It never even occurred to me to use the pizza cutter to cut other things. Inconceivable!
How bout a tip? To clean that dried up spatter in the microwave, microwave a mug of water for at least a minute on high. Let it sit for a few minutes, then carefully remove the mug and pour it out(you don’t want to heat it too much, lest the water become superheated and explode into steam when you move the mug). Then wipe down the inside of the microwave, all done!
That’s a great microwave-cleaning tip, and I use it frequently, but I’ll kick it up a notch for you: if you happen to have a lemon or an orange hanging around, put a slice of citrus fruit in the water. Not only will the steam from the water loosen the dirt, but the citrus oils will leave your microwave smelling nice! 
And when you’re done with that, toss that lemon or orange wedge into the garbage disposal and grind it up. Your sink will smell citrus-fresh.
If you have a drawer full of plastic containers (Tupperware, Glad, etc.), all the lids are the same size but none of them fit the tub you want to use. Spend a little time sorting them, and use a permanent marker to tag the matching tubs and lids (on the outside, of course). The tags will fade after a few washings, but are easy to refresh. We use tags like S1, S2, S3, … for square or rectangular ones in various sizes, and R1, R2, R3, … for round ones. (I’m sure we can all tell the difference between suare and round, but Zyada just did it that way when she came up with the idea.)
Here’s a tip for removing dried-on food gunk from a kitchen counter. Sprinkle a bit of baking soda on it, then sprinkle a bit of vinegar on it. Wait for it to stop fizzing, and it should wipe right off.
To prevent that, put a wooden chopstick in the mug. (It should be a fairly rough one–there has to be a rough surface for bubbles to form. Too smooth and it won’t work.)
My dad burned a stainless steel pot the other day and nothing could get the burn out. Then my mom put it in a Ziploc bag with some ammonia and left it in the garage over night, and the burn came right out. This might work for your pan, TexasDriver, but you can try the other less-toxic solutions first.
I think I always share this one but…at my house we have a dishes sponge and a countertop/surfaces sponge. I don’t like to use the same sponge for dishes as I do for cleaning. In order to keep tell these sponges apart, I always snip the corner off of the cleaning sponge. That way there’s never any confusion regardless of where the sponges sit or what color they are.
WRT using a pizza cutter, Alton Brown uses his all the time. But he uses one without a handle. It looks so much easier to use than one with a handle!
Concur. I just wish mine were sturdier. I’ve had it not 2 years yet, and it’s well on its way to needing to be replaced.
If a utensil has been used to handle raw meat – say, a fork or a knife – and you want to use the same thingie to eat the meat after it’s been cooked, drag the food-using end of it a few times across the rim of a blazing-hot cast iron pan.
It’s now sterilized, and you didn’t have to get your hands wet or soapy.
An oldie but a goodie – just used it a few hours ago after cutting up some way, way, past “best by” date flank steak. Not that it’d be especially risky to eat it raw, and it was basically raw on the inside, but it made me feel better knowing I had a clean knife.
Want a warm, wet cloth to wipe a counter clean? Don’t waste water waiting for the tap to get hot – wet your rag, wring it out, and microwave it for ten or fifteen seconds. Repeat as necessary.
Brilliant! I’ll be using this - for some reason, it takes many minutes for hot water to get to my kitchen sink. As in, turn on the water, go away and do something for 2-3 minutes, then maybe it’ll be hot. Never thought of the microwave!
Here’s another trick I like - when I buy hamburger, I dole the meat out evenly into ziploc bags. Then I mush each bag until the meat is as flat and thin as possible. It freezes nicely this way & when I’m ready to use it, it thaws faster. If I’m making something where the hamburger is crumbled, I just throw the frozen meat in the pan and scrape off the meat as it thaws.
We never use paper towels in our kitchen, but I have a very deep, large drawer of linen and cloth towels that we use and wash over and over again. My trick is that once I have used a cloth on the counter, or to dry my hands, but before I toss it into the basement for laundering, I dampen it, wipe down the lower cabinets and drawers, and then toss it on the floor, stand on it and shimmy around the floor doing a little wet mopping to get up any spills in front of the stove and sink. I probably go through about five or six cloths a day, but my floors and cabinet fronts are always clean.
Yes, I’ve been freezing hamburger flat in ziplock bags for ages, it makes life much easier. I also freeze meat and gravy, soup, cooked veggies like peppers and onions (for soup), anything actually you might freeze - in big ziplock bags, lay them flat on a plate, and freeze. When they’re a solid block, store them like books on a shelf. (smaller baggies full of stuff can be ‘filed’ in a rectangular plastic or wire basket). This eliminates a million little freezer containers clogging the space up, and you can tell just by looking what it is.
Are these the same towels you use to dry your dishes? It sounds like a good way to keep a clean kitchen (a lot cleaner than mine) but I’m not sure my washine machine, even using the hotest water, would be able to get them clean enough for my liking.
I freeze hamburger meat like this, but I won’t cook it while it’s frozen. It seems to be tasteless for some reason. I always let it thaw before I cook it.
I need to start doing this - we’ve got really hard water too - but I need some specific details about how it works. Do you just pour it in the bottom of the dishwasher, about a cup or so? Or do you put it in a cup in the bottom rack? I’ve heard of people putting it in a cup in the top rack - does it get emptied by the time the cycle is done? I should just try it, I know, but figured I could draw on all of your collective wisdom first.
If you’re really that concerned, throw a bit of color-fast bleach in with the clothes. Nothing’s going to live through that.
I’ve put it in a cup in the top rack, but it didn’t get emptied. I just pour about half a cup or so in the bottom of the dishwasher. And I don’t always use it. Ever since I’ve started doing this on a semi regular basis, I’ve noticed a lot less haze on my dishes. When the haze is getting particularly bad, I put in a tablespoon of TSP substitute with the dishwasher soap, and leave out the vinegar.
Just pour in about a half cup or so in the bottom of the dishwasher, then put in the regular dishwasher soap in the dispenser as usual. For the pre-wash cycle, that is just the vinegar and water mixing.
We were having problems with the top drawer sticking (thought a wheel was broken or rusted or something) and after just a couple of washes, it was miraculously fixed! Must have been calk on those wheels.
Also, using the vinegar, now all the glasses and glass bowls come out clean and shiny.
We buy the huge bottles of generic vinegar for about $2.50 and it lasts a long time.
And as mentioned, no it does not smell like vinegar when it is all finished - the regular dishwasher soap removes it all during the actual washing.
And don’t forget to throw in a cup in your washing machine every once in awhile - also cleans clothes, but my guess is that it also gets rid of any calk in the washing machine.