads, because they lose their firm texture once frozen.

person picking up a cored tomato from the baking sheet to place in a large resealable bag

Step 1: Prep and freeze

Give the tomatoes a gentle rinse, pat dry and remove their cores. Then arrange the tomatoes (whole) on a cookie sheet and send them into the freezer. Make sure they don’t touch. Once frozen, transfer to a large freezer bag and seal.

Test Kitchen tip: Make sure to label the outside of your freezer bag with a “use by” date. Tomatoes can be frozen for up to 8 months.

Step 2: Thaw and peel

When you’re ready to peel the tomato, simply run it under warm water and the skin will slip right off.

Test Kitchen tip: For less fuss, simply leave the tomatoes out for a few hours to thaw.

Glass bowl filled with perfectly peeled tomatoes resting on a yellow towel

There you have it! Peeling tomatoes is easier than you’d think. Next time you’ve got a bushel on hand-opt for these easy methods instead of buying a can of pre-peeled tomatoes. Check out our entire collection of grocery-store staples you should make instead of buy, here.

How to Clean a Baseball Cap

dirty hats

After a couple years of heavy use, my filthy baseball caps have been known to simply find their way to the trash rather than be washed. I’d tried the folk-lore-ish top-rack-of-the-dishwasher route, but it had never yielded great results for me. The hats came out misshapen, seemingly discolored, and only partially cleaned.

But I did some digging, and discovered a far better, and gentler, methodology for cleaning the ol’ ballcap that will refresh it, brighten it, and add years to its life. And best of all, it’s largely hands-off.

Luckily for you readers, I had a few very gross hats to do some testing on. Let’s dive in.

General Hat-Washing Tips

Don’t put caps into the laundry — either the washer or dryer. A high-efficiency washer that doesn’t have a center agitating column can be okay, but even then it has to be cool water on the gentlest cycle, and you also have to be concerned about other clothes in the load squishing the hat’s form. Dryers are too hot, and the tumbling isn’t good for the shape. Better to just avoid the laundry machines altogether.
Don’t use any products with bleach in them; you want your ballcap colors to stay nice and bright for years to come.
Dispelling the dishwasher myth. You’ve probably heard you can throw caps in the dishwasher on the top rack. Don’t do that. Dishwasher detergents often include bleach, and the appliance usually runs at high heat (both for washing and drying), which can damage the hat as well.
Hand-washing is really the best method to retain both the color and shape of the hat.

The Best Way to Wash a Baseball Cap

1. Fill a clean sink or bucket with warm water. Err on the side of cool versus hot.

2. As it’s filling, add a tablespoon of laundry detergent or OxiClean. Dish soap can do in a pinch, but detergent, or a dedicated stain-fighting treatment like OxiClean, is stronger and works harder at getting the stains out of the hat’s fibers.

Shampooing the bill of the ballcap.

3. Spot-clean the hat first, as needed. If there are areas that are especially problematic, spot-clean them with a dab of cleaning product right on the hat. After first dipping the hat in the water of your bucket or sink, use a toothbrush or other small scrubber to rub the cleaner into the fabric. I saw a tip to use shampoo on sweat stains; I tried it on one of my caps and the results were pretty spectacular. The bill was clean of sweat stains, while the back (where I didn’t use any shampoo), remained pretty gross after cleaning:

dirty hat

One note here: Be especially careful around threaded stitching. If you’re too vigorous, the stitching can become misplaced, and the artwork marred.

hat in sink

4. Let the hat soak for up to a couple hours. After you’ve spot-washed, let the hat soak in the soapy water-filled bucket or sink you’ve filled for up to a couple hours, though I found that even just 20-30 minutes will get the job done. About halfway through soaking, take a look at the cap and see how the stains are looking. Although the wetted fabric will hide some staining, they’ll still show through if they’re bad. Using your small scrubber, again spot wash those persistent problem areas, and again, be careful around stitched patterns and logos.

5. Rinse all the soap off with warm water. Give the hat a good rinse before letting it dry.

6. Pat down with a towel to get rid of excess moisture. The hat will obviously be very wet when you remove it from the water; let some of the excess drip off, then pat dry with a towel as much as you can while retaining the shape of the hat, and being gentle with logos. Your goal here is simply to remove the excess so that it can dry on a counter without dripping water all over.

hat drying

No towel underneath = wet countertop.

7. Always air dry on some sort of container. You want to find a way to dry the hat so it’s not just crumpled on the counter. Find a coffee jar, a canister, a balled-up towel, or perhaps any mannequin heads you have lying around to set it on. This will ensure the hat’s shape stays true and doesn’t crinkle up. Throw a towel under the container too; no matter how much patting you do, I’ve found there will always be some drippage. If you want to speed things up, use a small fan to blow air over it, or a hair dryer on the low setting.

Tips for Cleaning Wool Hats

Wool hats are a bit more delicate than your standard cotton or mesh caps. The discontinued AoM cap (if you have one, keep it, it’s now a vintage collector’s item!), for instance, is wool, and needs just a little more TLC to clean. Rather than standard detergent or cleaning product, find something that’s made specifically for wool, and soak it as directed above.

Be sure to be especially gentle when doing any scrubbing; if you’re too harsh, the wool can get matted and come to resemble felt. You don’t want that.

And finally, when drying the hat, pat it dry to remove excess moisture, then consider actually wearing it to dry the rest of the way. It will probably be a little uncomfortable, but the shape will conform exactly to your head rather than to some coffee bean container. Wool hats are notorious for losing their shape after washing, so be especially careful.

Tips for Cleaning Older Hats

If your hat is 20+ years old, there’s a decent chance it’s made with different, less-durable materials than today’s hats, both in the bill and the cap. Believe it or not, bills used to be made from cardboard rather than the more forgiving plastics of today.

The first thing to do when cleaning an old cap is to give it a color test. The vast majority of today’s hats are colorfast, meaning they have some blend that helps them retain color upon washing. Old caps don’t always have this, though. To test, rub a small amount of cleaner on the underside of the bill with a rag. If the rag comes away with some color, you’ll have to use water only to clean the cap, and simply do the best you can. If the rag comes away clean, you’re clear to use detergent.

As for actual washing, spot-clean only, especially if you’re unsure of the bill material. Soaking an old cardboard bill in water will obviously ruin it. And old hats in general are just less durable than today’s. Use a small scrubber, and clean up any problem areas by hand.

The Verdict

clean hats

Washed caps to the right and left; unwashed “control” cap in the middle.

My hats came out much cleaner after using this hand-washing method. I did some testing of different methods, including not washing the middle black and white cap. The stains are still visible on the bill, and the white isn’t as white as the newly-cleaned “Playoffs” baseball cap to its left. The OxiClean really brightened up the colors on that one. You’ll also notice on that Playoffs cap that the stains on the bill are almost completely gone. They’re still faintly visible, but it’s way better than before.

The gray cap on the right is also much better, although as you saw above, the back is still kinda gross because I didn’t spot-clean it. Lesson: spot-cleaning is a must for especially problematic areas.

If your favorite baseball cap is grimy from a few too many summertime sweats, give it a good hand-washing and you’ll be able to take it into plenty of extra innings.

Manual Drip Systems

If you control the timing and the process when you use manual-drip coffeemakers, the water can extract coffee oils from the grounds more thoroughly, resulting in more flavorful coffee. Fill the coffee filter with water and let it go all the way through the system to “bloom” the coffee, before continuing to pour the rest of the water; the process allows all of the grounds to become thoroughly heated. When you begin pouring again, ensure that you pour evenly over all the grounds, not just in one spot.

French Press Systems

Plunger, or French press, coffee makers use a combination of pressure and heat to extract the flavorful oils from coffee grounds. Because water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit and the smoothest, most flavorful coffee comes from water between 195 to 205 F, the National Coffee Association of U.S.A recommends that you let boiling water sit for about a minute before pouring it over coffee grounds to you extract the oils from the grounds effectively. Then, let the water sit for 2 to 4 minutes in the coffee maker before pressing down slowly on the plunger.

Automatic Systems

Your only task with automatic coffee-making methods is choosing which type of coffee to buy. For example, pod coffeemakers require you to insert a pod or small plastic cup and press a button; the coffee maker then presses the concentrated coffee and adds the right amount of water. With automatic-drip coffeemakers, which release water from a filled reservoir, you need to choose the right texture of grind so the coffee brews properly. Experiment with different-sized grinds if you’re not sure which size to buy. Automatic coffeemakers keep coffee hot on burners so it gets stronger and more bitter as it sits; transfer coffee to an insulated thermos after brewing to avoid the problem.

2 Essentials for a Great Omelette

There are two tricks to making a great omelette. First, use a nonstick skillet. This is one of the few times when we truly recommend a pan like this — it just makes the whole process of quickly cooking the eggs and sliding them onto the plate a million times easier. A small well-seasoned cast iron skillet will also do the job. If you don’t have either of these pieces of cookware, then use a little extra butter in your pan.

The second trick is to cook the omelet until it looks just under done. The bottom should be firm and set, but the top should still look a little wet. If you wait until the top is dry, then your omelette will be dry — and that is no one’s idea of a good breakfast. But if you’re not a fan of runny eggs, don’t worry; the eggs will finish cooking in the residual heat after you fold it.

From start to finish, an omelette should take you no more than a minute or two. It really is a quick-cooking dish (and another reason omelettes are a great breakfast or quick midweek dinner)! If you’re adding fillings to your omelette, just make sure those are cooked or re-warmed, if needed, and ready to go before you actually start making the omelette. When that omelette is done, you want to be able to add the fillings, fold the omelette over, and eat it right away.

Making a great omelette takes practice, so don’t worry if your first few attempts end up looking more like scrambled eggs. No harm done — they’re just eggs! —and you’ll get better each time you try.

Questions? Omelette tips? Favorite fillings? Let us know in the comments!

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