Handy Kitchen Tips [General]

2007 Feb 11
Does anyone want to share their handy/economical kitchen tips? Here's a couple, I don't know how original they are:

If you're out of paper towels to drain your bacon, sausage, what-have-you, use a few pieces of lettuce. It absorbs the fat. Use the wilty pieces that you would normally throw out.

Freeze your bread heals and stale bread to make crumbs and stuffing later. Crumbs can be made easily in the blender with some added dried herbs.

Extra fresh herbs such as basil, cilantro, rosemary and parsley. Combine 2 cups of fresh herbs with 1/2 cup of olive oil, blender it, and freeze in ice cube trays for a couple of hours, remove from trays and freeze in baggies for future uses. I do this with cilantro because even though it's fairly inexpensive, it goes bad very quickly in the fridge.

I know I have more....who else has some?


2007 Feb 15
I always freeze brown bananas for muffins, banana bread and smoothies. If you forget to take them out, just nuke them for 30 seconds or so.

That's all I can think of for now!

2007 Feb 15
If you use butter, when you put your butter into the dish keep the foil in the freezer until next time you bake and need to grease a sheet or pan.


2007 Feb 15
As a family of two we always find it hard to open a pack of bacon. As we are not going to eat it all in one sitting. What we do is cook the whole pack but only a litlle so it is barely done. Stick it in freezer bags abd stuff it in the freezer. When we are craving a few pieces of bacon in the morning we take some pieces out of the bag throw them in the microwave wrapped in paper towel, nuke for 30 sec - 1 min and voila,,,, crispy bacon!

2007 Feb 15
If you don't already read Fine Cooking magazine, you should! It has a great section in each issue in which readers send in their tips - and they PAY for the ones they publish. It's my FAVE cooking mag by far.

My tip isn't very economical I suppose, but I find it handy at least:

I'm always worried about cross-contamination of my faucets when washing my hands after handling poultry or meat. I place cheap sandwich bags over the faucets before starting, that way I can wash my hands as often as I like, and simply discard the possibly-bacteria-laden plastic bags afterwards.

2007 Feb 16
Not really about food, but -- kitchen.

Salad spinners make nice miniature washing machines for small hand-washables.

Really. 'Woman's Day' gave me US$50 for that little tip. It also sold an awful lot of salad spinners when I told a friend about it in a too-loud voice next to a pile of discounted spinners, on a Boxing Day. The men were all horrified, thinking about the intersection of silk underpants and romaine; the women said "Neat!" and grabbed spinners...

2007 Feb 16
On the meat/cross contamination theme, a foodie friend of mine showed me a trick to keep your groceries good and non-contaminated when shopping. Keeping in mind that meat packaging at the supermarket can be contaminated on outside of package, and they don't (but should) provide baggies in the meat section... you can scam a few vegetable/fruit bags when you're in that section, and put your meat inside them to keep those little salmonella off the rest of your groceries.

2007 Feb 16
Oh yeah.. one more. If you are one that has dish/washcloths get smelly after like one or two usages, you can sanitize them (thus keeping them smelling springtime fresh) in the microwave. Just keep in mind, the cloths NEED to be wet or fairly damp when you attempt this. Usually between 1 and 2 minutes will do the trick, and make the cloths nice and McSteamy. (As always, general microwave precautions should prevail...)

2007 Feb 16
I learned this from my mom. Once in a while, a squirt of bleach in the dishwater will help whiten your washcloths, and counters. I usually do this after the dishes are done, although she threw it in at the beginning, and we're still alive!

2007 Feb 16
Yeah Pete, I totally hear ya on the meat baggy thing and kitchen dishclothes...thats why I use different clothes for everything..one for dishes only, the other for counters and stove top and I use papertowel with some spray after any meat has touched my counter tops. And mmmmfood my mom loves putting bleach in dishwater once in a while.. lol when you think of it, it can't be anyworse than drinking city water.

2007 Feb 17
Hey Cindy... my mind just can't focus on one topic at a time, so I hope the Kitchen Tips forum will forgive me... but your dog looks similar to my mutt!

2007 Feb 17
Yes, I agree!! Yours looks like he has some sheltie mixed in him. I love his cute face:D I'll add a picture of my dog Jayce! He's a sheltie and 1 1/2 yrs old.

2007 Feb 19
We don't tend to eat the ends of the bread loaves so what we do is close up the bag and throw it in the freezer. Then the next time I want croutons for a salad, I take them out, toast them, and rub raw garlic on them, cut into cubes, and VOILA!...homeade croutons!

2007 Feb 19
If you have a smelly fridge, put in a box of baking soda to keep it odor-free and a small bowl of vanilla extract for a nice scent :)

Never marinade anything acidic in stainless steel bowls. The nickel based coating on the steel can give the food a really nasty taste.

Plunge limp salad or celery in ice cold water for a temporary crunch boost.

Always use fresh ground pepper, for God's sake, I beg of you.

Let any type of meat come to room temperature before cooking, searing included, and salt it 10-15 minutes in advance so that the albumen proteins can surface for a crisp brown sear.

Same goes for eggs, milk and any cold ingredient wehn baking.

Never cook with a wine you would not drink (I see it happen too mcuh, and it saddens me)

Melted margarine is NOT melted butter. Only melted butter is melted butter. And that "I can't beleive it's not Butter" stuff ain't butter!

There is no substitution for quality in the kitchen, so don't skimp on your ingredients.

And finally, mmmfood, keep the bacon drippings for cooking grease later on for cooking eggs, omellettes, etc. It tastes better than butter and has less saturated and trans fats.

Terrence

"God created water, but Man created wine." - Victor Hugo

2007 Feb 20
For spreading butter on filo pastry, use a new foam roller. (not sure about safety though...(food safety)...

For cutting up children's pancakes, etc. use a pizza cutter so you save time.

2007 Feb 20
To keep your garbage can smelling NOT like garbage, sprinkle baking soda in the bottom of it ;)

2007 Mar 21
I know this isn't totally original but I never tried it until just recently....

When your brown sugar gets hard as a rock, throw a piece of bread in the bag and the next time you use it, the sugar is all nice and soft again!

2007 Mar 21
On the "don't cook with wine you wouldn't drink" topic, this shouldn't mean that you can't use cheap wine. There is an article on the NY Times website that does a complete blind taste test cooking with everything from $2 bottles to $70 and the expensive one doesn't come out any better (sometimes worse). www.nytimes.com

2007 Mar 24
Keep Saran Wrap in the freezer. Makes it much easier to tear off and keeps it from getting into an unmanageable mass before you can get it where you want it.

2007 Mar 26
Not really food related - but kitchen...

Instead of Jet Dry for your dishwasher, we use White Vinegar - does the trick. We have a well and hard water and the glasses always come out spotless!

2007 Mar 30
To make your fridge smell nice, put some freshly ground coffee (the freshly ground part is important) in a cup and plop it in your freezer. Far more effective than baking soda.

When you buy fresh herbs, plop them in a mug with water at the bottom so the herbs can drink and leave them outside the fridge. They will last much longer that way.

2007 Mar 30
Oh oh ... if you cook duck DO NOT throw away the fat. Keep it and roast some potoatoes in it the next morning. Pure heaven.

2007 Mar 30
You can even can up the duck fat in mason jars to use whenever you like. I have a number of jars of it in the pantry cupboard. Use the smaller 250ml or even 125ml jars so that you can use only a small amount if you like. I like to use them for making gravy to go with other poultry dishes