A great, common-sensical tip that’s served us well for years, is to “clean as you go” when working in the kitchen. Keep your sink filled with hot, soapy water for soaking pots, pans, utensils, etc.
Either wash and dry, or rinse and add to the dishwasher as you work. This habit makes the after-cooking/baking cleanup a real breeze.
When
steaming vegetables, save the water, let cool, add a little more water to it, and use it to water your houseplants. The nutrients in the water are easily accessible to plant roots. You’ll see…they LOVE this!
Roll pie crust between sheets of plastic wrap. You don’t need to add extra flour, this keeps your counters and rolling pin clean, and picking up the crust to place in the pie tin is easy:
When rolled to desired shape, peel off the top plastic layer, place pie pan in center of crust circle, lift the remaining plastic up and flip everything over, ease the crust down into the pan, and voila! Much quicker than using a pastry mat.
Take a few minutes to look through your
herbs and spices and toss any that are prehistoric or that in your heart-of-hearts you KNOW you’ll never use again.
Then separate them — store herbs in one location and spices in the other. Lots of time is saved with this approach because you no longer have so much to paw through when looking for that specific ingredient.
A quick way to coat sugar cookie dough with cinnamon and sugar when making Snickerdoodles:
Make the balls ahead-of-time and refrigerate, then when ready to bake, fill a plastic produce bag with your cinnamon/sugar mixture (maybe a cups-worth) and drop the dough balls in it. Gently shake until all balls are coated. We do about a dozen balls at a time this way.
Next week: How to create a “centered” kitchen. You’ll put us in your will for this one!
(If YOU have a smart idea, won't you share it? Life is so much easier and we accomplish so much more when we pool our resources. And after all, we're all in this together. So email
patty@dvo.com or
alice@dvo.com with YOUR Smart Ideas!)
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