If you’ve mastered the basic baked sweet potato and you’re looking to elevate your preparation, there’s one surprisingly simple trick to try.

The Freezer Is Your Friend

Here’s what to do: Place your sweet potato (whole, not cut) into a freezer-safe, resealable bag and freeze it overnight or up to two days. When you’re ready to cook, preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit, then bake the frozen sweet potato whole in its skin on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil or parchment paper for 45 minutes to an hour. You want a very hot oven and a long bake — long enough for the sweet potato to leave a trail of burnt sugar on the baking sheet.

Why Freezing Works

There’s an interesting scientific process going on here. When the sweet potato freezes, the water inside crystallizes, breaking down the internal structure of the sweet potato without breaking its skin. This process “macerates” the flesh, making it softer and more pliable. When cooked later at a high temperature, the sugars caramelize nicely while the skin protects them from scorching. The result is a sweet potato that’s more evenly cooked and caramelized throughout.

Tips and Tricks

Don’t leave your sweet potatoes in the freezer longer than necessary. While they will be fine for a couple of days, you want to avoid forgetting about them — freezer burn will degrade their taste and quality. Make sure the sweet potatoes are in a freezer-safe bag or another airtight container. You don’t want them to dry out from direct exposure to the cold.

Once baked, the sweet potato can be cut down the middle and topped with your preferred fillings. You can also dice it, mash it, or use the flesh however you like. Simply season with your favorite spices and enjoy.

You probably won’t like the answer. Brown rice contains natural oils that can go rancid, which significantly worsens the taste. Unlike white rice, brown rice still has its bran and germ attached — the very components that give it that nutritional edge. However, those layers are full of unsaturated fats that oxidize quickly, leaving the rice tasting stale and bitter. While eating a small amount of spoiled rice probably won’t harm you, the flavor is unpleasant and certainly not something you would want to serve. So, how can you extend the shelf life of brown rice?

An Ice Cold Solution

The answer lies, as it often does, in the freezer. Storing your brown rice in the freezer rather than the pantry can significantly prolong its freshness. While a pantry might seem like a sufficiently cool, dark environment, the reality is that temperature and moisture levels fluctuate. The freezer provides the consistent chill needed to keep those natural oils from spoiling. Inside the freezer, brown rice can last for up to 16 months, compared to just six months in the pantry.

Other Tips To Extend Brown Rice’s Shelf Life

Start by shopping in the right quantities. It may feel counterintuitive, but buying brown rice in small quantities is better due to its shorter shelf life. Once you get home, put it into an airtight container that can withstand freezing temperatures. Minimizing oxygen exposure is key; when oxygen comes into contact with those natural oils, they begin to turn. Keep the rice airtight and cold, and it will stay fresh for months longer.

As breakfasts go, pancakes are also a relatively easy undertaking. You can use a boxed mix to speed up the process or whisk them together with just flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, milk, and butter. The biggest hurdle is actually portioning the batter. Somehow, homemade pancakes never seem to look as uniform or as satisfyingly round as the ones in restaurants.

Ditch the Ladle

The solution? A repurposed, thoroughly cleaned ketchup bottle. Instead of using a ladle or measuring cup to spoon pancake batter onto the griddle, opt for a squeeze bottle. Save the bottle from the recycling bin and scrub it inside and out — this is the most important step. When it’s pancake time, fill the bottle with batter (a funnel helps here) and squeeze perfectly neat circles onto the griddle. This may even be how your favorite diner does it: Many chefs use squeeze bottles for the clean aesthetic and to avoid the mess of a ladle.

When portioning your pancakes, draw the outline first and then fill it in with batter. This technique ensures neat edges and allows you to get creative with shapes. Try dinosaurs or hearts for kids (don’t forget the chocolate chips), or assemble brunch skewers using mini pancakes and sliced fruit.

More Tips for Perfect Pancake Preparation

The secret to perfect pancakes lies in the technique. While the batter itself is simple, there’s plenty of nuance to the cooking process. First, let the batter rest for 10 minutes after mixing. Second, ensure the griddle is truly hot enough before you begin. Flick a couple of water droplets onto the surface of the pan to test the temperature. If they start sizzling immediately, the griddle is good to go.

Have patience while the bottom of the pancake cooks. Wait until the bubbles on the surface have popped before flipping. Finally, don’t be afraid to throw out the first pancake — or feed it to the dog, assuming it’s plain and fully cooked. The first one famously tends to fail, but that’s OK. Just squeeze the next round onto the griddle and trust the process.

One component contributing to these health benefits is a compound called sulforaphane, which shows promise in protecting against certain kinds of cancer, diabetes, and obesity. The catch is that cooking broccoli, or other vegetables in this family, deactivates myrosinase, the enzyme needed to create sulforaphane. Fortunately, if you’ve already cooked your broccoli, you can still add this enzyme back in — here’s how.

Reach for the Mustard

Cruciferous vegetables go by many names: You may know them as brassicas or the “cabbage family,” but it’s just as accurate to refer to them as the “mustard family.” Mustards are one of the largest groups within the brassicas, whether they’re grown for the seeds used in condiments or for pungent leafy greens such as mizuna and tatsoi.

Because they’re close kin to broccoli, mustard plants produce a significant amount of myrosinase. This makes mustard a quick way to bring the enzyme back to your plate once the vegetables are cooked. A light sprinkling of mustard powder (be careful, it’s potent) or a homemade, mustard-based dressing or sauce will do the trick.

A Culinary Match

The close relationship between broccoli and mustard is more than just a nutritional coincidence; it’s a perfect culinary partnership. Mustard-based sauces and vinaigrettes work well with broccoli and other brassicas such as cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage. As a bonus, mustard acts as an emulsifier to thicken your vinaigrette. You can even serve a good-quality sweet or grainy mustard as a dipping condiment for your broccoli — the flavors go together better than you might expect.

No matter how you combine them, a dab of mustard helps bring out the full health potential of your broccoli. It’s proof that eating well doesn’t have to mean eating food that tastes bad.