Cooking hot dogs on the grill today? Don't grab them with a fork to turn them over.

What do you do if you're making several batches of cookies and you only have one cookie sheet?

I've been cooking, in one way or another, for more than 20 years. That includes my early childhood experiments like when I would try to make hashbrowns on the days when I stayed home from school. Although tasty, they were always grey, a bit mushy and very visually unappealing. In recent years I've come to be something of an adequate cook, but I know that there is always more for me to learn.

It's in that spirit of continuing food education, that I particular love the post that David Lebovitz put up the day after Thanksgiving called "Ten Easy Ways to Improve Your Cooking." His tips are really helpful and include such easy changes as using lots of shallots, making a point of incorporating fresh herbs and rethinking the oils and vinegars you cook with. Another reason to go and check out this post is for the pictures as they are just lovely (that picture of thyme up above is borrowed from his post).

There must be something in the air, because while I didn't see this post until yesterday, about a week ago on a whim I bought a large bag of shallots at my local produce market. It's been lovely having them on hand as an alternative to my normal garlic and onions. They give food a sweeter, gentler flavor that I'm loving. They aren't wimpy though and still pack a punch that stands up to many of the stronger tastes out there.

When I was 17, my next-door neighbor Alma taught me how to roast red peppers. She turned the burner way up on her big old white enamel gas stove and grabbed a pepper firmly with a pair of long-handled metal tongs. She systematically blistered the skin on a series of five peppers, stashing the finished ones in a brown paper bag to trap the heat and finish cooking the flesh. When the last pepper had gotten a chance to work in the heat of the bag, she tumbled everything out into a colander in the sink and ran water over the peppers to cool them down enough to handle. I was amazed how the blackened skin just slid off, leaving behind a tender, naked pepper.

I don't have a gas stove in my apartment, and even if I did I think I would be hesitant to roast my peppers like Alma did because I've got some seriously sensitive smoke detectors. These days I roast them at high heat on a foil-lined baking sheet (if you roast them on an uncovered sheet you run the risk of caramelizing the sugars permanently to the surface of your baking sheet), turning them a couple of times to get as much surface-area blackening as possible. I still use the techniques she taught me of letting them steam a bit in a paper bag and running cold water over them to get them cool enough to handle.

In the fall and winter I often puree with some roasted carrots and stock into soup. The last batch I made went into some sandwiches and on the top of a salad. They are fairly low effort, and if you get your red peppers on sale, are much less expensive than buying the jars of gourmet roasted peppers.

I'm not talking about the best restaurants in Las Vegas, I mean the cooking of Sin City director Robert Rodriguez.

Rodriguez has created ten short films that tell you how to cook using footage from his movies. Yeah, I know, that sounds a little confusing (if not scary), but it all makes sense after you watch the videos. Rodriguez and his crew are often up late at night (or early in the morning), so they make things like Breakfast Tacos. He even teaches you how to make your own flour tortillas.

For more recipes, check the other videos on the right on that YouTube page.

In summer, iced tea is an excellent choice of beverage. It's cool, refreshing and easy to make. While some may like sweet tea or even sun tea the best, I prefer to make mine fairly plain and start it on the stovetop.

One of the most common mistakes with iced tea is that the tea leaves are brewed for too long, which causes the tea to become bitter. The best brewing strategy is to increase the amount of tea or the number of tea bags you use, while keeping the steeping time the same as you would for one cup.

Start on the stovetop with only a cup or two of water. Once it comes to a boil, turn off the heat and add in three or four times the normal amount of tea leaves/bags you use for a cup or two. Once they have steeped for several minutes, remove the bags and stir in your desired amount of sugar (or other sweetener). Using hot water will allow the sugar to dissolve quickly and easily, not to mention that a small amount of water will both heat up an cool down faster than boiling a whole pitcher's worth. Add cold water after the sugar is dissolved to dilute the strong tea and cool the drink down. Top of with some ice and refrigerate until ready to drink - or enjoy right away, since it should be a nice, cool temperature already.

If you're in a time crunch, Lipton's Iced Tea Teabags - which brew in cold water in minutes - are always nice to have on standby.

We all have them - little snippets of culinary wisdom that you use every week. Time to share people; what is your culinary gem that all could benefit from knowing? Here are three from Alan Pickett, Head Chef of the Orrery in Marylebone High Street, London as reported in yesterday's Times.

1. When cooking green vegetables, try adding sea salt to the boiling water. There are fewer impurities in it and it will keep your veg greener. Maldon salt is ideal.
2. To scale fish at home take a medium-sized bin liner, open it and place the fish inside. Start to scale from tail to head with the back of a table knife. Once all the fish are scaled, remove them, screw up the bag and put in the bin.
3. If you have red wine left over after a dinner party, save it for extra-special gravy. Slice some round shallots and two cloves of garlic, soften in a little butter, then add your left over wine and reduce to almost nothing. Pour on your gravy and bring it to the boil. This gravy is best served with either roast beef or pork.

We've been talking about slow cooking today with everything from steel-cut oatmeal for breakfast to an authentic kalua pig roasted in the ground to Catalan beef stew. When you've got the time (and the space, if you're doing the whole kalua pig!), slow cooking is awesome.

During the work week though, and even on weekends when time is taken up with "life errands" like picking up dry cleaning, slow-cooking isn't always realistic. At least, not the kind of slow-cooking that truly takes four to five hours. Besides, I don't have a slow-cooking crock pot and my tiny apartment kitchen couldn't hold another small appliance.

But not to despair! There are way to *ahem* cheat the slow cooking a little. It probably won't be as fast and perky as Rachael Ray or Sandra Lee, but a few tips can still get you a beautifully braised, buttery beefy stew without having to sic your can opener on Dinty Moore. These aren't novel new ideas in cooking, just reminders.