kitchen hacks

Everyone likes short cuts and cheats in life that can make your life easier so here is a list of hacks I have learned from experience in the kitchen that you may or may not already know.

Save peelings from lemon and oranges to use after you do dishes. Put them down the sink's garbage disposal and it will eliminate the smell from the dirty dishes and food.

To keep your garbage from becoming too smelly use a smaller trash can. The garbage will fill up faster and it may be a pain to take it out more often but it keeps your trash from sitting there too long and becoming too smelly.

What stinks up your garbage the most is food that becomes rotten before garbage day. a tip to keep this from happening is to take your egg shells, any kind of food peeling, any food that isn’t cooked or half eaten and stick in a plastic container you don't care about and can be reused and stick it in the fridge. I use an empty, and cleaned out big square plastic ice cream container. Keep it in the freezer and keep added scraps of food as the week goes on. On garbage day dump it out into the yard waste bin. It keeps your garbage from smelling and helps the environment because the food is able to decompose and be reused in things such as fertilizer.

Is it dry in the house? Don't have a good enough humidifier? Put a coffee or tea pot on the stove full of water with the lid off and heat to add humidity in the house.

Common fact that you may or may not know is that hanging your bananas keep them ripe longer. Banana trees can be found at many stores around you.

Reusing containers is a way to help the environment and save you money. If you ever buy those small butter containers they make great storage for when you have a small amount of food left over and normal Tupperware containers are way too big for the amount of food you want to save.

We tend to think that appliances and kitchen utensils can only be used for what they were designed for, that is called function fixation. To overcome it you have to think of the other possibilities for an object's use. Such as a waffle maker can be used to cook more than just waffles. It can be a fast way to cook, hash browns, bacon, waffle shaped cinnamon rolls. Also a potato masher can be used to chop up avocados and other soft foods, and an apple slicer can slice potatoes and other foods. Don’t go out and buy 3 different types of tools when one can do all 3 jobs. 

This next tip I thought everyone knew until the other day when my friend was having trouble scooping out the ice cream and she was amazed by how i solved the problem. So for anyone who doesn't already know, all you need to do is rinse your spoon under hot water and then it can scoop up the ice cream much easier.