What's Cooking Mexico » Kitchen tips

Salt, more than flavor

Ben — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:26:07 +0000

Salt is a dietary mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride. It comes from many sources and in many ways and salt has been used by humans for thousands of years as food preservative and for religious porposes. In our modern kitchens salt is the most common food seasoning. But did you know that salt can be a great weapon in the battle to keep your kitchen clean?

When I found this article on HowStuffWorks.com I was surprise to see how many other uses salt has. Just in the kitchen it helps to clean coffee makers and mugs, ovens, refrigerators, stoves, casseroles and pots among others. Not only that, salt can also be used for clogs and bad odors. Along with baking soda and vinegar salt can help you to maintain your house clean. Visit HowStuffWorks.com to view these and other great cleaning tips.

How to clean a microwave oven

Ben — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:44:08 +0000

I always have trouble cleaning my microwave oven. But the other day I found this tip on my friend’s blog, Made, on how to clean a microwave oven. Here is the translation:

To clean the microwave oven put a cup of water inside and program for one and a half minutes. Leave the cup inside for another minute, oven off. After that clean with a damp cleaning clothe. If you don’t use your oven very often and you do this every other week, it will always be clean.

Thank you Madeline for this useful tip.

Bad odors in the kitchen

Ben — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:03:36 +0000

We foodies love to prepare food with many ingredients that have a strong odor. Fish, garlic, eggs and other ingredients can leave a mark behind in your kitchen utensils, glasses, plates and hands. I love those smells when dinner is cooking but I don’t want to carry them around everywhere I go. That’s why I always keep a lime next to my kitchen sink.

Lime juice is perfect to fight those odors. At my parents’ restaurant we always washed our hands with a little bit of lime juice after working with onions, fish, garlic and the dishwashers use them in glasses and plates with that peculiar egg smell that can make your stomach turn. Limes leave behind a particular smell, too. But I prefer the fresh smell of lime than the smell of rotten eggs and fish.

How do you fight bad odors in your kitchen?

Baking soda, a super item

Ben — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:56:03 +0000

Ever since I can remember there was always an open box of baking soda in my mom’s fridge. I am sure you know what that is for, for generations we’ve been told that baking soda absorbs odors. Some people, however, claim that this method is not very efficient and that a canister of activated charcoal works better because it can indeed adsorb vapors that contact the charcoal. Of course, cleaning your fridge periodically and keeping foods covered is the best way to keep it odor-free.

But even if baking soda is not very effective in combating odors in your fridge, it still has a lot of more uses in your kitchen and around the house. Reader’s Digest online magazine rated it as a super item. In this article they list some of the baking soda uses for your kitchen and house. Some of the things baking soda can do and I didn’t even know about are:

Tenderize meat
Fluff up your omelets
Use as a yeast substitute
Remove coffee and tea stains from china
Treat minor burns
Control your dandruff
…and many more

The only concern that I have with it is: if baking soda absorbs odors from fridges and bathrooms, wouldn’t it do the same in your kitchen cabinet? And if it does, do you really want to use that baking soda for your cakes, omelets and pancakes?
An easy solution would be to keep it in an airtight container (I keep mine in a Modulate Mate container from Tupperware) so it is odor free next time you use it for your cooking.

Today I learned a lot about baking soda and I can truly say that it is indeed a super item.

How to keep herbs fresh longer

Ben — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:11:56 +0000

If I were an herbivore I wouldn’t care about how long I could keep herbs fresh in the fridge. But since greens are not all I eat, I want to make sure that next time I take cilantro, parsley, mint or any other herb out of the fridge is going to be good to use for my cooking. Unfortunately that is not always the case.

The store makes you buy big bundles of herbs, but all you usually need for your cooking is just a few leaves. You put the rest away in the fridge but when you need them again you take the bag out of the fridge just to find out that it has gone bad after just a couple of days. How do you avoid that?

In my parents restaurant they made sure that all produce was dry before being stored in the fridge. Moist accelerates the decomposition process in herbs and vegetables so make sure to check they are dry before putting them away in your fridge. Grocery stores usually keep vegetables and herbs moist in the display fridges (you’ve seen those sprinkles that spray water over them every couple of minutes) However, those displays are open and the produce is periodically replaced. Your fridge is different because it doesn’t have the same flow of air. That’s why you want to make sure there is not an excess of moist on what you store.

If you buy cilantro, parsley or any other kind of herb that has been sprayed with water in the grocery store, just let it dry over paper towels for a couple of hours. Storing them in containers that allow a flow of air also helps to maintain herbs fresher for a longer period of time. Consider Tupperware FridgeSmart containers. Just following this easy step will keep your produce longer and will save you money.

How to win the war against roaches in your kitchen

Ben — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:41:23 +0000

Cockroaches are every cook’s nightmare. They are amazing little creatures that survive in the most inhospitable circumstances. Once they become established in a house, they are capable of producing several thousand offspring in a single year. Unlike other pest, cockroaches live and reproduce all year long making their numbers grow even faster.

Like any other insect, they are fascinating creatures, but however awesome they biologically are, you don’t want them crawling in your cabinets contaminating your food. They are one of the few animals that I can’t stand. I am not afraid of them, but just to think that they are crawling all over my food and clean kitchen makes me sick. I almost fainted the other day when I saw one crawling on my kitchen floor. That I will not stand. That means war!

How do cockroaches get into your house, anyway? They are sneaky little creatures. They travel in grocery bags, carton boxes, laundry, open drains or simply wander into your house from outdoors. So the first thing to win the battle against them is prevention.

You can’t seal yourself in from the outside world. But you can be careful with what comes into your house. Don’t accumulate grocery bags, carton boxes or empty soft drink bottles. Recycle them as soon as you can. Seal food in containers (Tupperware anyone?) and clean crumbs and spillage as soon as you can. Routinely clean under and behind your kitchen appliances and keep your oven clean. Clean your toaster at least once a week (if you use it often) and keep your pets food fresh. Seal door frames, windows, basement windows, and any other crack or opening that bugs could use to get inside your house.

But what if one roach makes it to the inside of your warm, moist and full of food kitchen? They do all the time. I told you they were sneaky. In a few months you could have a large pest problem. You could spend hundreds of dollars hiring an exterminator or you could use one of the most effective and inexpensive methods.

Boric acid has been used for a long time in the war against roaches. Unlike insecticides, boric acid is odorless and very little toxic to people and house pets. As long as it reminds dry it retains its potency and it is very effective in small quantities. But it gets even better. You can use boric acid with a roach bait to increase its effectiveness. And that is today’s recipe.

Die roach die powder

You will need:

40% Boric acid
30% All-purpose flour
20% Dry milk
10% Confectioner’s sugar

If you want to make one kilogram of the powder use 400gr of boric acid, 300gr of all-purpose flour, 200gr of dry milk and 100gr of confectioner’s sugar.

Sift all the ingredients together at least 5 times. You want to mix them very well and get rid of any cluster.

Boric acid hasn’t work for some people because they haven’t applied it correctly. You don’t need great quantities of it to get results. The powder should be applied in a very thin layer that is almost invisible to the naked eye. To get good results use a container with a tip, see picture. Fill only ¾ of the container, this will create airspace in the container that will allow the powder to be puffed out more easily, and squeeze at about 3 inches from the area you wish to treat. Store the remaining powder in a dry and warm place to avoid caking. A few pennies or pebbles will do the trick, too.

Roaches live in warm, moist places away from the light. So you should apply the powder in areas where they most likely live or walk by. These areas include under and behind the refrigerator, stove and dishwasher, into the opening where plumbing pipes enter walls (such as under sinks and behind the commode, shower and washing machine), cracks along edges and corners inside cabinets and pantries, under kitchen and bathroom cabinets, behind switch and plug plates (be very careful if you decide to treat this areas, remove the plate and spray the power from a safe distant) and any other crack that is warm and moist and close to food.

Do not apply the powder in common areas or on surfaces where food is prepared. Clean any surface where any member of your household (including pets) can come in contact with the powder. This powder won’t poison you but it is not recommended to ingest it either. Boric acid is not poisonous so when the cockroaches come in contact with it they don’t immediately die. The following was taken from Wikipedia:

[Boric acid] acts as a stomach poison affecting the insects’ metabolism, and the dry powder is abrasive to the insects’ exoskeleton.
Boric acid may be used either in an insect bait formulation containing a feed attractant or as a dry powder. The powder may be injected into cracks and crevices, where it forms a fine layer of dust. Insects travel through the boric acid dust, which adheres to their legs. When the insects groom themselves, they then ingest the poison, which causes death three to ten days later of starvation and dehydration.

So you might see a relative increase of roaches roaming your house after application. Don’t worry, it just means that the powder is working and they are slowly dying. It sounds kind of cruel, but it is either they or your family. This is a cruel world with cruel wars…

Disclaimer: This post is only the author’s recommendation on how to treat a pest problem. The use of some products may not be legal in your state or country. Please check with your local authorities before using any pesticide and ALWAYS READ AND FOLLOW LABEL DIRECTIONS FOR SAFE USE OF ANY PESTICIDE!