Kitchen Tools and Gadgets
- A thermometer helps you repeat success and avoid repeating failures. I have two from Thermoworks:
> An immersible/insertable thermometer: Good to take the core temperature of meats
> An infrared thermometer: Great for everything from preheating your griddle to acting as a candy thermometer. - Use tongs to help squeeze limes or lemons. Gives you leverage.
Cooking tips
- When cooking pasta, reserve a cup of pasta water for thinning your pasta sauce. Put at least a ladel back into the sauce to make it stick to your pasta better. Also, you can use the water with a bit of cheese to make a nice creamy sauce. Also, don’t rinse your pasta after cooking.
- Use screaming high heat for searing meat, preferably in a cast iron pan.
- Select the pan which is best suited for your recipe. (eg) Don’t use an aluminum pan with anything cooked with acidic ingredients. Cook pancakes in a non-stick pan, but don’t use metal utinsels.
- Blanche and shock fresh vegetables (boiling water, then ice water) to make them greener and set the flavor. If doing two, start with the lighter vegetable and work onto the darker vegetables.
- Let your oven completely preheat before putting your food in. You will get uneven heating, and even incomplete chemical reactions.
Kitchen Design
- When replacing your counter consider ceramic tile or porcelain stone tile. Lay with a thin grout line.
Keeping it Clean
- Stain Removal: Voted best overall was Oxi-Clean. Very inexpensive, very effective. Soak for about an hour. Removed blueberry, mustard, chili, chocolate, red wine, beets and coffee.
- CAMEO was voted best Aluminum and Stainless Steel cleaner
- Never ever put cast iron in the dishwasher, or clean it with soap.
- Barkeepers friend is good for cleaning steel pans
- The five second rule is bogus unless the item is totally hard and dry. If it is the least bit moist, you are probably putting feces into your food or mouth. Yech.
Preserving Food
- To freeze fresh berries spread out on cookie sheet and freeze 4 hours. Put into freezer zip locks.
- Store vegetable oils and most seed oils in a cool dark place to minimize spoilage
Safe Kitchen Tips
- When cutting cherry tomatoes put them between two cottage cheese lids and slice a bunch of them in half at the same time.
- Use water bottle with a sports top as your barbecue sauce dispenser
- Don’t pour bacon grease down the sink. Instead, pour into a can and let it solidify, then just throw it away.
Entertaining
- When you are preparing a menu for an important event, always test the recipe before the day of your event. Never use your guests as guinea pigs.
