Weekly Cooking (and related issues) Thread

[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

[nikos1121]

b ttt

[MomwithHope]

I made this mistake once, trying to freeze some French style bread with a foodsaver vacuum bag. It shrinks the bread flat! Now I just use 2 “food storage bags” they are the cheapies that are not ziplocs and come with twist ties. Very good for bread bags or quick second bags for something that might leak in your fridge. I put the bread in one, pucker up the top, suck out the air, quick twist tie it and then do it with a second bag. Bread keeps in the freezer just fine.

[Yaelle]

I love your tips!!!

Also everyone post your recurring kitchen problems too; someone else might have a solution.

To add to JT’s “everything drawer” twisties and bread bag shutters tip: I keep them in a small ziplock in the drawer where the foils and ziplock bags are kept. They are in their own little ziplock so as not to make a mess. You don’t need a zillion, but saving some of the twisties and rubber bands and bread bag thingies is great. I use those bread bag things to tie up bags of frozen fruits when used in smoothies but not emptied.

One problem I have is with my stainless flatware. It’s Classic by Pottery Barn and I love it, nice and heavy, and simple. I buy more every few years because.... THE FORKS DISAPPEAR. Sad face here. I believe kids eating snacks on paper plates and then throwing stuff away is where they go. No one does it on purpose. Or else maybe they sneak away on their tiny tine legs. So then I need to order more, but they are expensive and I do not need the spoons and knives. I actually have stored away boxes of spoons and knives I don’t need. I would love to find someone using this flatware who runs out of spoons and we can make a deal. Lol.

[Yaelle]

Do you mean hot dog and hamburger buns?

I agree; they don’t freeze well.

I have just decided lately, and I hate this but can’t find a better choice, that each week we will buy a fresh bag, and throw out last week’s. We have hamburgers and hotdogs weekly. But still will be throwing away about half a package each -— and we have 6 people (though 2 of us do not eat the buns).

Any better solutions, I am open to.

[Twotone]

Yep, that’s what I meant. And I’m an extremely extreme extremist when it comes to penny-pinching. I HATE having to throw away food!!!

[Jamestown1630]

Make a pointed announcement about missing forks, with a reminder that they are NOT disposable, If it happens again after that, make those kids pay for your next order of forks, either by cash or odd jobs. They won’t inadvertently throw them away again, I’ll bet ;-)

[reformedliberal]

I used to be a Swiffer Wet Jet user, but the chore of hacking the caps to the expensive bottles of solution plus the fact that the spray mechanism seemed to wear out quickly, led me to switch to an O’Cedar mop. The solution bottle snaps in and out; I can use whatever amount I need for the current job; a strong double nozzle spray and a resilient spray mechanism do the job and last a long time; it comes w/a terry pad that is washable and the velcro will hold a Swiffer pad for smaller jobs or messy ones where I just want to throw the pad out afterward.

For my glass-top range, I make sure to clean up while the glass is warm, right after cooking. I use a lavender-scented degreaser, never have to scrape and the current range top looks great after 9 years. Friends actually comment on it looking like new. I also prefer a dark glass top. It looks a lot better after all this time than the light-colored ones ever did.

I use green bags for produce. I only wash what I’m using. I keep a paper towel in each bag to absorb extra moisture and wrap any cut veggies as well as lettuce and cabbage w/paper towels. When the towels are saturated, I replace them, let the wet one dry and tuck them into a box for cleaning use later on. I rarely throw out rotten veggies. They last weeks. for browned cut apples or that black that forms on cut cabbage, I just slice off the affected part (thin slices) and the rest is still good to use.

I have both a countertop Foodsaver vacuum sealer, for long term storage items and a hand-held rechargeable one (Food Fresh food Saver). The bags for the small one are like the discontinued ziplock vacuum bags, but larger and stronger and reusable. It also worked on the leftover ziplock bags I still had when my manual vacuum pump failed and there was no replacement. I like them for cheese or sliced cooked meat I intend to use over the next few days. I can take out what I need and vacuum them again. Some I can wash and reuse; some not. It needs recharging about once a month for heavy use. If there is liquid in the food, the nozzle of the hand-held is removable for washing.

I’ve always cleaned up as I go, a holdover from the days when I had only a few pots and pans. Along with prepping the ingredients beforehand (mise en place), my kitchen time seems go quickly, with more cooking and less dealing with a stack of dishes and pans.

Dawn pulled their small bottles of Power Dissolver from retailers years ago. I found a janitorial supply company that sells 6 qts in a case. It was a $100 cost w/shipping,but, even with gifting a bottle to a friend, I still have one full and one partial bottle left after about 3 years and I think she might still have a partial bottle. I love this product for burned-on pans. My friend saved her slow cooker, which she had forgotten to turn off. When I have a stubborn spatter on the glass-top range, a tiny squirt turns it into soft goo in 10 minutes.

[Jamestown1630]

Maybe Wet Mop isn’t what I meant - we have an electric steam cleaner, that you have to put water into; but we also have a Swiffer-thing that just involves putting the cloth onto the mop head; that’s the one I meant.

[leaning conservative]

I do buns w/ the double foil & the heat in the oven in foil they come out perfect!

[leaning conservative]

Then

[Jamestown1630]

I always whiz those in the food processor, and save the crumbs in the freezer for recipes that require bread crumbs. Another Freeper told us recently that those buns make very good croutons, too.

[kitchen]

Remove the knob, coat the item with spray oven cleaner, seal in an extra heavy duty plastic bag, and set outside in the sun for a day. Most of the baked on stuff will wipe off.

We've had good luck bringing encrusted Descoware back to near new appearance, although it takes a couple cycles to get everything.

[Jamestown1630]

I had never heard of ‘power dissolver’, but I found this conversation that mentions alternatives, particularly something called ‘Carbon-Off’:

https://www.chowhound.com/post/replacement-dawn-power-dissolver-1029548

[Faith65]

Thank you.

[sweetiepiezer]

Try wrapping thawed buns in a paper towel then heating in microwave.

[pugmama]

Good tips from the Daily Mail, esp. the one about turning cottage cheese upside down so it will keep longer.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2604736/How-THREE-TIMES-juice-lemons-brilliantly-simple-kitchen-tips-change-life.html

[leaning conservative]

I have done that, but I find that the foil prevents any freezer burn. Your home project sounds very cool.

[Jamestown1630]

Those are very good ideas! especially the champagne, burnt-rice, and the celery-stick-in-the-bread-loaf ones.

(I have to give a ‘meh’ to the idea of fixing something too salty by putting in a potato. I had great hopes for this once, when I over-salted a soup, but it didn’t seem to work in my case.)

[V K Lee]

Several years ago DAWN d/w liquid sold their new product. Believe this is what I purchased.
https://www.cleanitsupply.com/p-1870/dawn-professional-heavy-duty-degreaser-5-bottles-pgc-04853.aspx

Was really pleased with the results. Used the entire bottle cleaning my neighbor’s white gas range. WOW! She was most pleased. Spray it on and set aside. Wipe, rinse off.
Used on baking dishes of all types.

[itsahoot]

He will be building the cabinets and to further save money we are planning on wood counters.

They make 24x24 inch tile. Lay with rubberized calk and no grout lines, use glued joints like granite tops use. Then use oak trim around the edge for a cool look.

Sample tile from Home Depot about $25.00 a piece

Install marble tile countertops with ease.

Good looking Marble top done with 1 ft square tile. Plenty of other suggestions there as well. Concrete counters are interesting but look to be a lot more difficult and not sure of durability.

I bout some granite tops cheap and found a reasonable installer, still much more than a do it yourself job but no way I can handle a 6 foot piece of Granite. You hubby might.