There are plenty of simple things that you can do to help make cooking more manageable. Here are some tips that can really help you in the kitchen:

- Are you trying to boil water in a hurry? Take the pot you plan on boiling the water in and place it on the stove, empty, on a high temperature setting. Begin running water in your sink and turn the faucet all the way up to the hot setting. Once the water in the sink is to the point where you cannot touch it without getting scorched, take the pot, which should be getting warm, off the stove and fill it up. This helps to speed up the boiling process.

- If you are making soup and you accidentally put in too much salt, there's a simple solution. Slice a raw potato and place the slices in the broth. Once they have cooked and absorbed the salt, remove them. It's as simple as that!

- Fresh bread can be a pain to slice. People who aren't too familiar with the right way to do it often are left with a crumpled, pressed in loaf. Right after you are done baking the bread, place it on a cooling rack. The cooling rack will leave impressions on the bread, giving you ample opportunity to make equally sized, proper slices.

- Wondering if the eggs in your fridge have been in there too long? There's a simple test to find out. Place one of the eggs in a pan of cold salt-water. If the egg sinks, they are fine for eating. If it floats, however, it's time to throw them away. Another way of diagnosing egg freshness is to inspect the shell: fresh egg shells are rough and chalky in appearance, while old eggs are smooth and shiny.

- If you are wondering whether or not your cake is done, the toothpick trick is sometimes not enough. Cakes are tall, and toothpicks can only reach so far down. For a more accurate test, use a strand of uncooked spaghetti. The length of the spaghetti noodle should be sufficient to testing the cake all the way to the bottom.

- Bacon often curls when cooked, and few people realize how to keep it from doing so. However, it's a very simple process. Before cooking the bacon, simply dip it into cold water.

- When frying greasy foods, splattering is a huge annoyance. It makes the stovetop dirty and might burn you. Put a small amount of salt in a pan before frying, and you'll notice that the splattering is not as prevalent.