5 Kitchen Tools That Moonlight as Other Things

If you don’t have a dozen tiny ramekins on hand to hold all of your prepped ingredients (one can dream, right?), there’s an easy fix. Use the cups of a muffin tin, each fitted with a liner, to hold small amounts of various ingredients. This method keeps up to 12 well-organized ingredients at hand.

When you’re cooking along with a magazine (like, ahem, Cook’s Illustrated or Cook’s Country), the last thing you want to do is worry about keeping the recipe safe from spills or holding down a page spread that won’t lie straight. Here’s where your napkin holder saves the day: place the open magazine inside of the holder, and the recipe will remain in plain view (and out of harm’s way) when cooking,

Electric juicer out of commission? Lemon squeezer out on holiday? There is no barrier between you and a fresh batch of lemonade if you have a spare handheld beater mixer lying about. Hold the beater and use a little bit of elbow grease to ream lemons over a bowl, and you’ll be sipping ade in no time.

Is a bake-a-thon happening in your kitchen? If you’re desperate for an extra cooling rack, set two inverted dozen-size empty cardboard egg cartons side by side to support a baking sheet or pie plate. If, by upending an egg carton, you suddenly have a bunch of homeless eggs, we’re confident you’ll put them to good use in another baked good (or several).

Here’s a magical presto-chango move: Make multiple loaves of bread at once from one loaf pan. How? Place a single loaf pan across the center of a 13 by 9-inch baking dish. Position one portion of shaped dough on either side of the loaf pan (and, if you’re into bread triplets, fill in the middle loaf pan as well) and bake.