Last Friday evening, after I lit the Sabbath candles, we heard a sudden deafening noise from the kitchen. I headed over to investigate despite my husband warning me away. He was sure the kitchen was about to explode.

It turned out that the pressure cooker was leaking tomato sauce all over the hotplate, where I had placed the pot to keep warm until dinner. Large amounts of sauce spread from the hotplate to the counter, the dishwasher underneath,  and the floor. I adjusted the cooker to let out the steam and wiped up the mess as best I could.

Like most kitchen accidents, this one could have been prevented. I had filled the cooker too full of Chicken with Tomatoes and Black Olives. Admittedly I did it I knew it was risky, although why it waited until that moment to overflow I’ll never understand. Sometimes you want to see how far you can stretch things, you know?

It was a big mess, but it could have been worse.

Even when no one gets hurt, kitchen accidents waste both food and time. Accidents are most likely to happen when you are rushed, distracted, or under pressure. Here are some tips to prevent both minor and major kitchen accidents.

1. Choose the right-sized pot for the job. Many pots, food processors and electric kettles have a line on the side marking the maximum capacity. They tend to be conservative. Grains and beans make more foam than other foods. Also choose a large container when transferring liquids, and move the bowl next to the sink when adding water from the tap. (Never add water to a bowl of food straight from the tap, in case you add too much).
2. Keep heavier equipment and glassware on lower shelves, or on the counter if you use them frequently. If you have small children, keep cabinets locked.
3. Keep your floor and working space clear. Take the extra effort to remove clutter before starting to cook, or things can fall off the counter or table. Move non-cooking items out of the kitchen, and vice-versa.
4. Cook when you have a minimum of distractions, especially when you are trying something new or complex. Stick to simple recipes when cooking with small children around. Use a timer to remind you to check food, and when it’s to go on to the next step. If you have to leave the kitchen to answer the phone or door, set the timer or turn off the stove completely.
5. Tie up long electric cords with a rubber band to keep them out of the way. Turn pots so that the handles are on the side and not sticking out in the front, where someone could walk into it or a child could grab it.
6. Close packages and containers immediately and securely. You don’t want water to drip into your flour tin. Use a clothespin or breadtie for bags. Things with a tendency to leak can go in a plastic bag.
7. Don’t crowd things. If you push things into the refrigerator, you may knock over things in back or keep the refrigerator from closing properly. Utensils stacked carelessly can topple.
8. Protect yourself with proper clothes, clothes, shoes, gloves, or oven mitts, especially when working with boiling water or hot oil.
9. Keep knives sharp. You’ll need less pressure to slice the items, and if you do cut yourself the wound will heal faster.
10. Keep items in their designated place. Your pancakes will burn while you’re searching for the spatula, and you don’t want to accidentally find a knife. Don’t soak items with sharp blades in soapy water.

Have you had any kitchen accidents recently? Share in the comments!

Photo credit: Chris Denbow

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Whether or not you own a dishwasher, cutting back on the amount of utensils you cook with can save you time and money. If you rely on disposable, some of these will work for you too.

Adopt these tips to wash fewer dishes:

1. Have the whole family eat with their fingers straight out of the pot. (Okay, that was a joke. Did I have you going there for a minute?)
2. Make one-pot meals using the gas-top, oven or crockpot.
3. Skip extra courses, or use the same plate. For instance, a first course of bread and spreads can be eaten on the main dinner plate.
4. Use smaller pots and plates, but not so small that food will spill or boil over.
5. Label water cups, or spaces on a turntable or tray, with names of family members. They can manage with only one throughout the day.
6. Plan cooking sessions in a sequence that uses as few utensils as possible. Chop similar items together.  See Use Your Food Processor Efficiently for more ideas.
7. Reuse dirty plates to hold peels, cores, etc. until you throw them into the compost or garbage.
8. Serve straight from pots instead of putting food on serving dishes. See Individual Plates or Family Style? A Comparison of Serving Methods.
9. Sometimes a plate requires only a rinse before reusing, or not even that. Use your judgment: If the plate with a few crumbs has been sitting for several hours, you probably don’t want to use it.
10. Cooking food close to the time of your meal saves utensils used for storing large amounts of food.
11. Keep a plate or “spoon-rest” next to the stove to keep spatulas and mixing spoons off an unsanitary counter. If I’ve emptied a can, I’ll hold spoons in there until I’ve finished.

What do you do in your kitchen to save on washing dishes?

Related:

One-Pot Meal: Chicken with Vegetables

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One of the most time-consuming tasks in my mother’s kitchen was sifting flour. Following Betty Crocker’s instructions, she sifted flour on wax paper, before measuring, for accuracy and to keep the flour airy. Sifting, adding dry ingredients, and cutting in shortening in one large batch made it easy to put together pancakes, waffles, muffins, cornbread and simple cakes in a short time. The master baking mix recipe and chart is pictured above.

My mother wrote out the chart on lined paper and covered it with clear contact paper. I am not sure where she got the original recipes. When I married in 1988, she xeroxed it along with other favorites.

The chart at the bottom shows how much baking mix and additional ingredients go into in each item.

My mother had a chronic illness that limited her movements and she needed my help making the mix. Having it on hand allowed her to bake even when I wasn’t available. The lesson for us is to schedule big jobs for when you have help.

For the 29 cups of mix we used five pounds flour, 3/4 cups baking powder, 3 tablespoons salt, one tablespoon cream of tartar, 1/2 cup sugar and 2 pounds of shortening. Optionally, you could add two cups of dried milk. The instructions say: “Sift dry ingredients 3x. Cut in short. until ~= cornmeal.”

Sifting five pounds of flour three times and cutting in all that shortening took several hours. She stored it in large, round plastic containers on a shelf because shortening, which is pure transfat, doesn’t need refrigeration. You could make something similar with oil and refrigerate it, or leave out the fat and add it later. Whole-grain flours need refrigeration because they contain oil that can get rancid.

This post was inspired by a post on mixes at The Just in Case Book Blog.

Thanks to commenter Lydia who pointed me to a website with the original mix recipe.

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With a round of Jewish holidays on the way, I have a lot of cooking ahead of me.

Advance preparation help things run smoothly. Below are the tasks I like to do in advance, to clear my kitchen, and my head, for the large amount of work ahead.

• Make room in your refrigerator, freezer and pantry. Categorize as follows:
  1. Foods you can use for easy, everyday meals while you focus on the holiday planning.
  2. Foods you will continue to store. Consolidate and rearrange.
  3. Spoiled food to be throw out.
  4. Ingredients to include in your holiday cooking.
  5. Items to add to your shopping list.

  If you get to the bottom of a shelf, wipe it down with a damp rag.

• Assess cooking, storage and serving utensils. Borrow or buy what you need, or change the menu accordingly.
• Make a schedule, working around errands and appointments. Try and include small children when you can. Enlist help from family members. Always allow time for fun, rest, cleanup, and emergencies.
• When you write menus and shopping lists, include everything. Don’t forget non-food items like detergent and toilet paper.
• Think about scouting  out stores before finalizing the menu to see what’s on sale, or enlist help from friends who have done their shopping. Plan to be flexible. Vegetables in season are healthier and cheaper.
• Clear off your work-space.
• Lower your refrigerator and freezer to the lowest temperature a few hours before adding large quantities of bought or cooked foods. Reset them an hour or two later. Also see: How to Cool Food Quickly for Storage
  

For more menu-planning help see:

Estimating Quantities

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Planning Menus

Bar Mitzvah Menu Planning

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Passover Tips and Tricks

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Today is Tuesday, the day for Time-Saving Tips and Techniques at CookingManager.Com.

Even experienced cooks run out of things sometime. Foods spoil or spill, we get unexpected company, a family member eats something we put aside, or we simply forget or miscalculate.

Avoiding extra trips to the store involves two stages:

• Before: When you plan your shopping and menus.
  
• After: When you realize, “Oops, I’m out of milk/cocoa/eggs/onions again.”
  

Before:

• Keep a pantry. This doesn’t have to be a formal pantry, and it can be anywhere in your house that is safe from heat, light and dampness.
• As a rule of thumb, store at least one unopened container of everything you use regularly including sugar, baking powder, cereals, legumes, canned goods and flour. Don’t forget non-food items like shampoo and dishwashing detergent. When you notice that you are close to opening the last bottle of oil, put it on your shopping list. Don’t forget to rotate, using older items first. My mother lined up cans in columns, putting the oldest one in front.
• Regularly take stock of perishables.
• Keep a running shopping list in a visible place.
• Plan menus carefully, whether daily, weekly or monthly.
  
• Lay out all ingredients before cooking.

Planning well in advance is better because running out of items in the middle adds time pressure and stress to our lives, no matter how you decide to deal with it.

After you run out:

• Forgive yourself, then make a plan. View it as a challenge to be more creative with recipes and menus. If you have children, show them that you also make mistakes and model a constructive way of handling the situation.
• Learn to use substitutes. Add fruit juice water or powdered milk instead of milk. Add herbs to water instead of broth. If you don’t have a simple substitute, try for a variation on the recipe. Supercook is a website to help locate recipes with specific ingredients. Vegetables can often be interchanged, and you can make a good soup even without onions. Substitute a teaspoon of soy flour plus a tablespoon of water for an egg  in baking, or look for an eggless recipe (I’ve seen some with vinegar or applesauce).
• Skip it. Sometimes a recipe will be fine if you include less of an ingredient or leave it out altogether. You won’t know unless you try, but use common sense or ask an expert if you’re not sure. This works better for cooking than for baking.
• It’s okay for kids to do without. Kids won’t be nutritionally deprived by being without milk for a day or two. If bananas are the only fruit they like, trust them to find another nutritious food once they realize bananas are not an option. Sympathize but not too strongly; it will pass.
• Have ingredients for simple meals on hand. A lentil soup brought out of the freezer, pasta, canned soup or even tuna salad can do in a pinch.
• Develop good relations with the neighbors. Neighbors are often happy to lend food, and you can make new friends this way. Lending arrangements should be reciprocal.
• If you do decide you can’t do without, save gas by combining the trip with another errand.

Skipping that extra trip to the store helps you develop your cooking skills and use up older ingredients that might have ended up in the garbage. You’ll save time, stress, and money.

Have you ever found a creative solution when you ran out of something you needed?

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Photo Credit: Barb McMahon

Tuesday is the day for Time-Saving Tips and Techniques at CookingManager.Com.

For most of us, cleanup is the part of cooking we enjoy least. But a little advance planning, we can make the job easier.

1. Start with a clear workspace. Clutter is hard to clean off later, and leads to accidents and spills.
2. Lay old newspaper on your work surface, especially if you are baking. It’s easier to tip spilled flour into the garbage than to wipe it up.
3. Set up a clean, small plate for resting dirty spoons and spatulas that you will reuse during cooking.
4. Keep a bowl handy for peels, wrappers and other garbage. This can be one you needed to wash anyway.
5. Set out your ingredients and utensils. You want a smooth workflow and not get interrupted by a lengthy search for the can opener. And you certainly don’t want to find out in the middle of baking that you forgot to buy sugar.
6. If you are washing by hand, fill the sink or dishpan with soapy water. Put in the utensils as you are finished with them. Don’t do this with sharp knives or blades.
7. Measure as close to your bowl as possible. Most spills happen while transporting. Bring the bag of sugar next to the bowl. Pour it into the measuring cup over the newspaper, or if you have a steady hand and don’t mind risking some extra falling into the recipe, right over your mixing bowl.
8. When measuring liquid ingredients, choose a measuring cup with a large capacity. Don’t fill water from the faucet and bring it to the table. It’s easier to bring the mixing bowl closer to the sink.
9. Reuse utensils in a logical way. When I make honey cake I use the same measuring cup for the oil and the honey. The leftover oil makes the honey slide right out. If I need to add water, I use a bowl that will need to be rinsed out anyway (and hasn’t been sitting out for too long.)
10. Cover and put away ingredients as you finish. It’s no fun spilling egg whites into the open cocoa container.
11. Finish cleanup as soon as your dish is cooking or baking. Put away the ingredients and place dishes in the dishwasher or sink. Grab a rag and sprayer or damp rag and wipe off your work surface and appliances. Rags should always be kept in the kitchen. If you are washing by hand do it right away. Dishwashers should be full to capacity before running. Make notes on the recipe right in the cookbook and put it away. Update your shopping list and future menus.

What tricks and tips can you share to make cleanup easy?

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