FEW KITCHEN TIPS!

COMMON KITCHEN PROBLEMS AND THEIR SOLUTIONS

We all know that the kitchen is a very important part of our home. Our day practically begins in the kitchen, preparing tea or coffee and breakfast for ourselves and our loved ones.

You must’ve heard the famous saying, ‘Couples who cook together, stay together’. Even if you can’t connect on this one, it has been proved that cooking together is a great bonding experience with couples as well as families. It gives each the opportunity to create new things together, have a healthy conversation and get a little messy too.

People who can afford to, invest a considerable amount in their kitchens to increase its functionality and make it aesthetically more pleasing. While those who cannot afford to make a big difference are satisfied in keeping their kitchens clean and comfortable enough to provide a beautiful cooking experience.

So let’s learn about a few kitchen secrets today.

Cleaning gas stoves, grates and burners easily

Cooking is an art and yet it could often leave your kitchen in a chaos.

Wiping up spills on the stove is the regular and easy thing to do. But, what if you’re dealing with burnt on food or grease covering the grates and burners? You can’t use chemical cleaner every time, nor keep one at your home in case there are children around. Fortunately, there are a couple of natural cleaners that are both handy and safe to use. Well, this is what you do:

You prepare a solution of white vinegar with equal quantity of water and soak the grates or burners for 30 minutes. Then after a rinse, apply on them a paste of baking soda and water, and leave it for another 30 minutes. Finally, scrub away the dirt and rinse to get sparkling clean grates and burners.

In case, you don’t have vinegar, lemon juice would work to the same effect.

Getting rid of those tiny enemies hiding in your kitchen

Are you sick and tired of tiny cockroaches infesting your kitchen? These pesky creatures can multiply at an alarming rate and once they began spreading, it becomes very hard to get rid of them. People, on the lookout for home remedies, have found Boric acid to be most effective. All you need to do is sprinkle a little of the powder in the corners and places where the roaches can come in contact with, consume it and die.

A concoction of baking soda and sugar is also a killer combination used to control the multiplication of these insects.

The perfect go-to option for food storage

It is very important to store food the correct way, and using plastic containers and plastic wraps or zip wraps is definitely not a good idea. Now you might wonder what’s wrong with these. Well, you would be surprised to know that wrong storage of food could be detrimental enough to lead to food contamination, food poisoning and bacterial infections.

Let’s have a look at the following facts you should know about food storage:

• Always check the ‘Best before’ date which is an important indication of their shelf life.
• Never store any food below 5 degree Celsius and maintain a proper space between two items in your fridge.
• Never refreeze food that you’ve thawed once.
• Use glass or steel containers to store food since they are healthier alternatives.

The annoyance of a clogged drain

This is a very common occurrence in every household. But it can be pretty embarrassing if you have guests visiting you and that foul-smelling, dirty water backing up in your sink.

No worries! Baking soda and vinegar is all that is required to do the trick. Just put half cup of baking soda down the drain and follow it with half cup of vinegar. Leave it to sit for about an hour and begin pouring boiling water in to it till it clears. Baking soda is a natural cleaner, and can even remove odors from the drain. This was a very demonstrative video I found on youtube

Besides the above remedy, you could also start with 1/4 cup of salt, 1/4 cup of Borax, and then a 1/2 cup of vinegar. Let it sit for an hour and then follow it with boiling water to get the desired result.

With a regular drain maintenance, and an occasional home remedy, you can effectively protect your system against clogs.

Wasting food is wasting money

Last but not the least, one more problem that needs to be addressed is food wastage.

We more often don’t realize how much food we throw away unknowingly, the eaten leftovers and spoilt produce. I bet you didn’t know that food waste contributes to greenhouse emissions and wastage of vital resources such as water that is used to grow the food.

It is important to minimize waste and make informed food choices. There are many smart ways to help you save food and your hard earned money.

1. Use creative ideas for meals to make out of leftovers. (There are a lot of them available on the internet)
2. Remember their shelf life so you can use them on time
3. Fruits and vegetables have the tendency of ripening and rotting in a short time. You could avoid wastage by using them to make soups, shakes and smoothies or use them for beauty purposes.
4. Store them at the right place and the right temperature.
5. Practice the ‘First in, first out’ technique, where you use the older ones first and the newer ones later.

So, even though you may or may not be a master chef, these few tips are undoubtedly going to help you in maintaining a good kitchen, a healthy life style and become more kitchen confident.