Randy's Efficiency Tips: Freshly Baked Cookies

This tip is more fun than the last use for ice cube trays that I wrote about. This time, freeze cookie dough and always be ready to bake cookies.

Simply make your favorite recipe and smoosh it into an ice cube tray. To prevent the dough from drying out, cover it with plastic wrap or lay the trays face-down on parchment paper while freezing. Bag them the next day and decide how many fresh cookies is reasonable to eat in one sitting. Add two.

Randy's Efficiency Tips: Broth

Canned broth comes in inconveniently large quantities: what recipe asks for that much? I make a kung pao chicken that requires 1/2 cup, about a third of a can, and the rest usually gets thrown out.

To avoid this problem, or forgetting to buy broth, I split a can up into smaller portions to be frozen: figure out how many tablespoons will fit in each segment of your ice cube tray, measure it out and freeze the broth. The next day, bag the cubes and mark the bag with the date and the number of cubes per cup ( 16 tablespoons per cup), and leave the bag in your freezer.

When it comes time to cook, set the required number of cubes in a glass or other container. Leave time for it to melt and you won't have to bother with the microwave.