Odd, my clothes never smelled like cigarette smoke until I quit smoking:angel:

For those who like to line up/measure out their seasonings before beginning to cook -- in a party store I ran across an inexpensive package of 20 little plastic jigger-size cups that should work like a charm. Haven't tried them out yet; they should be able to hold a tsp or two of dry spices.

Hope I don't have to report later that it sounded like a good idea at the time. :smile:

Not a bad idea at all.

I have a bunch of little white melamine bowls for mise en place. I find I need different sized containers and often combine ingredients that are cooked together. For example, if you're preparing a mire pois, there's no need to put the onions, carrots and celery into separate bowls unless you're doing a TV show.

I take it then that Indian cooking is not the only place where that pre-measuring is of benefit.

Genuine little dishes to replace these plastic cups are just the kind of thing I like to look for at yard/garage sales. :idea: Maybe if my kitchen looks like it belongs to a cook, my food will taste better...

s-u-u-r-e it will.

capful of mint mouthwash in your laundry gets rid of smoky odors too... i wash my curtains twice a year with it... ( we heat with wood )

I use a set of little white melamine Oriental rice bowls for my mise en place. I also rinse them out and place in a drainer as I use them. I like cleaning up as I cook to avoid facing much of a mess afterward.

For mise en place, I use those little pyrex dishes...I have about 20 of them. I picked them up at yard sales and the Goodwill.

For dogs that get "yeasty" smelling, mix Listerine in a spray bottle with water (about 50/50) and spray the dog before you groom it.

Interesting thing happened yesterday. As some of you know we just bought a house and are in the process of cleaning and painting the whole thing. Well as it happened a door to door salesman stopped by and he was selling some kind of super cleaning agent at $82.00 a gallon. But it was concentrated so it would make 12 gallons. Now this house has a horrible green bathtub that was caked with an awful white hard water scale. The guy sprayed a spot and after a few minutes took a green scrubby to it. After about 5 minutes of scrubbing he had cleaned an area about the size of a fifty cent piece. He was so proud. Well, knowing the state of our finances just now I sent him on his way. Then this morning I took about 3/4 of a gallon of vinegar over to the house. I filled the tub with water and dumped in the vinegar and walked away. After several hours I checked and found the surface of the water covered with the white hard water scale. No more problem. Saved: $80 bucks and hours of scrubbing. Vinegar, the real miracle cleaner.

I buy white distilled vinegar, 2 gallons for $3.45, at Costco...It cleans everything, including my coffeemaker, eyeglasses, windows, tub, toilet...

My DH accuses me of "losing" things in the freezer. I now have whiteboard markers (with magnets attached) for each of the freezers. He doesn't think this will help, but I'm going to do my annual "clean out the freezer" activity while I'm at my parents and will be writing on the lid or front of the freezer what is in it--I'm going to use red for "use soon" and green/blue for everything else. I'll leave a blue/green marker for my dad to use when adding things to the freezer. Next time one of us goes out, we'll see if this helped. The magnetic white board I put on the fridge last summer does get used...maybe this will help with the freezer inventory process.

Thanks for the reminder, CWS. I need to take a new inventory now that the freezer is more under control.

I really got carried away for awhile there and have spent the last month working on cleaning it up.

It's really hard sometimes, because you take out one item, add a bunch of stuff from the cabinet, and you end up putting back more than you take out. LOL

You're lucky you only have ONE. We have nine freezers plus the "flash freeze" freezer! Yeah--I do lose things in the freezer--but not like my parents' freezers--those are akin to an archeological dig!

I may have to move a magnet or two to use the white board idea.

Nine freezers! Good grief, that would totally stress me out! Do you live far from civilization or are there a lot of hunters in your family? When my dh and I first got together he complained that his freezer was too full. Well no wonder, he had umpteen quarts of frozen strawberries in there. They were 20 years old! That man will not get rid of anything...which is probably why we are still married ;)

No--we have 3000+ square feet of veggie gardens...and we freeze stuff rather than can. And, we feed our dogs RAW diet so we have dog meat in one freezer. These are not BIG freezers--most are small. We unplug them as we empty them throughout the year. And one of the freezers is a "flash" freezer, so we only plug that in during harvest time to flash freeze the veggies. Oh, and we usually have 3 acres of sweet corn, but that didn't get planted this year because of the rain. And, that isn't counting the freezers that are on top of the 4 fridges...

PF--use the side for the whiteboard, that's what I did with my parents' fridge. Or, skip the whiteboard and just write on the side of the fridge with a whiteboard marker (test it first to make sure it erases from the surface). If you've got that much stuff on your fridge, a little scribbling won't matter:wink:.

I am green with envy over your garden space. The house we just bought has about 100 square feet that gets regular sun. I guess we will be limited to a few tomato plants from here on out unless we can get into a community garden. Where did you get your flash freezer? I have never heard of one for home use. Are you finding it effective?

That's where my pot holders and dish towels hang...also, it's textured. I'm thinking of painting the inside of the pantry door with black board paint.

Good idea PF!

I got the flash freezer from my friend who was the professional pastry chef. I can ask her where she got it. It has coils on the shelves so that things freeze quickly.

I imagine she got it a restaurant supply place (hmmm...there's a restaurant supply place where my parents live...maybe I should drop in this time...I'm sure I could find something I NEED).

And I love the flash freezer. Everyone who freezes veggies from the garden should have one.