I used to hate adding strawberries to a fruit salad (especially one with pineapple in it) because the red from the strawberries always seemed to bleed onto the other fruit.  ... Until I discovered this easy trick!  Wash your strawberries and put them to dry on a paper towel (while you prepare the other fruit).  Then pat them dry and slice them ~ add to the fruit salad.

For some reason, wet strawberries bleed into the "wet" fruit salad ... but dry strawberries don't!!  (or at least not as much) 

All of my cookie recipes are available here ~ you can search by keyword, or by category.

I also have a Pinterest board for CHRISTMAS & HANUKKAH COOKIES (but the link won't copy here)

DIFFERENCE between SPONGE, CHIFFON & ANGEL FOOD CAKES
 

Sponge cakes contain whole eggs. Their leavening comes only from beaten egg whites (no baking powder or soda), and they have little or no butter.


Chiffon cakes are light like sponge cakes, but the egg whites are not beaten separately. Chiffon cakes also generally contain oil so they are more tender and moist than sponge cake.


Angel food cakes have no fat or leavening (such as baking powder). They are leavened with beaten egg whites and they have a high proportion of egg white to flour.

​The Absolute Best Ways to Cook Bacon, According to Sooo Many Tests …. from FOOD52

The EASY WAY to make PIE CRUST:  Did you know you can make your pie crust in your food processor?  Put the flour & salt in and give it a whirl.  Then put in the shortening or butter (scatter the dabs/cubes around on the flour).  Pulse until it looks crumbly.  Pulse in the water.  Basically follow your regular recipe, but pulse the food processor instead of using a pastry cutter or 2 forks.  

My new favorite liquid sweetener, especially for fruit that's too hard or tasteless (peaches, nectarines, mangoes ~ winter strawberries and melons).  It isn't grainy like sugar or Splenda, and the fruit doesn't get mushy.   Great substitute for honey or corn syrup.  **  In the fruit salad above, I just cut up peaches, nectarines and mangoes and drizzled about 1 tsp. light agave nectar over them; mixed it up gently.  After about 1/2 hour, they were softer and sweeter.  (60 calories per TB=15 calories per tsp)

I always buy LIGHT agave nectar because it isn't as sweet as regular strength (which is more like corn syrup).   A big bottle of it costs less than $6 and is either on the baking aisle near the other sugar products, or near the honey and corn syrup.

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Yes, English hothouse cucumbers are the best because the skins are tender and they have barely any seeds at all in them.  But when regular cucumbers are on sale (or you're growing your own at home), it doesn't make sense to pay 4x as much for an English hothouse at the store.  So, pick the smallest regular cucumber you can find and make it just as tasty and "burp-less" as an English hothouse.

1) Depending on how thin and smooth (or bumpy) the skin is, you may need to peel all of the skin off (this is what will cause most of the gas when you eat it).  If it's pretty thin and smooth, I'll just "stripe" the skin with my vegetable peeler (which gives it a pretty look).

2) Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise.  Then use a melon baller to take out the seeds (photo above).  

It should now be as "burp-less" as the more expensive English hothouse cucumbers, and ready to use in all your cucumber salads and veggie platters.   

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You can search by keyword " cucumber " for all of my cucumber recipes here too.