{"id":2360,"date":"2013-02-04T22:29:53","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T22:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grandpacooks.com\/recipes\/?p=2360"},"modified":"2023-06-03T20:01:23","modified_gmt":"2023-06-04T03:01:23","slug":"kitchen-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grandpacooks.com\/recipes\/kitchen-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Tips:  Around the Kitchen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kitchen Tools and Gadgets<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A thermometer helps you repeat success and avoid repeating failures. I have two from <a href=\"http:\/\/thermoworks.com\/index.html\">Thermoworks<\/a>:<br \/>\n&gt;&nbsp;&nbsp; An immersible\/insertable thermometer: Good to take the core temperature of meats<br \/>\n&gt;&nbsp;&nbsp; An infrared thermometer: Great for everything from preheating your griddle to acting as a candy thermometer.<\/li>\n<li>Use tongs to help squeeze limes or lemons.&nbsp; Gives you leverage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Cooking tips<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>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.&nbsp; Also, you can use the water with a bit of cheese to make a nice creamy sauce.&nbsp; Also, don&#8217;t rinse your pasta after cooking.<\/li>\n<li>Use screaming high heat for searing meat, preferably in a cast iron pan.<\/li>\n<li>Select the pan which is best suited for your recipe.&nbsp; (eg) Don&#8217;t use an aluminum pan with anything cooked with acidic ingredients.&nbsp; Cook pancakes in a non-stick pan, but don&#8217;t use metal utinsels.<\/li>\n<li>Blanche and shock fresh vegetables (boiling water, then ice water) to make them greener and set the flavor.&nbsp; If doing two, start with the lighter vegetable and work onto the darker vegetables.<\/li>\n<li>Let your oven completely preheat before putting your food in.&nbsp; You will get uneven heating, and even incomplete chemical reactions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Kitchen Design<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When replacing your counter consider ceramic tile or porcelain stone tile. Lay with a thin grout line.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keeping it Clean<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<li>CAMEO was voted best Aluminum and Stainless Steel cleaner<\/li>\n<li>Never ever put cast iron in the dishwasher, or clean it with soap.<\/li>\n<li>Barkeepers friend is good for cleaning steel pans<\/li>\n<li>The five second rule is bogus unless the item is totally hard and dry.&nbsp; If it is the least bit moist, you are probably putting feces into your food or mouth.&nbsp; Yech.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Preserving Food<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To freeze fresh berries spread out on cookie sheet and freeze 4 hours. Put into freezer zip locks.<\/li>\n<li>Store vegetable oils and most seed oils in a cool dark place to minimize spoilage<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Safe Kitchen Tips<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When cutting cherry tomatoes put them between two cottage cheese lids and slice a bunch of them in half at the same time.<\/li>\n<li>Use water bottle with a sports top as your barbecue sauce dispenser<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t pour bacon grease down the sink.&nbsp; Instead, pour into a can and let it solidify, then just throw it away.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Entertaining<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kitchen Tools and Gadgets A thermometer helps you repeat success and avoid repeating failures. I have two from Thermoworks: &gt;&nbsp;&nbsp; An immersible\/insertable thermometer: Good to take the core temperature of meats &gt;&nbsp;&nbsp; An infrared thermometer: Great for everything from preheating your griddle to acting as a candy thermometer. Use tongs to help squeeze limes or &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.grandpacooks.com\/recipes\/kitchen-tips\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Tips:  Around the Kitchen&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips-tricks-and-tools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grandpacooks.com\/recipes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grandpacooks.com\/recipes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grandpacooks.com\/recipes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grandpacooks.com\/recipes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grandpacooks.com\/recipes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2360"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.grandpacooks.com\/recipes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22915,"href":"https:\/\/www.grandpacooks.com\/recipes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360\/revisions\/22915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grandpacooks.com\/recipes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grandpacooks.com\/recipes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grandpacooks.com\/recipes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}