Real Kato Blog: Household Hints

There are some things Mom never taught me.

When it comes to cooking and cleaning, I keep running across things that make me wonder: why didn't somebody TELL me about this before? It seems there are thousands and thousands of ways to improve one's kitchen experience. We really ought to write all these things down somewhere.

Here are just a few of the things I've picked up along the way, in random order:

Never, EVER, put regular dish soap in a dishwasher. Does everyone make this mistake at some point? Well, if so, it's a mistake you make only once. I mean, after you fill your entire kitchen with soap suds, you don't forget that.

Microwave the packaging for the meat. Before you throw away the packaging around meat from the grocery store, microwave it for a minute. This cooks all the meat juices, and prevents the packaging from becoming smelly in the trash. If you don't do this, and you wait a couple of days before taking the trash out, it'll smell like somebody died in your house.

Microwave your milk. I'm not much of a milk drinker because I'm mildly lactose-intolerant. So if I do buy milk, I drink it very slowly, and the problem is that it tends to go bad before I can finish it. But milk will last longer if you microwave it right after you bring it home. Open the cap and put it in the microwave for fifteen seconds or so. That'll kill off some of the bacteria responsible for spoilage.

Freeze your bacon. This one comes from Crouching Hamster. Bacon can be frozen, and it'll last a lot longer that way. When you buy bacon, separate the slices and lay them flat on pieces of wax paper. Wrap it all up in foil, and stick it in the freezer. Make sure not to fold the bacon on itself, or you'll have a hard time getting it back out once it's frozen. When you want to eat it, you can take it right from the freezer to the frying pan.

Cut sponges into pieces. When you get an ordinary household sponge for dishwashing, cut it into thirds. A whole sponge is way more than you need to wash dishes. Oh, and be sure to get the sponges with the scrubby surface on one side.

Get sharp knives. Bad knives will cost you a lot of time when it comes to food preparation.

Don't store tomato-based sauces in plastic containers. The containers will be irrecoverably stained.

Those are just the ones off the top of my head. Got any others? Comment!

Permalink 6 Comment

Posted by Ken in: commentary

Comments

Comment #1 from Crouching Hamster (Guest)
2005 Feb 27 - 12:57 pm : #

Microwave your milk? That's a new one for me. I don't have a microwave. Or milk. Just cream. But maybe if I do a voo-doo ritual over it before putting it in the 'fridge, it will kill off some of the evil bacteria.

I copied the sponge thingy from you.

Here's one: wash your dishes after you use them. Don't wait to use every clean dish in the house - every champagne glass for orange juice, every mixing bowl for cereal, to then do your dishes. Theoretically, the time spent washing them will be just the same, but it will seem like an eternity.

Comment #2 from Sabrina (Guest)
2005 Mar 2 - 8:39 am : #

If you get something hard and unidentifiable crusted inside your microwave just take a wet sponge and a tiny bit of soap and microwave it for about a minute. The moisture from the sponge acts as a softener for the gunk and you can clean the microwave really quickly.

I also heat the sponge by itself after I've cleaned anything because it kills any bacteria in your sponge so it won't stink.

Comment #3 from Ken (realkato)
2005 Mar 2 - 10:43 am : #

I'm all in favor of any idea that involves the destruction of evil bacteria via microwave. I'm not sure voodoo alone will do the trick.

Comment #4 from Lorien (Guest)
2005 Mar 7 - 4:13 am : #

We had a toilet become very clogged yesterday (my little son was cleaning a potty training accident of our recalcitrant puppy). My husband is a champion of unclogging toilets, and when I pointed that out to him after much mighty and unsuccessful efforts at plunging he didn't take it as the compliment I'd meant. He cursed the toilet with a very bad word and flung down the plunger. We discussed calling a plumber and he scoffed at me for Googling "toilet clog" as he stomped upstairs.
Okay, I found the majority of people on the www.ehow.com (what a rocking site) who commented on this issue were amazed to find that liquid dish soap would work some crazy magic in this situation. It so very did! Like a charm. Hopefully you won't need to know this one, but if it ever 'comes up'...

Comment #5 from Ken (realkato)
2005 Mar 7 - 9:59 am : #

Wow, that's a really useful tip. My toilet clog emergencies tend to happen in other people's houses, though. Perhaps I should carry some dish soap with me.

Comment #6 from Carolyn (Guest)
2007 Apr 9 - 3:16 pm : #

Microwaving your milk DOES work. I was looking for someone else that did this because my boyfriend didn't believe me. It makes it last sometimes a week and a half longer. I do it all the time.

Comments are closed for this post.

Search This Site