Simple Kitchen Shortcut: Cleaning A Burnt Pot

Every now and then, I burn a pot while cooking. It doesn't happen too often and usually, with a bit of elbow grease I can scrub it off. However, one time I made a very large pot of soup in my biggest and nicest stock pot. I had it on low to keep it warm during a party and unfortunately burned the whole batch. The bottom of the pot was badly burned. It had a very thick, black and incredibly hard layer of burnt soup on the bottom! I tried everything I could think of to get my pot clean. I boiled water in it, cleaned it with tough scrubbers and cleaners, soaked it for a couple days. Although the burnt residue came off a little, I still had a very burnt layer on the pan that I was unable to remove. I even boiled tin foil in the pot because I heard that worked...it didn't. If it had been one of my cheaper pans/pots I probably would have just thrown it away. However, I wanted to keep this pot and wanted to get it clean.

I asked people for advice and someone (maybe my sister?) suggested boiling a dryer sheet in the pot. Since I don't have any dryer sheets (I use dryer balls) I finally asked my friend for one and tried it out. Boiling the dryer sheet made my house smell very strongly of dryer sheet but it totally worked! I was elated. I had no problem scrubbing out ALL of the remaining residue after using the dryer sheet. It still took a little bit of elbow grease but I could immediately tell a difference and it actually was able to come off this time. So, if you have a pot or pan you need to salvage, try a dryer sheet. You might also try soaking it in water without boiling it. There's a chance that might work without having to breathe in all the dryer sheet fumes.

Do you have any other tips for cleaning difficult pots and pans?

Simple Kitchen Shortcut: Grating Cheese

When I'm in the kitchen, I'm always looking for ways to do things a little bit quicker and easier. One area I have simplified on many occasions is when I need grated cheese. I don't mind grating cheese with the hand held grater if I only have a little to grate. However, if I have a whole block of cheese that needs grating, I find it a bit tedious to grate it by hand. To save time and energy, I will pull out my Vita-mix, cube the cheese into approximately 1 inch squares and then I throw the cheese in and blend on a low speed. It crumbles it nicely which, in my book, is the equivalent of grated cheese. I don't usually throw all of the cheese in at once because it tends to compress into the corners once it's crumbled. I'll start with 1/2 to 3/4 cup and dump it out and add more when the first batch is finished.

Simple Kitchen Shortcuts: Leftover Ingredients

I used to throw out food and leftover items in my fridge pretty frequently. Ever since our unemployment, I have tried very hard to not waste anything, even small amounts of food. Although I do still have to throw items out if they're left in the fridge too long, it happens much less often than it used to. Here are three tips you can use in your kitchen to help cut down on the amount of food you waste.

Have a Plan
When I open a can of something and only use 1/2 of it, I try to think of a recipe I can make the next day or later that week that will use up the other 1/2 can. It's usually not too hard to find something to use it in but I have to be intentional about a plan or the item will usually get shoved to the back of the fridge and thrown away a week or two later.

Increase Your Recipe
We makes crepes frequently and the recipe calls for 1 cup of evaporated milk. Well, one can holds 1 1/2 cups of milk. I don't use evaporated milk all that often so I now take to making one and a half recipes of crepes so that I can use the 1 1/2 cups of evaporated milk in one recipe rather than putting the remaining 1/2 cup in the fridge where it will be eventually be thrown out 99% of the time. We have no problem using the extra crepes so increasing the recipe works for us.

Freeze It

I frequently resort to freezing my leftover liquids. As I did in my onion ice cube post, I pull out my trusty ice cube trays when I need to freeze something in small amounts so I can easily add it to a later recipe. I don't buy whipping cream very often because it's very expensive and I can usually substitute milk in its place. However, when I do purchase cream for a recipe, I usually have some left over and I definitely don't want to throw it away. Because I don't know exactly when I'll use it again, I might leave it in my fridge for a few days trying to think of a recipe to use it in. If I don't have one in mind, I'll just pour the remaining cream into an ice-cube tray and freeze the cubes for later use. Just remember to pop them out and bag and label them so they don't absorb any freezer smells and also so you remember what is in the bag and how old it is. This works great for cream, broth, wine and whatever else you can think of that freezes well and you will probably be able to use later. It's easy to add these types of cubes to stew or saute dishes to add a little more flavor to whatever you're cooking.

What do you end up doing with your leftover ingredients that are perishable?

Simple Kitchen Shortcuts: Onion Ice Cubes

If you're anything like me, chopping onions is not one of your favorite kitchen activities. Quite often, when I use an onion for a recipe, I use a half an onion or maybe a quarter of an onion. The rest of it I throw into a Ziplock bag and stick in the fridge for later use. The next time I pull the bag out, the onion is usually a bit squishy and growing things on it and is instantly heaved into the trash. There go my precious pennies that I spent on purchasing that onion. The following shortcut will save you time, money and possibly a few onion tears as well.

A few weeks ago, onions went on sale for $0.88 per bag. I purchased one bag of onions at that price. I didn't think I'd be able to use an entire bag of onions before they started going bad so I decided to create some onion ice cubes.

Supplies:

A cutting board
A large, sharp knife
My beloved Vitamix (a regular blender or food processor should work as well)
A couple ice cube trays

Directions:
Coarsely chop your onions into about 1 inch pieces. Throw one or two chopped onions into your blender. Blend the onions until they're minced into a size you can use in your recipes. You probably don't want to actually puree the onions. Using a spatula, spread the minced onions into your ice cube trays and freeze. Repeat with any remaining onions. Once the onions are frozen thoroughly, remove them and put them into a Ziplock bag with the date written on it and what it contains. Each ice cube tray will contain approximately 1 tablespoon of minced onions.

Tip: If you'd like some onions finely minced and some a bit coarser for different recipes. Process them differently in your blender and freeze and label accordingly.

Next time you're cooking a recipe and it calls for 1/2 an onion, all you have to do is go to the freezer and pull out two or three onion ice cubes and throw them into the pot. This method will save you time every time you need to use onions in your recipes because you won't have to spend five minutes chopping onions. Wahoo! It will also save you money as you can purchase your onions at the lowest price-point and you'll have less waste because you won't be throwing away half-used onions each month. Best of all, you don't have to actually cut all the onions yourself and deal with burning, teary eyes. Hope you have fun making some onion ice cubes this week!