Whenever you are making a recipe, especially when baking, unless it calls for cold eggs make sure your eggs come to room temperature before using. This will help your whole recipe come together better and cook more evenly.I like to use extra large eggs when baking. I heard this tip once and didn't believe it but decided to try it out and for some reason the little bit extra of eggs really helps!
Never, ever let melting chocolate come in contact with water or any other liquid. It will seize up on you. If this has never happened to you before trust me if it does happen there isn't anything you can do to save the chocolate, you may as well dump it out.
Save all scraps!!! The papery peel from the onion, the leftover celery from your veggie tray, the carrot shavings when peeling them, the garlic that's about to go bad in a day, the tops of the celery stalk, etc... These make great stock. Making your own stock is a great way to monitor your sodium and fat intake. Honestly though once you make your own stock you aren't going to want to buy any anymore. It just tastes so much better homemade.When zesting lemons or any other kind of fruit you can use a box grater or microplane. The main thing to remember when zesting is do not zest the white part of the fruit, known as the pith. This is very bitter and if you zest it your food will not taste well at all. Only zest the colored part of your fruit (yellow for lemons, orange for oranges, you get the point) see more about zesting here
To make a garlic paste first chop your garlic cloves as small as possible. Sprinkle with some salt (kosher or course sea salt works best) take your knife and turn it on it's side (so the broad part of the knife, not the point is on the cutting board) smash garlic and pull slightly to rub the garlic/salt against the cutting board, continue rubbing it against the board like this until all of the sudden it becomes a paste! Wanna know how it works? The salt pulls the water out of the garlic while acting as extra friction to help break down the garlic. This is a great way to get the garlic taste in your dish without wondering if someone will chomp down on a giant piece of garlic!
Below are my "Tuesday's Tip" post that include more in-depth clarification of several important tips:
What to buy organic
Making healthy/cheap chicken stock
Using a slow cooker