Advice On Time & Money Saving Ideas: Kitchen

by Asahd2

posted on 10/29/2009

Sometimes all we need in life is a little direction or information to make everyday life a little more enjoyable or less stressful. I once shared with a very busy mother of three that making a little more food on her Sunday night dinner could make Monday school lunches easier to manage. She could fix the lunches Sunday night while she cleaned up from dinner. Easy enough I know, but not if you never thought of it, and she hadn't. Now she makes two meals during the school year on Sundays. She's taken care of Monday lunch and only has to heat up Monday's dinner. She used to make lunches in the morning, now she has the time at night to do it and that give her extra time with the kids in the morning. I've listed just a few tips or strategies that help make life in the kitchen bearable.

1. This doesn't happen too often in my house but should you ever have left over garlic bread, freeze it. Then when you have run out of store bought bread crumbs, take out the garlic bread, use your food processor to grind it down and use the garlic bread. Great for pork chops and chicken cutlets.

2. Store your flour in the freezer. This will keep the flour fresher and keep the risk of insect eggs from hatching. The FDA allows about 75 pieces of insect for every two cups of flour so if there are any eggs, freezing the flour and other grains will reduce the risk of the eggs hatching and you having to discard flour because of brown or black specks in it.

3. In most US households the weekends are the only time (if at all), when a hot breakfast is served. If you make French toast or pancakes double the recipe and freeze them after you've cooked them all. You can pull them out of the freezer on weekdays and use the toaster just like the ones you buy in the stores. If you cook waffles, you can toast them and use them with ice cream for a quick dessert.

4. Making a cake that calls for dried fruit like cranberries? Dried fruit usually sinks to the bottom or top, however you plate your cake, but if you use a little flour to coat the dried fruit first, the fruit will stay put and stay floating in your dessert.

5. Crock pot are wonderful time savers. There is no doubt about that, however, prolonged cooking of vegetables like greens or carrots and potatoes will decrease the amount of nutrients in your vegetables. Use the crock pot for meats, steam your vegetables and then incorporate the two together before service.

6. Sometimes whole canned tomatoes are cheaper than crushed or chopped tomatoes. Purchase the cheap whole can and after you open them use your kitchen shears to cut up the tomatoes while still in the can.

7. The garbage disposal in your sink can become very stinky even though you are disposing of the waste. To keep the kitchen smelling good, grate some citrus peel into the disposal once a day when running the disposal. You can even cut up a slice of the fruit and run it through.

8. Who hasn't burned the rice a few times in their life? I have. White rice, brown rice and once fried rice. When cooking rice and it burns, just throw a slice of fresh white bread in the pot and keep covered for several minutes after you get rid of the burned portion.

I hope this helps.

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