The way to get the fruits eaten is to peel them and cut them into slices.  If the fruits are not prepared for eating, people will be too lazy to prepare them, and fruits will end up spoiled and thrown out.

It’s much easier to cut up a bunch of fruits at once, as opposed to doing just a few at a time.  I cut up the fruits and store them in snack-size plastic containers with lids in a refrigerator.  When someone wants a snack, here are the healthy fruits that are ready for eating!  Cut-up fruits disappear in no time :)

Most fruits last for several days in their cut-up state without showing any signs of spoiling.  However, apples turn brown as fast as 30 minutes after being sliced!  For a long time I thought that there is nothing that can prevent apple slices from browning… until I payed attention to the packaged apple slices in the fast food chains!  How come those packaged apple slices don’t turn brown?

I looked at the ingredient list on those packaged apple slices that don’t turn brown, and saw ascorbic acid (vitamin C) as an added ingredient.  And what natural product is super-rich in vitamin C? Lemons and limes!

Now I knew what to do.  I put some water in a bowl and squeezed some lemon in it.  I peeled and cut an apple, then dropped the apple slices in the lemon water.  After that, I removed the apple slices from the lemon water, put them in a plastic bowl with lid, and put in a refrigerator.  My apples didn’t turn brown!  Even the next day, they looked as good as new!

To prevent the apple slices from browning, just dip them in the water mixed with lemon or lime juice, then remove them from water and refrigerate.  I found that bottled lemon or lime juice works just as well as squeezing fresh lemons and limes to prevent apple slices from browning.

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Lemon zest is a wonderful addition to baked goods.  If you are making cakes, cookies, bars, pies or muffins and want them to have lemon scent and a hint of lemon taste, add lemon zest!

Dried lemon zest that they sell in the spice jars is a far cry from the fresh lemon zest.  Whenever you have a lemon in your fridge and need lemon zest, make the real thing!

The best lemons for the lemon zest are organic lemons.  The lemons that are not organic are coated with wax, and that wax will end up in your lemon zest.  The organic lemons don’t have the yucky wax, so your lemon zest will be the lemon zest – pure and lemony.

Here’s how to zest a lemon:

You need a lemon:

You need a grater:

Rub the lemon on the side of the grater that has small holes.  Keep rubbing and turning the lemon, so the yellow lemon zest gets grated away from the lemon.  Only grate the yellow stuff – the white pith that’s under the yellow is bitter, so you don’t want any of the white stuff… just the yellow.

When you grated off all the top yellow covering of the lemon, you have successfully zested that lemon.

Here’s a picture of how a lemon looks after it’s zested:

And here’s the picture of the lemon zest:

Now go ahead and add this delicious smelling lemon zest to yummy baked stuff!

Lemon zest works especially well in lemon bundt cake recipe, homemade italian lemon ice and lemon bars recipe.

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It’s very easy to cut a cantaloupe into chunks.  Don’t waste money on pre-cut cantaloupe in plastic fruit trays or fruit cups – not only they are expensive, but also not as fresh, as they’ve been sitting on the store shelves for a while. When you cut a cantaloupe yourself, you will enjoy tasty cantaloupe pieces – lots of cantaloupe chunks!

Cut a cantaloupe in half

Scoop out the seeds from a cantalope with a spoon

Here's the cantaloupe half without the seeds!

Cut each cantaulope half into slices lengthwise

Cut off the peel from the cantaloupe slices

Here's the cantaloupe slice without the peel!

Cut each peeled cantaloupe slice into chunks

Bowl of cantaloupe chunks

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Peeling an avocado is really easy.  All you need to peel an avocado is a knife and spoon.

Let’s peel an avocado and reveal the beautiful smooth tasting light-green avocado flesh inside!

Before you peel an avocado, make sure it is ripe – nobody wants to eat tough avocado that is not yet ready :)  Read this article about how to make sure an avocado is ripe.

Start with a whole ripe avocado:

Cut an avocado in half with a knife.

Take an avocado pit out with your fingers, and throw it out.

Take a spoon and put it between the avocado flesh and skin.  Keep moving the spoon around the perimeter of the avocado until the avocado flesh separates from the skin.  See the picture below for an illustration on how to separate avocado flesh from the avocado skin with a spoon:

Here’s the picture of avocado peel separated from avocado flesh:

Peel the second half of the avocado with a spoon.  Discard the avocado peel.

You are done peeling an avocado!

Now go ahead an make some guacamole!  Here’s a  very easy guacamole recipe.

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When the avocado is ripe and ready for eating, the skin peels away from the flesh very easily, and the inside of the avocado is soft and mashes easily with a fork.  Ripe avocado is full of flavor – it tastes smooth and buttery.  An avocado that is not yet ripe is tough and tasteless.

If you peel the avocado that is not yet ripe, there is no going back – you’ll have to eat it as is :)  Therefore, before you peel an avocado, always make sure that this avocado is ripe!  If the avocado is not ripe, just leave it on the counter – it will be ready to eat in a few days.

On the other hand, you certainly don’t want an avocado that is overly ripe (a.k.a spoiled)!  While the unripe avocados can be eaten after several days, a spoiled avocado goes straight to the garbage can :)

Here’s how to tell if an avocado is ripe:

Step 1: Analyze How An Avocado Looks

The avocado skin should be uniform – without dents and bruises.  The most common variety of avocado – Haas avocado – has a dark green skin with a black tint when ripe (like on the avocado picture below).   When the Haas avocado is not ripe, it is bright green (like the leaves on a tree).

However, don’t judge the avocado simply based on its color as other varieties of avocadoes can be bright green even when they are ripe.

Step 2: Analyze How An Avocado Feels

Gently squeeze an avocado with your fingers.  When I say “gently”, I mean it – don’t squeeze it so hard that the avocado gets smooshed :)  Put an avocado between your thumb and pointer fingers, and give it a very gentle squeeze on the sides.

You should be able to feel the avocado flesh give a little when you squeeze.

The avocado that is not ripe is hard like a rock.  The avocado that is spoiled is mushy and gives under your fingers way too much – spoiled avocado gets a permanent dent even from the gentlest squeeze.

After you feel enough avocadoes, you’ll know exactly what I mean.  Perfect avocado-picking skills come from experience :)

The bottom line:

Hard like a rock = unripe avocado
Permanently dented from a very gentle squeeze = spoiled avocado
Gives under your fingers, but doesn’t have a visible dent afterwards = perfectly ripe avocado

Once you picked a ripe avocado, go make some guacamole using this quick and easy guacamole recipe

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Have you decided in the last minute to make a shrimp recipe for dinner?  Need to defrost the shimp right away?  Here’s the fast way to thaw frozen shrimp.

Put frozen shrimp in a colander.  Put colander in a large bowl.  Put the bowl with the colander in a sink, and fill it with cold water.  Leave for 10 minutes.

Lift the colander with the shrimp out of the bowl.   Run the cold water through the shrimp, and move the shrimp around with your hands while the water is running.  This will thaw the last remaining pieces of ice, and the shrimp will be completely defrosted and ready to go.

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The laziest way to cook perfect rice is to use a rice cooker!  Put rice, water and salt in a rice cooker, press the button and walk away :)  Rice cooker will do all the work in cooking the perfect rice for you.

The Ratio Of Rice And Water In A Rice Cooker

For white rice in a rice cooker, I always use the ratio of 1 cup of rice to 1.5 cups of water.

The rice cooker manual has different ratios depending on the rice type, but I hate reading manuals and just remember the ratio that always worked for me :)

How Much Salt In Rice?

I use 1/4 tsp of salt per 1 cup of uncooked rice.

How To Cook Rice In A Rice Cooker – Pictures

I usually cook 2 cups of dry rice at a time:

Using my ratio of rice to water in a rice cooker, I add 3 cups of water:

Then I add 1/2 tsp of salt to a rice cooker, and press the “Cook” button:

When the rice cooker beeps, the rice is ready!  You don’t even have to take it out right away – the rice cooker will keep your rice warm for you for hours!

the lid of the rice cooker is opened to reveal perfectly cooked rice!

Here’s a closeup of perfectly cooked white rice:

And here is cooked white rice in a bowl:

Don’t Own A Rice Cooker? Click Here To Get In On Amazon

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How many times have you let a pineapple spoil because you were too lazy to cut it? ;)

No more struggling – it’s easy to cut a pineapple if you do it the right way!

Step 1:

Cut off the green top.

Step 2:

Cut the pineapple in half lenghwise.

Step 3:

Halve each piece lengthwise.

Step 4:

Halve each piece lengthwise again.

Step 5:

Cut out and discard the tough core from each slice (on the picture below, the core is on the right side).

Step 6:

Cut off and discard the outer skin from each slice.

Step 7:

Cut each slice into chunks.

You are done!  Enjoy your pineapple :)

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