I love tricks that make my life easier and healthier. Here are five of my favorite kitchen tools and how I use them to make cooking healthy meals for my family easier. (I know I said easy, but I meant eas-ier.)

1. The ice-cream scoop

I have to admit, I stole this one from Martha Stewart, but I have been using it tons ever since. Use an ice-cream scoop for measuring muffin batter, waffle batter, and pancake batter. Or use it to form perfectly round cookies. The little scraper thingy makes portioning runny batter a neat and even, super-simple task. I have a large one that is 2″ and a small one that is 1″ wide that is perfect for those mini-muffins.

2. Ice-cube trays

I mentioned in the popular “Save Your Money in Your Freezer” post that I like to save my extra stocks, juices, tea and coffee in the freezer. Save your little leftovers in perfect 1 tablespoon-sized portions in ice-cube trays and stash them away to make lemonade, iced-coffee, or iced-tea later. This is also the perfect way to save single portion veggie and fruit purees for your baby.

3. Pastry-piping tips

I stole this from Martha Stewart too. I love cake decorating and have tons of pastry piping tips. But, I don’t eat cherries enough to warrant buying a cherry pitter. So, I slip my finger into the pastry tip, a #7 Wilton will do, and poke the tip into the top of the cherry to extract that pesky little pit, and pop the rest into my mouth. YUM.

4. Scale

I use my kitchen scale for everything. It was the best wedding-registry gift ever. I use it for those European baking recipes where everything is in grams and when I need to weight a letter to find out how much I owe the Postal Service. I also use it to portion meats I buy in large packages. Tare the Ziploc bag, measure one pound of ground turkey, and seal up the bag, label it and stick it in the freezer and viola, you have the prefect portion.

5. Cheesecloth

This is a great kitchen tool. Cut a square to make a pouch for mulling spices, bouquet garni, or roasted barley to make tea. Or, double it back to line a strainer, to cull the seeds from a berry puree or to catch the clots that might mess up your egg custard. Or, wrap herbs like lavender or sage in a piece of cheese cloth and place it in a small place that needs a special scent.

Do you have favorite kitchen tools that make your life easier? Share your tips and tricks here to make other readers’ lives easier. Happy Organizing!