Here are some of my kitchen secrets for you to use and pass on to your little homemakers. Some of these I learned from my mom or other women, and some I learned on my own. I hope you find these useful and practical!
Do you want your biscuits to bake up with flaky, buttery layers? The key is to make sure your butter is kept really chunky when gently stirring your batter. No pea-sized pieces here – chunks!
Are you all out of eggs but have a recipe calling for one? Flax seed will work in a pinch! One tablespoon ground flax seed plus one tablespoon of water mixed together is equivalent to one egg. In order to keep the integrity of your recipe, I would suggest only using this in recipes that call for one to two eggs.
Is your microwave caked with food splatters? Simply wet a sponge – get it really wet – and place it in the microwave. Microwave the sponge for about two minutes. Open the door and let the sponge sit in there for a few minutes. Then take the sponge and easily wipe the mess away!
Do you have stuck on/burnt on food on the bottom of your pan? Take a dryer sheet and put it in the bottom of the pan and fill it with hot water. Allow the pan to soak over night. It should come clean in the morning.
Want to save time when you make potato salad? You can boil the potatoes and eggs together. Just do not forget to remove your eggs after 12 minutes! Your eggs can cool while your potatoes finish cooking!
Tired of sticky measuring cups? Before measuring a sticky substance (aka honey or peanut butter) run really hot water into your measuring cup for a few moments. Dump out the hot water and immediately measure your sticky substance, and it should slip right out!
Tired of fighting your pie crust? The secret to making pie crust is to make sure your water is icy cold and your butter is very cold.
Don’t want your cake frosting to stick to waxed paper or aluminum foil? Simply rub a little butter over the paper or foil that will go directly over the cake.
Want to prevent your cookies from going stale quickly? Place a slice of white bread in the container with the cookies.
Want to soften brown sugar that has gotten hard? Place a slice of white bread in the container overnight with the sugar.
Are you having trouble getting your breads to rise properly? Make sure you are not mixing yeast and salt directly together. The salts interferes with the rising process.
Having trouble with your pies being too juicy? Add a few tablespoons of instant tapioca to the filling. Microwave the filling for a few minutes before pouring it into your pie shell.
Do you want your cookies to bake more evenly? Divide your time in half. For the first half put one tray on the bottom rack of your oven. When the timer goes off, move it to the top rack to finish baking and put a new sheet on the bottom rack. Continue.
Are you trying to eat healthier but you still enjoy baking? You can successfully eliminate oil from most of your baking recipes and substitute it for an equal portion of plain applesauce.
Does your recipe call for self-rising flour but you only have all purpose on hand? If your recipe calls for one cup of self-rising flour you can replace it with one cup of all purpose flour and 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt sifted together.
What are some of your kitchen secrets? Please share them in the comment section!
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Do your sponges or wash clothes ever get stinky? Rinse them out well and toss them in the microwave for 60 seconds or so. It kills the bacteria that makes them smell.
Wowsers!!! They are some really excellent tips – thanks for sharing them!
These are great!! Another tip for stopping sticky substances like honey from sticking in your measuring cup is to lightly grease the measuring cup before putting in the {honey or whatever}. This works well especially in winter if your house is cold and your measuring cup cools off too quick!
Great tips!
Tuesday is always Kitchen Tip day over at my blog. Fit’s in great!
Here’s a tip:
If you over-salt your soup, drop in a peeled potato. The potato will absorb the excess salt.
Great Tips! Thanks!
Courtney
Save the water you pour out of tuna and salmon cans and freeze it. It makes a GREAT base for seafood chowders later on.
Soak a cotton ball in a mix of water, sugar and boric acid and leave it in the path of ants to get rid of them.
Mason jars aren’t just for canning. They make great storage containers for pulses and dried fruits, seeds and granolas.
Baking Recipe call for buttermilk or sour cream and you don’t have any? Plain yogurt works well, too. Otherwise, you can make soured milk by adding a little vinegar to plain milk and letting it stand a little while.
Mayo can also sometimes be used as a sour cream substitute, like in strogranoffs.
My biggest tip would be that instead of a dryer sheet (for those of us avoiding them), first try heating water in a dirty pan on the stove. If that doesn’t get everything off (if you have something literally burnt on or you let water boil dry) then make a paste of baking soda and water (just a smidge of water) and apply to the pan. Let sit overnight and scrub into the pan. Everything should come off clean, and your pot/pan should be shiny!
Instead of using pricey shaving creams, use your hair conditioner. Legs come out smooth and soft!
If you happen to burn your spaghetti sauce, stir in a few tablespoons of peanut butter. I’ve only tried this once, but it really worked. The sauce didn’t taste like and it didn’t taste like peanut butter.
Spraying a little nonstick spray in a measuring cup keeps things from sticking, too. And instead of putting the sponge in the microwave, I put half a lemon in a cup of water and let it boil for a couple of minutes in the microwave. Let it sit for 5 minutes and then take a few paper towels and wipe everything clean. The steam loosens the “gunk” and the lemon makes the house smell nice!
Instead of using pricey shave creams, use your husband’s! The men’s cheapest brand you can find are about 88 cents a can and work great. Just get the unscented version lol. And for a kitchen tip–keep brown sugar in tupperware. It keeps it soft w/no bread in it. I’m not sure rubbermaid, etc would work, seems I tried and it has to be tupperware. But one piece of so-expensive tupperware is ok, right?
Every time you run your dishwasher, put your dish-sponge in it’s top rack. It will clean it out well. Start doing this with a clean sponge, not a stinky one that is old. It won’t bring back to life a gross sponge lol. Toothbrushes in your dishwasher are great too. Keeps them fresh and clean.
These are great tips! Thank you!
Wow!!! Thanks for all of the great tips! I’m printing out this post and adding it to my Homemaking Notebook!!!
Wow!!! Those are such great tips I am going to print this article out and add it to my homemaking notebook!!!
I have one little one at add….if you are in a pinch and you run out of dish soap…you can use a dime size amt of cheap shampoo…just rinse well.
These are such fantastic tips – I will definitely try many of them.
This is such a great blog. I have no daughters (only sons), but I find amazing ideas and information here for myself!
Thanks for all the tips ladies…I will definately be trying the dryer sheet in one of my pans today…I have already tried baking soda…it got most of the burnt off…so now I will try the dryer sheet to see if it will take the rest off…it is one of my favorite pans…I accidently burnt beans in it…YIKES…and EEEWWWW…the smell was awful!!! LOL
I’ll add just a couple. I can’t use dryer sheets because of allergies so there are none in the house. I use vinegar. I will pour in a bit of vinegar and let the pot sit overnight. Everything comes right off in the morning with little scrubbing left to do.
Here’s an additional tips. Put your lemon and orange peels in the garbage disposal and run it. This will clean it well and the oils from the peel will disinfect it.
For pans with burned on food, I sprinkle in some dishwasher detergent add some hot water and let set a couple of hours. It usually wipes right off.
Good tips! For my microwave I put in 1/2 cup of lemon juice for 3-5 minutes and then wipe down. It makes cleaning the yucky, dried up explosions so easy!
For burnt pans–add a bit of washing soda and baking soda and in less than an hour it comes right off, leaving your pan looking like nothing ever happened. I keep a jar of baking soda with holes in the lid by the sink to add to my wash water–makes the water feel soapier, removes odors and grease and protects your hands! Have red chile stains on your plastic ware? Leave them in the sun and the stains will disappear (works on cloth, too). Use a dash of vinegar to disinfect your vegetables–inexpensive and leaves no aftertaste like clorox can.
Thank you so much!! My baby’s high chair tray was all stained deep orange with enchilada sauce. I tried everything I could think of to get it off, but nothing worked. Today, I set it out in the sunshine with my sun tea, and now I’m relaxing with a cup of iced tea and a CLEAN high chair tray!!
Great tips!
Wow! These are all great tips! Thanks so much for sharing!!!!
Love it!!! I will try these out and share them, too!
Love the measuring cup idea.
Another way to clean your microwave is to boil a cup of water inside it first. The steam softens the crusty stuff.
The tips in this post are wonderful (including some of the responses to the blog post). I will definately need to print these out when my printer is functioning for this computer.
BTW, brown sugar stays soft in plastic storage bags as well. Just make sure the bags are the kind that seal. One more thing: just for fun, if you want to sprinkle white sugar over your cookies, you can place the sugar in a cheap salt or pepper shaker and start sprinkling.
~Mrs. Lady Sofia~
When making mac-n-cheese and hot dogs, boil the dogs and noodles together. That way you only have 1 pan to clean.
great tips! Thank you for sharing them with us!
A tip for burned on pans my mom taught me – put water in the pan, add just a drop of dish soap, bring to a boil (careful not to boil over!) and reduce heat to a simmer. After about 5 minutes, turn off and let it set another 10-15 minutes. Burned stuff comes off easily.
Just a heads up. I wouldn’t boil eggs with potatoes. The eggs from the store have been “sanitized” or cleaned with who knows what to prevent illness. We use farm eggs and I’d boil those separate also. I think I read this at Homestead Revival blog.
Don’t throw away the shaker lid from a parmasean cheese container, it fits on a mason jar.
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