Huh. The first thing our dishwasher does when it starts is turn on the pump to remove the ‘old’ standing water in the bottom, so putting the vinegar down there at the start would be a total waste.
I use those antiseptic wipes to clean off my hand mixer. So much better than a soapy sponge.
OK, if your dishwasher pumps water out, either open it up after the pumping is complete, or save up some old laundry detergent cups. Put the vinegar in the cups, and the cups in the top rack of the dishwasher. Usually, but not always, they’ll turn over during the cycle.
We warm ours open side down. They tend to rock a bit when handling the cookie sheet but the sides never collapse.
So one of the “kitchen tips & tricks” you’re going to try involves buying a dog. My “golly, I should pick up a pizza cutter” pales, man.
Deseeding a pomegranate made super easy and mess free. (I’ve tried it, it really works).
Oh, something I saw the sandwich place do yesterday which struck me as brilliant.
They lay bacon on the heel of the bread to warm in the microwave. It soaks up the grease and uses nothing that you wouldn’t already throw out anyway. (Ignore this if you’re one of those crust eating weirdos ;))
I put dish soap in one of those pump dispensers hand soap comes in. When I want to do just a couple dishes I wet the sponge and put a small squirt from the dispenser on it. Voila, soapy sponge. Plus the top of the bottle doesn’t get crusty. When I need to do a whole sink full of dishes I just use the pump to add a couple squirts of soap to the water.
Yes, but the point is, even then the vinegar works on the plumbing inside by talking out the calcium build up below. As others have mentioned, you could also pour some in a small lid that would flip over.
Ours also pumps out first, but this vinegar trick has worked very well for us even so.
Yep…I love bleach. It kills everything so I don’t mind wiping down the floor with the kitchen towels at the end of their round of service that day.
Ooh, I just thought of another one!
I like to buy those little grape tomatoes for salads or to roast in the oven with garlic and kosher salt as a side dish with steak, but it took forever to slice them all in half until I read this trick in Cook’s Illustrated (which is my favorite kitchen magazine).
Take two tupperware lids. lay one upright and pile grape tomatoes (or grapes if you’re making tuna salad, etc.) on it in a single layer. Top with another tupperware lid, this one upside down, so the tomatoes are held inside the lip that runs around the lids. Take a long serrated knife and saw horizontally between the lids, and you’ve just halved twenty or more tomatoes in one fell swoop!
And put aside a few “good” dishtowels to bring out when you have company over.
That…that’s BRILLIANT!!!eleventyone :eek:
My contribution: a potato peeler works in both directions; this makes peeling carrots very quick, indeed. Downstroke, rotate slightly, upstroke, rotate, repeat.
Then, open up the pipes beneath the sink, capture the citrus mush, dump in a cup of hot tea with a sprig of mint, and yum!
Chef Troy, that is a wonderful tip! And I say that as someone who just sliced a zillion grapes for a chicken salad.
We have been known to have a day or two on occasion where we’ve forgotten to pick up dog food for the dogs. On these days, we make a pot of rice, add veggies and either small freeze-dried fish or some meat scraps to the rice with no sauce. Let it cool down for a few minutes, and the dogs have a “special dinner” that is still relatively healthy for them. Occasionally we’ll even put some leftover pan scrapings from a roast chicken or an egg-- either way, they’re both delighted with the change in menu.
Here’s another banana tip: when your bananas get a bit past the stage that you like to eat them, put them in a zip bag and freeze them, skin and all. Then, when you want to make banana bread, banana muffins or a smoothie, just peel and squeeze. For baking, they are already liquified, so no having to mush them up.
Pizza cutters are great for cutting brownies too.
Also, an easy way to line a pan with foil for that brownie batter, turn the pan over first and get a sort of mold of the pan with foil, then turn over and place inside. Leave the edges folding over a bit so you can lift the brownies (or cake or whatever) out. No digging in the pan to get that first piece out.