Question of the week: cooking/kitchen tips & shortcuts

[Guest guest]

Question of the week:  Kitchen/cooking tips

 

     There are a lot of things I do without even thinking, but one stands out in

my mind:  How to clean the copper part of the copper-bottomed cooking pots and

pans without using expensive " copper cleaner " .

 

    I learned this from a little lady I took care of in her last days..  She was

quite " well-off " financially, but she loved doing " frugal " things--way ahead of

the " green " trend of using home-made, safer and more earth-friendly cleaning

products.

 

     I cooked her some supper one evening and it was in one of those

copper-bottomed pans (like Revere Ware).  Afterward, I was going to clean up and

she said to me, " I don't keep copper cleaner.  Here is what I do:  sprinkle a

layer of salt (regular old " table " salt), then

moisten it with some plain vinegar.  Make it like a paste and then rub it around

the copper part with a dishcloth or sponge--then rinse.  You will never need to

buy copper cleaner again if you do that with your copper-bottomed pans! "  

 

     I tried it, and she was right.  That is how I " polish " the copper on my

copper-bottomed pans, which I love and were given to me as a " set " for a wedding

shower gift 31 1/2  years ago.  They no longer make these pans in the U.S. (mine

came from Clinton, Illinois, which is close to where I now live)--the salt-and

vinegar scrub is easy, cheap and WORKS!

(BTW, you don't have to use fancy sea salt for the salt; just get a container of

plain old " ordinary " table salt and a bottle of the cheapest vinegar you can

find--I use white vinegar, but any kind will work.)

 

    A second " trick " I use is to put lemon or orange (any citrus, for that

matter) rinds into the garbage disposal to get rid of any weird smell in there. 

I love the FRESH smell as the rinds get ground up!

 

     When I make a fruit " finger-food " tray for a gathering and lay out pieces

of fruit like peach, pear, apple, banana, etc. slices or chunks, I like to fill

a small bowl with orange juice and dip the cut fruit in the juice.  Some people

use lemon juice this way--actually, ANY citrus fruit juice seems to work just

fine.  The fruit doesn't get brown from being exposed to the air when it's

dipped in (orange) juice.  Probably everyone here already knew that, but I

thought I'd share it anyway.

 

    One more:

 

    I have a few favorite cooking pans and sometimes (oh, I hate to admit this,

but it is true!) sometimes, something in the pan will burn and scorch.  Nasty,

stinky mess!  Especially if it's BEANS!  Anyway, I rinse the food out of the pan

as best I can.   When there is food burned INTO the bottom of the pan, I scrape

as much of it out as I can, then fill the pan with COLD water up to above where

the burned food is.  Next I add a GENEROUS amount of baking SODA (NOT baking

powder, please!)  Probably about 1/4 cup of the baking soda is a good amount--I

don't measure, I just " dump in some " --about as much as I can pour from the box

into the palm of my hand.

 

    Next, I set the pan on the stove burner and turn it up to " high " for a

while, getting it to a nice, rolling boil.  I let it boil awhile (how long, I

don't know).  It gets turned down to low ( " simmer " ) after it boils a while and I

just keep an eye on it so it doesn't boil all dry.  The main thing is to give it

some time to heat thru a good bit, at least for 10-15 minutes boiling and then

maybe longer yet for " simmering " .  (Probably  30 minutes on " simmer " ).  Then let

it cool.  Or, you can put it in the sink and cool it in running water. 

 

     I have found that heating it up to boil with the baking soda in BEFORE the

water heats up and boils, then simmering it a while after it gets to boiling,

and then letting it cool down on its own WORKS to loosen the burned-on stuff. 

You can usually clean all or most of the really burned and charred stuff off the

pan surface after doing this.

 

     Now, I have to add one caveat (caution) here: I only use glass and

stainless steel pans, and maybe one or two " sheet cake pans " that I have are

aluminum.  NONE of my pans have " non-stick interiors " like " Teflon " or " T-Fal "

or whatever it's called nowadays.  This method, theoretically, would work on

those kinds of pans, but I have never done it myself.

It DOES work, like magic, for stainless pans and that is the reason I never have

ever wanted to have any " non-stick " pans because the stainless pans are no

problem for me to get clean, even when I stupidly burn food on them!

 

--Laura B., in Illinois