Came across these blue bonsai edible strawerries.
Add to cubic watermelon food oddities list. Seeds are available, 500 for $1.49, don't know if they are allowed into USA though.
Posted on 03/24/2017 7:48:03 AM PDT by Jamestown1630
We’ve had requests for a thread on ‘kitchen problems’, so I thought we’d do it this week.
* I cleaned out my refrigerator a few days ago, and was reminded of something I used to do and must start to do again. No matter how careful you are, there are always drips and leaks, or mess from a forgotten, rotten vegetable, staining up your refrigerator – especially the little shelves on the door. A good idea is to cut craft paper – or a brown paper bag – to fit those spaces, and then just change the paper out a few times per year, when you do a complete cleaning of the fridge. The few minutes of work this takes will save you a lot more time later.
* I keep the cans that vegetables, tomato sauce, etc. come in – I rip off the labels, run them through the dishwasher, and use them to deal with the leftover fats and juices from cooking that I don’t want to put through the drain/garbage disposal (the dregs from a beef roast have seemed in my experience to be especially bad for the disposal system). I freeze these, and then they go easily into the trash the morning of trash pickup. If your neighborhood recycles, and you don’t want to dispose of the cans along with garbage, you can just pop the frozen stuff out.
* Sponges in the kitchen are great collectors of bacteria, but you can kill it by routinely microwaving your sponges in a MW-safe bowl or dish, for a couple of minutes. Make sure they contain no metal, and are WET when you do this; and be careful when you take them out, because they’ll be very hot.
* We never seem to have enough space in our freezer, and I’ve started taking prepared frozen foods out of the big boxes that they come in – the boxes take up much more space than the contents, and the contents are usually wrapped anyway. Cut out the part of the box that has the instructions and save it someplace convenient – you’ll only have to do this once for each item. If you have a vacuum packer (a great investment, by the way) use it to re-pack items that you will store long-term; otherwise, things can just be put into a plastic ‘baggie’ for protection.
* If you make a lot of soups, and your own stocks, another great space-saver is Helen Witty’s Chicken Extract – a way of reducing stock to where you can freeze a tablespoon in each section of an ice-cube tray, and then pop the cubes into a bag or container. Generally, you will reconstitute one of these cubes per cup of water, to make stock. You will appreciate the added space in the deep freeze, and the convenience of having the cubes of stock on hand. Here are the directions for this – it’s long and drawn-out process, but depending on your frequency of use, you only have to do it a couple or three times per year:
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1990-04-19/features/9001030683_1_chicken-broth-pot
* Save all the little plastic ‘twisty-ties’ from bread and other items, and keep them in the ‘everything-drawer’; you’ll always find a use for them.
* Invest in something like a Swiffer Wet Mop, or some other very easy to grab-and-use floor cleaning implement, and run it quickly over your kitchen floor EVERY NIGHT! This will save you a lot of work when you go to do your general kitchen cleaning (especially if you have a very ‘Exuberant’ cook in your family – like my hubby ;-)
* Finally: when you are cooking, clean everything *as you use it* - that way you don’t wind up with a depressing sinkful of stuff that has to be dealt with all at once, when you’re done. Cooking is much more pleasurable then.
-JT
I’ve used Debbie Meyer green bags, and I think they really did keep produce fresh longer.
Re: lettuce: I’ve had good luck with the new Food Saver containers, but they function best with the vacuum packer:
I’ve posted before, in one of our gadget threads, about my Tupperware celery crisper, which works very well (the pic was from Ebay, and doesn’t come through now):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3464833/posts
It worked so well, I’m wondering how that type of lettuce crisper works:
I love my steamer! I use it constantly.
I have an original shark. It’s industrial size — way too bulky and big. I really need to upgrade.
I can’t recall what mine is, will have to dig it out. What do you use it on?
We use dehumidifiers indoors so mold and mildew aren’t a problem for us.
I was going to use a clay pot but mine all looked too yucky and I’d have to break one. I’d rather plant something in the ones I have.
Baseboards and sliding glass door tracks, mostly. But I’ve cleaned every surface known to man w/ my steamer, even brick wainscoting. You can clean your fridge in about 5 mins.
I’ve used it on wood, but you have to do small areas at a time and must be quick on the wipedown.
Dig it out of storage. You will love it!
Bamboo harvesting has many variables to make any consistent statement regarding its hardness (too early harvesting before mature, resins used, etc.).
Also, indications about bamboo flooring indicate marring, easily scratched, easily dinged, dented, scratched and an inability to resurface.
Also, scratching and dinged sufaces weaken the adjoining area of bamboo; enough so that I wouldn't recommend it for any areas subjected to frequent abuse. YMMV
Also, discussions about bamboo also raise the question about resins used to harden bamboo; most recent commentary has been about bamboo flooring
and the use of formaldehyde as a hardening preservative in the resins.
Personally, I would stick with hardwoods with a protective transparent shell of several coats , that could be resurfaced if needed.
Thanks. I really want a certain look, but my budget is tight and I have a big enough family that I need it to function well, too, so I appreciate the info. Classic case of “champagne taste on a beer budget”. The look, however, is one that with some ingenuity you can fake/copy pricy trends for less.
This is the BEST method to crisp lettuce....especially lettuce that’s been hanging out in your fridge and looks limp and tired.
Just separate the leaves and put it in the freezer for a couple minutes. It comes out looking great——and as crisp as a just-picked head of iceberg.
NOTE: Lettuce and other vegetables need to be protected from oxygen...its oxygen that wilts and makes limp veggies.
Put lettuce in a produce bag and close it tightly-—make sure no oxygen is in the bag. The poor lettuce looks squished in the bag....but comes out as good as new.
And use the freezer trick if necessary.
This is a chef’s secret.
My brother swears by this gadget, the Seal-A-Meal. He lives alone and uses it for everything. He said the plastic comes on a roll that seems to last forever. He said he’s saved so much money by not having everything go bad before he can use it that it’s paid for itself many times over.
Seal-a-Meal Manual Vacuum Sealer with compact design, hands-free, seal indicator lights, FSSMSL0160-000 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008HMWC4A/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_Myj2ybJ10SVTG
I’ve many times thought about buying this kind of gadget, but I’ve always talked myself out of it. I guess I’m just going to HAVE to get one! Thanks. :-)
My goodness! I wonder if the recommendation I saw had to do with resistance to water (?)
Two separate tests for wood :
Janka Hardness test for Hardwoods ( Janka hardness test measures the hardness or density of wood.
Testing is done on samples, frquently used in testing flooring)
http://ejmas.com/tin/2009tin/tinart_goldstein_0904.html
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Wood Standards (resistance to water permability and intrusion) ASTM's wood standards are instrumental in the evaluation and testing of the physical and chemical properties of a wide range of wood and wood-based products.
Wooden materials covered here include timber, lumber, wood-base fibers, commercial softwoods and hardwoods,
wood preservatives, laminated timber, and composite lumber to name a few.
https://www.astm.org/Standards/wood-standards.html
We have an odd situation where the humidity in our apartment is uncomfortably low, almost all year; but one bathroom is susceptible to mold/mildew.
I’ve lived in places that had windows in the bathroom, and ones that didn’t. If there was a window, even if it was never opened - no mold or mildew. It seems that even that little bit of fresh air and natural light seeping in would inhibit it.
I wouldn’t want to break a new pot either. Maybe you could put the whole little pot in ;-) Just kidding. And I know how, after use, my pots get yucky, lime and dirt residue that won’t scrub off. I rinse/wipe them in bleach and rinse before I replant in them.
Came across these blue bonsai edible strawerries.
Add to cubic watermelon food oddities list. Seeds are available, 500 for $1.49, don't know if they are allowed into USA though.
They’re interesting to look at; but they look like toys, not food ;-)
LOL! Smurf seed pods.
I kind of like the square watermelon, though. You can buy molds to make all sorts of veggies grow into different shapes:
I’ve seen those before, Cov. Hope one day to see them at my local market and not on the internet.
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