Posted on 16 May, 2008 -
28 Best Kitchen Tips EVER
* Keep clothes smelling lovely in cupboards
* Use wet bread for cleaning!
* Tasty low-cal snacking alternatives to chocolate
* Where to NEVER keep garlic
* How to double the space in your kitchen
I’m sorry, you’ll have to excuse my use of the superlative ‘best EVER’ in the headline there. Only my three year-old daughter has got me hooked. I am “the best Mum ever”. Her shoes are the “superest” shoes ever. And Marks and Spencers truffles are “the best Chocolates in the world EVER”.
Not that she is wrong. And not that at least some of these tips below aren’t, I feel, some of the best you’ll ever have read!
I have hunted high and low to bring tips that I think are actually worth reading so I hope you enjoy putting some Spring freshness into your home with them!
Cleaning
If you’ve run out of cleaning products such as a cleaner for the bath, a little bit of washing powder will work just as well.
Stains on wallpaper? Try a ball of moistened white bread!
Smelly shoes, fridge or cupboard? Try baking soda to absorb the smell from shoes. Cat litter for absorbing general smells. Put a saucer of bath salts in a cupboard to keep clothes fresh and get rid of dusty smells.
Low-calorie snacking
If you’re always sniffing around the kitchen looking for something to snack on then try this. Chop up carrots and celery into battons and store in the fridge with a little water in an airtight container.
Microwave popcorn is almost fat-free.
Also, if you’re looking for a real treat and a real snack, then don’t be ashamed of it, do it properly. Treat yourself to a fruit smoothie made of fat-free yoghurt and liquidized fruit.
Shopping
If you have a set of dishes that you cook regularly, write up a handy list of essential ingredients for each so you always have what you need.
Consider drawing up a supermarket shopping chart that allows you to divide your shopping list up into the different areas or aisles you will pass through: fresh fruit and veg, meat, dairy, household cleaning, drinks, frozen goods etc etc. You can then make a bunch of photocopies of your chart and use one each time you shop.
Have an ongoing shopping list in the kitchen (a small whiteboard attached to the fridge even perhaps?) and encourage family members to add items to it when they notice they need replacing.
Have doubles or backup items of all essentials, stored away if necessary in a different part of the house. Then, if you run out of washing up liquid, simply find the spare then add washing up liquid to your shopping list.
Food
To ripen hard fruits faster, keep them in a paper bag for a few days at room temperature with some already ripe fruit. For green bananas, wrap them in a damp cloth first.
Garlic should be kept in a cool, dry place, NOT the fridge. They also need air so don’t keep them in a bag.
To peel a large number of garlic cloves, drop them into a pan of boiling water for 10 - 20 seconds (known as blanching), drain and plunge into iced water, drain and the skins should just easily slip off.
Cooking
Save money on recipe books: check out Delia’s great website http://www.deliaonline.com Plus, if you make it your home page, you’ll always get inspiration for spicing up your culinary life!
Photocopy recipes you cut out of newspapers and keep them in a folder. You’re more likely to cook them and they’ll last longer.
Set yourself a cooking goal for the week. This might be to try a new recipe every Wednesday, for example. Or to learn to cook a Thai curry. Or to make a banana cake!
Cook double batches of certain dishes and freeze half for another day. It won’t take much extra time and you’ll be glad of the ease in the future.
Plan the menu for dinner parties etc for ease of service, a cold/cool first course then a hot main course. Vice versa in the summer.
Make use of those grapefruit spoons. It’s a great strawberry huller and I also use it to clean the seeds out of squash, pumpkins and melons.
Use your leftovers. For mashed potatoes, for example, add an egg and some chopped spring onions and fry up as little patties. With leftover meat, make a Chinese style noodle soup by adding noodles, soya sauce, dried flaked chilli, chopped coriander (only if you’re going to use it for another meal), chopped spring onions and sesame oil if you have it. (My favourite fast food recipe from my own days spent in China.)
For saving time, Bev Bennett, author of 30 Minute Meals for Dummies, says her favourite ingredients are frozen chopped onions and peppers. I don’t know if you can even buy onions like that (?) but I guess you could prepare a whole load ahead yourself. And they cook from frozen!
Storage and Space
Cupboard space can often go wasted if the shelves are set at high intervals. You can make more of the space by creating an extra shelf – and/or rearranging the existing ones. You can put hooks underneath a shelf for hanging cups etc. Or use extra storage solutions placed inside that cupboard.
Organise your drawer and cupboard space better. Clear out regularly. Box things up together. Put things you use regularly where you can always find them.
If certain areas of your kitchen or house get you down because they get laden with stuff then find a solution. If a certain corner of a work surface is always a mess because all your paperwork gets dumped there, for example, treat yourself to a smart box to put all these things neatly away into. If everything ends up on the top of the fridge, put something else up there so it can’t.
Invest in handy gadgets like wall-mounted grips for mops and brushes that go on pantry doors.
Clear foldaway holders designed for toiletries can also be useful for kitchen or household bits and bobs.
Free up your counter space. Put away appliances that aren’t used daily. Find somewhere else for cannisters and cookery books to live. Consider building an extra counter that folds away or in when not in use if space is really tight.
Free up the saucepan cupboard by acquiring a rack or set of hooks that hang from the ceiling for your pans.
YOU!
The front cover of Vogue magazine this month promised an article inside entitled ‘50 Summer Lifestyle Treats’. I should have known better, of course, than to expect anything other than £3,290 beds made of drift wood or watering cans for £250… but I still like the idea of summer lifestyle treats all the same.
The ideas I’ve had for myself so far include homemade lemonade and drinks with fresh mint… collecting drift wood to make things with the kids… the smell of the sea… tea lights in the garden… fish and chips on a pier… and looking for nostalgic watering cans in peaceful cemetries.
Perhaps you could come up with a few treats for yourself?!
