Kitchen Cleanssers Go Natural Or Not

The kitchen is the one room in the house that always needs to be clean.The fridge has to sparkle, the microwave had to gleam and the floor has to shine. The question is do we achieve through the natural cleansers our grandmothers used or use powerful but sometimes damaging soaps and rinses.

Many home chefs swear by bleach.it does wonders in the bathroom, leaving surfaces sparkling and super clean. Yet is it safe to use in the kitchen, especially around food?. You can but use it sparingly .If it's used to clean out a messy refrigerator use only a tablespoon to a gallon of cold water. parts of the fridge should have already been washed in warm soapy water, namely a mild dish detergent like Dawn or Palmolive. Bleach has been used as cleanser for porcelain sinks.It gets rid of any of the yellowing hard water stains. It's usually poured into the sink, straight, not cut by water. Using a sponge, scrub the bottom and the sides then rinse.It should stay clean for a few days.  Another cleaning agent is hydrogen peroxide. This also works just as well however there is a caveat with working with it. It is strong. Inhaling it or accidentally getting it on the skin can be dangerous, causing burns.Use it blended with water .It can also be used also to clean cutting boards too, just use it sparingly.

Two of my favor cleansers are apple cider vinegar and baking soda. They're harmless if they get on the skin or in the eyes and yet clean just as well as bleach and hydrogen peroxide. Apple cider vinegar is great for cleaning the microwave. You can soak three or four paper towels with it and then place on the microwave's plate.it's then cooking it for five to six minutes and letting the vinegar steam the interior clean. Another must have is Angry Mama, a plastic container that does the same work as the soaked paper towels. This is a container that has parts water and vinegar mixed. in it.It's then placed in a microwave for seven  minutes and steams come out of the Angry Mama's head. The  left over vinegar water mix can be used to clean the stove too..The vinegar does an excellent job of getting rid of tough stains such as tomato soup and curry. The plate does have to be washed and that's usually done with Dawn. I also like using the vinegar to clean the fridge shelves and crisper. Baking soda is a good cleanser in a pinch too but it does take some elbow grease to clean a sink with it. It's also good for scrubbing away stubborn tea and coffee stains in mugs too.

A clean kitchen is a home chef's pride. It's up to you how you want to clean it. With chemicals or natural,it's your choice. Whatever works to get it sparkling, go with it.

Doctor That Dish!

Never be afraid to doctor up  dish, whether store bought or homemade. That extra fillip of something can turn a blah dish into something more palatable. What was once bland can be tasty and exciting. Just add a dose of this or that to bring extra life into any recipe.

That happened to me today when i opened can of Bush's vegetarian chili.It looked similar to our family recipe for it so I figured the taste was also similar. Wrong!!! The sauce tasted like  the Spaghetti-os one  (which is nothing wrong if its' bathing Spaghetti-os), with a funny kind of bland sweetness. It had lost all its' appeal in a second. What to do?Throw in a large pinch of cumin and two heaping tablespoons of chili powder. I then scattered a  few pinches of flaky Celtic  sea salt (my absolute go to in making any food better) and a few good turns of the pepper mill. After stirring it all together I tasted it . Voila! The perfect chili. It had gone from being a lunch time disaster to a tasty bowl. I ladled it over crunchy tortilla chips and it turned into a  textured, flavorful , fun meal.Basically it was adding oomph to a dull can of chili. Home chefs can also do this, reconfiguring and fussing with it to achieve the taste they want. The chili is also a great way of using up leftover roasts. Cut up steak, chicken or turkey would fare well in it., making it a heartier dish.Vegans can add Morningstar Farms soy chicken strips or soy beef crumbles.

You can also doctor up established recipes to make them your own I have done this with my Mom's chili  and tomato sauce recipes. My signature ingredient in dark wild flower honey. A dollop of this mellows out the chili  and gives the sauce an earthy sweetness.My new favorite recipe chicken mole has been doctored to create a brighter,more flavorful sauce. The recipe that I took from the All Recipes site calls for a can of  tomato soup. As much as I love tomato soup, I don't like the idea of it being an ingredient in a sauce. I prefer to use tomato sauce which is purer in taste. It marries well with the cocoa powder, adding a brightness I know I wouldn't have with the soup. Also I add a smidge more cocoa powder for a slightly more intense taste. Frosting is another recipe I doctor up. The chocolate buttercream that I made yesterday got amped up. Instead of the required  3/4 th cups of cocoa powder I increased it to a cup.The result is a dark, fudgey icing that is not too sweet. This offsets any cake' s sugariness. I also sub in light cream for milk - this gives the texture a lush  mouth feel.Instead of the usual one to two tablespoons, I increase it to a glug of it, maybe four or five tablespoons, Doing such gives it the malleability and smoothness s needed for icing it across a cake's surface.

Never be afraid to tinker with a recipe. The end result is usually  delicious, flavor filled dish. Doctor it up. It's a cure for avoiding a dull recipe.

A Crock Of Goodness

This was the Christmas when I received my first (!) crock pot.

It's a small  one, meant for cooking meals , desserts or even snacks for two .The brand is Crockpot  bought at our local Target. It's something that I wanted after covering a New York Times Food section piece on the Instant Pots. Those have a variety of settings and can do a  wide array of different slow cooking methods. Unfortunately they were 1) too expensive - I didn't want my family to spend seventy dollars on a gadget I'll  onlyuse a few times a year and 2) something that's going to take up most of my kitchen table. This one was inexpensive - only$8.99 and small enough I can effortlessly put on my kitchen counter.The crock is also super easy to clean. I don;t have to wrangle a large pot in my sink.I also don't have to deal with heaps of leftovers either.It makes enough for two which is perfect.

Of course I had to get Linda Larsen's The Complete Slow Cooking For Two

 (Sonoma Press)I love this book. As you can seen from the crock picture, I'm making her apple-pear sauce. I've always wanted to make apple sauce. There are some legendary stories in my family's culinary history and I wanted to add to them. Besides it 's a low calorie dessert that I made just a smidge healthier by adding agave syrup. I am planning on making chili soon in this along with a tasty sounding Indian cauliflower-potato soup along with rice stuffed peppers.There's a great tomato soup recipe that I'd love to make as well. Rice pudding comes out at its' creamiest when slow cooked and Ms. Larsen's book has several recipes I want to try. her lemon rice pudding as well as her  chocolate cherry lava cake. There is even some yummy sounding bread puddings too.

This crockpot is going to change the way I cook meals and make dessert.It will definitely be incorporated in my routines. I'm  looking forward to trying more recipes and  sharing them.