Everyday cooking
fromSlate Magazine
1 day agoOne of Food Safety's Most Important Rules Doesn't Make Any Sense. Here's What to Do Instead.
Frozen food retains nutrients well, but thawing methods can be misleading and ineffective.
Windex is an unexpected household cleaner that can degrease your kitchen and dissolve wallpaper glue and residue. The ammonia in Original Windex is a solvent that breaks down the adhesive properties of glue in wallpaper, allowing you to wipe it off the wall easily.
Ikea's 3-in-1 microwave can grill, cook, and air-fry. That means you can make microwave oatmeal for breakfast, grilled chicken for lunch, and crispy fries for dinner, all in the same appliance. The GÅTEBO allows for multi-stage cooking, too, so you can set it to defrost a frozen breakfast burrito on the microwave's defrost setting and then automatically grill it afterwards.
Potato sprouts contain compounds (specifically glycoalkaloids like solanine and chaconine), which stick in the potatoes' skin and become toxic in the body when consumed in large quantities, leading to an upset stomach or indigestion. However, it's worth noting that potatoes already contain glycoalkaloids - the compound is just more concentrated in the sprouts.
On average, you can expect a microwave to last about 4 to 10 years. That's a wide range, so let's break it down. First, there's the general factor of investing in quality. Shop some of the best microwave brands, and you'll have one that lasts longer. Then, there's the issue of use. If you've got a larger family and everyone's using the microwave throughout the day, every day, that can shorten its life to 4 or 5 years.
They're also a good source of fiber, are jam-packed with vitamin C, antioxidants, and even have anti-inflammatory properties. But their peels tend to keep many of us from reaching for them all that often at the market. Sure, they're cute with their brown fuzz, but how do you actually peel them effectively and quickly enough that it's just as easy as eating any other fruit? The answer lies in a kitchen tool you might not expect: The balloon whisk.
The rice cooker is, without a doubt, one of the greatest inventions known to man - or at least the home chef. Once you've mastered the essential steps of using a rice cooker, you're guaranteed to have perfect, fluffy rice for life. However, even regular users of the kitchen gadget might err, and one of the most common rice cooker mistakes is leaving rice on the "keep warm" setting for too long.
Now, on their own, right after you peel them off the cloves, garlic skins don't make a great snack. Technically you can eat them, but the tough, fibrous texture isn't exactly something that you'll look forward to either chewing on or choking down. If you do sample a bit, however, you will notice that despite seeming like a useless bit of waste all this time, these peels actually do contain a lot of flavor.
You probably already know that it's generally not a good idea to expose plastic - like food storage containers, for instance - to high temperatures. After all, it can cause chemicals in the plastic to leach into your food. It probably shouldn't come as a huge surprise, then, that it's also a bad idea to use plastic wrap under very high heat. This is because plastic wrap melts very easily when exposed to high temps,
The microwave is a must-have modern convenience, but it takes some basic know-how to use it regularly without causing any safety risks. Chiefly, you want to be clear on what items should never go into the microwave, like metal, so you don't even chance starting a fire. Other materials that fall into this camp may seem obvious, like Styrofoam; but did you know that paper towels can pose their own set of issues? Well, certain types of paper towels, to be precise - so make sure you're aware of what those types are.