Kitchen Tips, Vegetables

Scrub Those Veggies

scrub that shit

Don’t think because the package says it was washed three times that you don’t have too.

I make one assumption when it comes to vegetables.  I assume a herd of cows walked through the veggie patch right before someone picked my food.  Keep in mind cows are not discrete.   Their bathroom is the great wide open and they don’t care t if that bathroom is located on top of your food.  It is buyer beware and it is up to you to wash your vegetables.

My point is, wash that shit.  I know, I know,  you hate how it splatters all over the new white shirt you are wearing or how it always seems to spray over the back of the sink but it doesn’t have too.

Submerge the vegetables underwater and then scrub them!  Seriously, it keeps the dirt and crud from splattering everywhere.

I place a large mixing bowl right under the water, leave the water trickling, then fill the bowl no more then halfway with the potatoes, carrots, beets or whatever root vegetable and it still allows me room to scrub with my hands, the brush and veggie, all submerged.  Also by letting the veggies soak in the bottom of the bowl it loosens the dirt and crud, a prewash so to speak.

I use a baby bottle brush because it washes well in the dishwasher,  I like the design because it makes it easy to get into the crooks and crannies and, finally, because the bristles aren’t so stiff as to take the skin off a potato when scrubbing.   I also use a salad spinner for all kinds of things.  Wash those herbs and give them a spin, broccoli and cauliflower too.

The thing is water and a quick rinse  alone will lessen your chances of any food borne illness.  Give the veggies a soak, scrub and rinse and you can pretty much eliminate the chances.  You don’t need to get fancy with the chemicals either water does a great job, was designed in fact to do this task and does it well all by itself.

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Kitchen Tips

Non-Slip Drawer Liners

Non-Slip Drawer Liner

Sure, I know, every chef says you should just wet a kitchen towel and put it under your cutting board, or bowl or whatever you don’t want to slide around.  Well that is easy to say when you have an industrial laundry service and who wants a wet towel sitting under their cutting board anyway.  If it’s a wood cutting board it will warp and then weaken the glue joints.  So here is your new best friend, non-slip drawer lining.

Ever make Hollandaise sauce?  Need an extra hand while whisking the butter into the eggs but no one is around?  Put that non-slip liner under the bowl and you can go hands free.  Why not just get the mixing bowls with the rubber bottoms?  Well, sometimes I have good reason to put my mixing bowls right on the stove over low heat, or I need to make an ad hoc double boiler so the rubber bottom is out of the question for me.

Got a Kitchen Aid stand mixer that likes to walk across the counter.  Keep it from wandering with the non-slip liner.

Keep your couch from dancing around the wood floor every time someone sits down.

Got any other non-slip liner tips?  Post them here.

You can wash the liners by placing them flat in the sink and spraying them off with the sink sprayer or by using a soft sponge.  Hang them over the sink divider to drip dry.

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Kitchen Tips

Plastic Dough Scrapers

Plastic Dough Scraper

Plastic dough scrapers make one of the best dirty dish cleaning tools around.  For my pans they are non-scratch, get into the crooks and crannies removing all the stuck on stuff in a jiff.  I always have two on hand just for dirty jobs like getting the ring of crud around the top of a pot knocked loose, or that thin layer of cake stuck to the bottom of the cake pan.  They are bendable, have different shaped edges for different jobs and big enough you can get a good grip on them.  This is a great tool to have when you need it and they are cheap, 99 cents or so.

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