I can’t believe how much I let the holidays get the best of my posting schedule. It was a fantastic several weeks, including a trip back to New York for friends, family and of course… food, plus a trip to Edinburgh for the New Year celebrations.

Those two weeks were everything I could have asked for, and I even got a lightly dusted White Christmas! However, the one thing I didn’t do was cook a meal. It felt a bit weird, spending so much time out of the kitchen, though I’ll certainly be sharing some of my culinary inspirations in future recipes on here.

But, rather than share a recipe this week, I thought I’d start the year with a “how to” post. Hopefully this will help some people who want to learn to cook in 2013!

Once I learned this trick for chopping onions, I have never gone back. It makes the whole thing quick and easy, and even a bit fun! Hm… or maybe just fun for me.

I hope this tutorial will make your next (or first) onion-chopping experience a lot easier.

With a sharp knife (always!), chop the ends off your onion, and pull off the skin. 

Cut the onion in half. Your knife should be parallel to the flat ends of the onion.

Then, slice the halved onion in half again, but only 3/4 through. As you get more practice you can get closer to the edge without cutting through. (If you’re working with a small onion, you can skip this step.)

Remove the knife carefully and cut slices vertically into the onion.

Now, very gently turn the onion (or yourself) and cut perpendicular slices into the onion. 

And finally, you are left with a pile of chopped onion. Don’t forget about the other half!

Learning this skill made the arduous task of cutting onions much more bearable for me, and now I don’t actually mind chopping them. If only I had shortcuts for every other veggie I chopped, sliced and diced…