Recipe: Mother’s Day Treat Bread Pudding with Fruit

Mother’s Day Treat Bread Pudding and Fruit

So what do you do with the leftover egg mixture after making that Mother’s Day Treat French toast?

Throw it away, you may say.  But what if I say you can easily make a dessert out of it, by adding an extra cup of milk?

You can make a delicious bread pudding out of it!  You can even save some French bread from the toast and use in it.  One effort, two different recipes, one for brunch, one for dessert.  Ultimate cooking optimization!  Gotta love it!

I’m assuming you have already made some Mother’s Day Treat (Freezable) French Toast, and have about a cup of egg mixture left.  You don’t?  No worries!  You can still make this recipe from scratch, following the instructions underlined below. (Or you can choose to make both at once, starting from the French toast recipe, and freeze it all.)  This amount should be enough for a family of 4 for a little dessert after dinner.

Mother’s Day Treat Bread Pudding with fruit

1. Add 1 cup milk and 1 TBS melted butter into leftover egg mixture from Freezable French Toast. (You should already have about 2/3 – 1 cup left).  Alternatively, mix 2 beaten eggs, 2 cup milk, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1 TBS melted butter and cinnamon in a bowl if you are starting from scratch.
2. Add peeled, grated and drained apple and 1/4 cup chopped dried fruit and/or raisins into the egg mixture.
3. Break white bread into bite-size pieces and place them in a buttered 5 to 6” baking dish or individual ramekins. (Remove the crust if it’s very thick) Pour the egg mixture and let it soak completely.  Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on top.
4. Place the baking dish into a larger baking pan, and pour hot water into the outer pan to about half of the height of the egg mixture.  Bake in a 375-400F oven until set, and top is golden brown.  Serve warm or cold, with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, or without.

Optional: Omit apples/raisins/dried fruit if you don’t have any.  Or use melted bitter or semi-sweet chocolate instead.

So there you have an easy dessert for Mother’s day (or Mother’s Day prep-day) too!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Recipe: Mother’s Day Treat (Freezable) French Toast

French bread soaked in egg mixture, ready to be frozen

Frozen French Toast, before...

After... Delicious French Toast!

I was going to put a post about the cold noodle salad with strawberry vinaigrette, but I need to push it back a bit.  Because…

Mother’s Day is coming.  I have a great recipe to share that allow Moms in the world to be treated well — and easy for the family.

Even moms that love to cook sometimes need a break. They get their wish come true on Mother’s day – Daddy and/or Children take her out for brunch, or even better, make a home-cooked meal!  Nice!

Here’s an easy freezable French toast trick I found in a Japanese cooking magazine. You can make a large batch this weekend, eat some and freeze the rest to have your family bring to your bedside from on Mother’s day (and beyond).

Mother’s Day Treat (Freezable) French Toast

1. Slice French bread in 1” thick pieces.  Place all of them cut side down in a flat container.
2. For 8 oz French bread, mix 2 eggs,  2-4 TBS sugar, 1 C milk, a little bit of vanilla essence or cinnamon, and pour it all over the bread.  Let the bread soak up the egg mixture completely (5-10 min), turning it once.
3. For portions that will be frozen: Wrap individual portion with plastic wrap, with cut side down (if wrapping two or more together, make sure it’s wrapped side by side like on the photo, not on top of each other).  Put them on the cookie sheet with sides to avoid leakage, and freeze.
4. For Mother’s Day, or whenever you want to have your family make this it for you: : )  Remove the plastic wrap, melt 1-2 ts butter in a skillet at low heat. Place frozen French Toasts and cook for 4-5 minutes with lid on. When it’s golden brown on the bottom, flip them, place lid again, and cook 2-3 minutes until golden brown. Serve hot with maple syrup.
5. If they are not frozen, just cook with butter, without lid until golden brown.

We didn’t have any French bread, nor maple syrup, so made it with ciabatta, ate it as it is without syrup.  It was chewy, yet moist and delicious!

So go ahead and make some this weekend, and have the frozen version ready to go for your family to treat you to breakfast in bed later on Mother’s day.

As in this recipe, save some basic things you cooked previously, things like various sautéed vegetables, vegetable and meat mixtures etc. and give your family some written instructions.  Your sous-chef of the house (husband and children) will be able to assemble meals when you are away, busy or you need a break!  Look under “batch and fridge” or “batch and freeze” categories on my blog for ideas for food to keep on hand, and what you can do with them.  As a matter of fact, when I got pneumonia last fall, these batched items in our fridge and freezer literary saved our lives, and upgraded my husband’s status as a Kitchen Wizard. Because of that incident, when I was still in Japan about a month ago, but he was back in the US, I didn’t have to stock up food before I left as usual.  What a treat!

In case you are wondering, my husband never really cook much in the past, so if he can do it, your husband and/or children can do it too!

Talking about batching,  if you have that strawberries and radish from the last post sitting around, it may be a bit limp and jammy…  Actually they are quite good with these French Toast as a topping.  If you cannot stand the idea of radish with the French toast, just pick them out.  You won’t even notice.

So what do you do with leftover egg mix in the container?  How about making an easy dessert?

Stay tuned for the easy bread pudding recipe…  Click “ Email Subscription” on the right column, so that you won’t miss it!

The Japanese noodle salad with strawberry soy dipping sauce will be posted after that…

Technorati Tags: recipe,french toast,brunch,freeze,make ahead,easy,french bread,ciabatta,egg,vegetarian,breakfast,breakfast in bed,mother’s day,mother

The World’s Easiest Cranberry Relish Your Family & Guest Will Love

One of the (very few) dishes my husband taught me is a Thanksgiving side-dish recipe that has been handed down from his grandma Henrietta.  She passed long before we got married, soＩnever had the honor of meeting her nor eating her dishes.  However, her husband – Keith’s grandpa – Park who lived till 101 told me how great of a baker Hanky (that’s what he called her) was, and excruciating details of her German cakes which he missed dearly.

This is actually a very simple cranberry relish recipe using a box of jello, yet the power of this should not be underestimated. It is very refreshing, and can double as a dessert. Both children and adults love it alike.  On top of that, it’s healthy — it has a lot of fruits such as apples, pears and oranges, in addition to cranberries, and doesn’t require cooking – I can say this is highly optimized. And it’s bright red, it’s festive and surely adds color to the table. If you have a food processor, it’s super easy.  It requires all familiar ingredients that are really cheap! Probably the most exotic and expensive ingredient is cranberries.

Whenever we make it, people always ask for the recipe and nowadays it became so famous, we get Thanksgiving invitations with the requests for this.

So I decided to post the recipe on my blog. My husband first resisted — “Nooo! It’s MY family’s secret recipe!”.  But those who eat it always ask for this recipe! And I grew up in Japan where’s there’s no traditional Thanksgiving celebration, I needed this for my readers!  So I asked “Wouldn’t it be great if your grandma’s recipe is enjoyed by more people in the world, not just by your immediate family?”

So here it is.  Kitchen Wizard is revealing another cooking secret, this one from her extended family.

Grammy Hanky’s Cranberry Relish

Ingredients:

• 1 Small box of red jello (we like raspberry. Strawberry is a bit too sweet.)
• 1 cup hot water (Do not add the second of batch of water, which is suggested on the box.)
• 1 bag cranberries
• 2 large oranges, peeled and segmented
• 2 large apples, cored and cut in bite size pieces
• 2 large pears (should be relatively firm), cored and cut into bite size pieces

Directions:

1. Mix jello with hot water to dissolve. Put bit-size pieces of fruit in the food processor and pulse several times to grind roughly to about 1/4″ cubes or smaller.  Make sure the cranberries are ground up well — if they are not, it could be tart.  Depending on the size of your food processor, you may need to do it in two batches.
2. When the jello is room temperature, add all the fruit including its juice. Mix well.  Chill in the refrigerator until set. (Because of the amount of fruit, it may not set completely.)

We love serving it with turkey in place of regular cranberry sauce or relish, or you can eat it as dessert as well, with or without whipped cream. We normally make a double batch, using the large jello box, and using 1/2 – 2/3 for the actual Thanksgiving, and save the rest for us to eat later.

Oh, this is also great when you are sick! When I had flu and pneumonia 2 months ago and didn’t want to eat, I asked my husband to make this, and I ate it everyday.

So there you have it.  Try it and leave me a comment on how you and your guests loved it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

(Almost) Less Than 5: Sautéed Eggplant with Miso

Sauted Eggplant with Miso

Many years ago, my fridge (or especially freezer) looked like a morgue.  No more. Ever since I started Kitchen Wizard, my kitchen is a lot more organized and that has helped me decide what to cook much quicker, and also reduced waste significantly.

They all have the labels with dates and contents, I know exactly what I need to use up soon, and for what.

Today, that item was grilled eggplant.  As some of you older readers remember, I posted a series of eggplant recipes over the summer. Throwing eggplants on the grill whether we plan to eat on that night or not, along side our chicken and sausages is a must for us, because they are one of the most convenient and versatile thing to have on hand. As the day gets colder and shorter, we don’t grill out much, but they are still handy in fall and winter too – for different dishes.

So I decided to make an easy Japanese dish that can be made with pantry items.  This really is a cinch if you already have grilled or sautéed eggplants (ideally cooked in vegetable oil, not olive oil). Obviously, grilled eggplants are healthier – it uses much less oil and salt.  You can also stick the whole eggplants in the toaster oven until soft. You can use a conventional oven too, yet a toaster oven heats much quicker (doesn’t require pre-heating), plus uses much less energy.

If you are vegetarian/vegan, omit the meat or chopped shiitake mushrooms as substitute.

Sautéed Eggplant with Miso

Ingredients (2-3 servings):

• Ginger, sliced: about 1 ts
• Green onions, chopped: about 3
• Crushed chili (optional)
• Japanese, Chinese or Italian Eggplants: (ideally already grilled) 5-6
  • This is a cinch if you have already grilled or sautéed eggplants. Cut in bite size pieces. You do not need to peel skin for this dish.
• Ground meat: 4oz (100g)
• Sake: 2 TBS (sprinkle 1 TBS on the meat, mix 1 TBS into miso to create paste.)
• Soy sauce: 1 ts
• Sugar: pinch
• Miso: 1 – 2 TBS

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a skillet. Cook sliced ginger and green onions (and chili, if you are using) on medium-high heat until fragrant. (If you don’t have cooked eggplants, add oil and sauté sliced eggplants. Add a little bit of salt to shorten the cooking time).  When soft, move toward the edge of the pan.
2. If you have the cooked eggplants, add to the onion ginger mixture. Add ground meat and any sake residue, and cook until brown.
3. Add soy sauce and pinch of sugar, and mix in the miso/sake mixture. Taste and adjust seasoning.  Serve hot with steamed rice.

Kitchen Wizard Leftover Make-Over Tip:

If there’s any left over, add hot water and miso and make eggplant and ground meat miso soup.  Add extra green onion on top.

This is a kind of dish they serve at Izakaya as well as at home in Japan…  So maybe you should have some beer or sake with this, and pretend that you are in Japan!

Technorati Tags: Japanese,recipe,eggplant,meat,miso,easy,izakaya,sake,beer

Batch and fridge: Sautéed Mirepoix Tomato and Meat Mixture — Stuffed Cabbage

Stuffed Cabbage

It’s getting dark, cold, and RAINY in the Bay Area.  Yes, this fall is exceptionally rainy, and it rains cats and dogs, and that’s not enough, as if all the animals are falling from the sky. And I heard that those people in Colorado, Nebraska etc. already had 6 inches on snow, in early October?  Not just global warming, the weather is strange lately.

On an evening like that, and especially when I’m recovering from sickness, one thing I crave for is stuffed cabbage.

Believe it or not (I might have said that before), 99% of Japanese housewives cook Japanese, other Asian, as well as European origin food as normal repertoire. At least the last 50 years, that has been the norm.  Japanese are known to adopt great things from other countries and improve it to make it more efficient, like cars and electronics. And maybe not as well known fact outside of Japan, but food is definitely one of them.  We Japanize it with the ingredients that are available in Japan, and make it our own.

So, when I was little, and get sick, one of the things I craved for was “Rolled Cabbage” which is stuffed cabbage. Not just at my house, but ask 100 Japanese, whether they live in Japan or elsewhere, I can guarantee majority will say “I make them once in a while.”  We even have Japanese version, which often is found in oden, Japanese pot-au-feu.

The problem with Stuffed cabbage is it takes quite a long time to make it from scratch. But through my Kitchen Wizarding Process, I found a very easy way, that only takes about half or less time, and as tasty!

Plus my version uses mirepoix as its base, and not much meat, so it’s super healthy.  If you are vegetarian, or vegan, omit meat.

To make it even healthier, you can use other kinds of grains and even more vegetables, instead of rice. If the stuffing is too loose, add a beaten egg, so that it’ll serve as a binding agent.

So here’s Kitchen Wizard’s stuffed cabbage recipe!

Stuffed Cabbage

Ingredients:

• Sautéed Mirepoix, Meat and Tomato Mixture – about 1 cup
• Cooked rice – about 1 cup
• Grated cheese – about 1/4 cup (optional)
• Salt and Pepper
• A head of cabbage
• 1/3 –1/4 Can of tomatoes or 2 large tomatoes, chopped
• Chicken or vegetable broth
• Cream

Directions:

1. Remove the core of the cabbage, and stuff the hole with a moist paper-towel.  Wrap it with plastic wrap, and microwave it until cooked through, turning once in the middle. (about 5 min for small head cabbage, about 1 lb.  About 8-9 min for a 2 pounder.) This will allow the leaves to come out easily.
2. Mix cooked rice and sautéed mirepoix, meat and tomato mixture about 50/50. Add cheese if preferred. Mix and season well.  Sprinkle some salt on the cabbage. Wrap a few tablespoons of the rice mixture with the cabbage leaves tightly.  Secure the end with tooth pick or broken spaghetti.
3. Arrange the cabbage rolls into a pan as tightly as possible, trying not to leave any space.  If there’s any space, stuff with leftover cabbage.
4. Add broth to barely cover the cabbage rolls.  Top with chopped tomatoes, and place a lid or plate that is one size smaller than the opening, so that the rolls will not float up. Cook for about 20-30 min.  (If you are short with time, cook in microwave, in several minute increments.  Be careful not boil over the broth.)
5. Serve immediately with cream on top.

Note: Do you have any cooked cabbage leftover?  Great!  Because it’s really handy!  You can shred it and add to miso soup, other kind of soup, mix with vinaigrette to make simple salad as a side dish, sauté lightly with salt and pepper, with tomatoes, curry powder, bacon, etc. etc.

They were so yummy, they made the last bit of my sickness go away…

Never forget, nourish your soul with good, whole food, not just body…  It’ll thank you and give back 100 times! And the best way to do that is through home-cooking.  Treat yourself with your childhood favorite from time to time!

Technorati Tags: recipe,cabbage,roll,stuff,easy,microwave,fast,healthy,sick,home-cooked,home-made,cream,japan

The World’s Easiest, Fastest, Home-Made Miso-Soup!

Do you like miso soup?

Miso Soup is considered Japan’s national dish (OK, next to sushi), many have asked me how to make one.

As a native Japanese, I love miso-soup, as much as you do, but I never made it too often. (Japanese housewives, whether they are working or not, they are expected to make at least 一汁二菜 (ichiju nisai, meaning 1 soup (most often miso soup), and 2 dishes, plus rice. I’m only forgiven because I live in the US, and am married to an American…)

Why?  Because I thought it was a pain to make it every time from scratch.

To save that hassle and satisfy my appetite for miso-soup (I like it especially in the morning with my bowl of hot rice), I’ve even bought one of these freeze-dried miso-soup from Japanese markets.  Although they are pretty decent and not as expensive as $3-5 cup of miso soup from Japanese restaurants, they end up quite expensive.

As I started Kitchen Wizard, one of the things I experimented with was batching miso-soup.

It turned out to be a brilliant idea!

So, let me share with you the world’s easiest, fastest, home-made miso-soup recipe.

Ingredients:

(4-5 servings – multiply by the number of serving you want to make)

• Miso with dashi: 1/4 c (1 TBS per serving)
• Chopped green onions: 1 stalk (about 1/4 stalk per serving)
• Dried wakame about 3-4 TBS (about 1/2 -1 TBS per serving)
• Abura-age (fried tofu) cut in half, then into strips: 1 sheet (1/4 – 1/5 per serving)
• Lightly cooked/microwaved vegetables, cut in bite-size pieces: about 1/4 C (1 oz per serving), such as cabbage, onion

Directions:

1. Mix well miso and other ingredients that are cut in bite-size pieces.  Make sure to add abura-age, especially if you plan to freeze this. Do not use things like tofu, potato, etc. that doesn’t freeze well. If you are planning to eat them quickly and not freeze, you can use anything including tofu.
2. Divide into the number of servings and wrap each with plastic wrap. Keep in the refrigerator or freezer (Miso will not completely freeze.)
3. When ready to eat, unwrap and pour boiling water.
4. Optionally, you can garnish with chopped green onion on top.

Note:

You can make a large batch of softened miso, divide and add different vegetables for more variety.

You can also mix a little bit of liquid or powdered dashi into miso if you have any for more flavor. They are available at Japanese or Asian markets.

I know some (not so authentic) Japanese restaurants use chicken or vegetable broth for miso-soup…  so if there’s no dashi in sight, you may try a bit of either one for flavor as substitution.  Use only a little bit, especially if it’s liquid – you don’t want a soggy mess.

With this, you can have a nice bowl of miso-soup anytime you want… With rice for breakfast, just like in Japan, or you can even bring it to work for lunch.

Enjoy!

Note: I split the pacakge into two, because these particular bowls don’t hold much liquid.  The original miso-soup base only had green onion and abura-age, so I added dried wakame as extra before adding boiling water.

Technorati Tags: miso,soup,Japanese,dashi,abura age,instant,home made,fast,easy,wakame,cabbage,breakfast,work,lunch

Food Rescue 911: Apple Preserve

Do you have less than perfect apples at home?  Just like the one on the right, a bit wrinkly and looking sad that they havebeen ignored?

Give them a second chance!  There is an easy way.

My apples were actually looking even sadder than the one on the photo — probably the wrinkles were much more visible.

And here’s how they look now.  Happy, sweet and full of life, and everyone’s friend.  Who’s to know that they were once neglected and were about to be dumped. It was a very quick turn-around.

Apple preserve

Apple Preserve

Ingredients:

• Apples,  2
• Lemon juice
• Sugar, 1/4 – 1/2 c (depending on how sweet the apples are to start with)

Directions:

1. Core apples and cut into wedges.  Drizzle with lemon juice to prevent from oxidization and toss. Slice them thin and place them in a microwavable container.  Add sugar, toss gently and let it stand for 3-5 min.
2. Cook on high in microwave for 5 minutes.  Toss gently and cook another 5 min. Repeat until the apples are cooked and translucent. (Should take total of 15 min or so.)  Let it cool.  Mash with wooden spoon if you like more jammy consistency.

Note: You can make this on stove top, yet it’ll take longer and you’ll have to watch and keep stirring it.

They are great on toast, top with yogurt, pancakes, crepes…  They are super easy, so try it, and leave us a comment on  what did you make with it!

Apple preserve with yogurt

Technorati Tags: apple,preserve,dessert,jam,recipe,crepe,toast,yogurt,easy,waste

Curry Base Split Recipe 3: Eggplant Curry

L to R: Eggplant curry, Potato and Swiss chard curry

One of my favorite curry is Baingan Bharta (eggplant curry).  I don’t find this dish as often as Palak Paneer (spinach and Indian cheese curry) at Indian restaurants, but it’s really easy to make, especially if you have some cooked eggplants handy. (And I can guarantee it’s much tastier than the one you’ve had from the “boxed” version from the store.)

When you grill next time, be sure to throw on several eggplants…  Then you can use it as a base for not just for this recipe, but also many different dishes in the days to come… Japanese to Thai, Italian  to Turkish…

Be sure to check out the posts about easy and exciting eggplant possibilities (both sautéed and sautéed) next week!

Choose the subscription options from the side bar, so you will not miss it.

Eggplant Curry

Directions:

1. Use sautéed eggplant if you have any. If using the full recipe of curry base, use you’ll need about 1 1/2 cups. Or you can also use roasted, broiled or grilled eggplants that are chopped in bite size pieces. Or, peel eggplants in stripes, and cut in half vertically, then into 1/2” slices. Sautee eggplants in plenty of oil and some salt until tender. Set aside.
2. Heat the curry base (for recipe, click here) in the pan.  Add cooked eggplants and mix well.
3. Add about 1/2 – 1 TBS of chutney or marmalade, add some stock as needed (it depends on how much moisture the vegetable has as well as your personal preference). Adjust seasoning.
4. Top with chopped cilantro (strictly optional. I hate it, so we don’t!). Serve with steamed rice, saffron rice or naan.

Note:

• If you use sautéed eggplants, it’ll have more solids in curry. If use grilled, roasted or broiled eggplants, especially if you use Japanese or Chinese eggplants which contains more moisture than Italian or globe eggplants, you’ll end up with curry with almost no solids.  It’s a personal preference, and both are delicious.

Technorati Tags: indian,curry,eggplant,recipe,easy,chutney,marmalade

Batch & Fridge/Split: Curry Base

L to R: mango lassi, chana masala, raita, potato and swiss chard curry, keema curry

One of my (many many) favorite cuisine is Indian food.

It’s really fun to go to Indian restaurant with whole bunch of friends and share various curries and tandoori dishes.  (OK, I love sharing and trying various dishes with any cuisine, and am known to get really disappointed when some people don’t like that idea. (Maybe they are worried that their share will be mostly end up in my stomach?)

I cook curry periodically.  One of my dilemma had been this — when I cook curry at home, I only made one kind.  If I wanted some other curry, I had to wait until next time I felt like eating it, which in our household, well over a month later.

Now I figure out how to cook various curries easily all at once, so our single curry days are over.  Just like at the Indian restaurants — at home.

Do you want to know the secret?

It’s pretty simple. You just make a large batch of curry base, and then split it and cook with any cooked vegetable or meat you have.  For example, one will become Keema curry, one with eggplant, one with potatoes, one with spinach, one with cauliflower…  The choice are endless, only limited by, pretty much what else you have in your fridge, ready to go and your imagination. If you use leftover blanched or sautéed vegetables like I did, it shorten the process significantly.

So today, I’ll explain how to make the base.  Later this week, I’ll share the recipe on how to make other kind of curries.

Curry Base: 2-3 servings

Ingredients

• Vegetable oil – 2 TBS
• Garlic (minced) – 2 cloves
• Ginger (minced) – 1 inch/2.5 cm
• Curry Powder – 2 TBS
• Cumin powder – 1 ts
• Garam masala – 2 ts
• Onion (chopped) – 1 large
• Tomato (chopped) – 2 large, or 1 small can chopped tomatoes

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a skillet on medium heat.  Add minced garlic, ginger, and once it becomes fragrant, add the spices, stir briefly until the mixture becomes fragrant with the scent of curry spices.
2. Add chopped onions and cook until soft (and a little browned, if you have time), stirring occasionally.
3. Add chopped tomatoes and cook until most of the moisture evaporates and the mixture gets a bit “pasty”.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

You can keep this in the fridge for a few days.

Be sure to check back for curry recipes you can easily make with this…  Or simply choose one of the subscription options (email, RSS feed, or Networked Blogs Face book app) so that you will not miss them!

Kitchen Tip du Jour: Wipe Dirty Butts and Dishes with Paper Towel for Easy Cleaning.

Do you “HATE” cleaning up the mess after dinner?

Do you want to know some cleaning secrets?

This was a big issue for us, especially because there are only 2 of us, we barely use dishwasher, i.e. we have to do dishes by hand everyday!

So, here’s the Kitchen Wizard cleaning tip!

The best thing to do is to use some paper towel (wipe) and hot water  to help loosen sticky food and oil first, leave it for a while, then proceed with washing with sponge and detergent as usual. The hotter the water, the better – just pour liberal amount and let it soak in hot water for a while and do the other dishes while you are waiting. By the time the water is not hot any more, the rest of the cleaning job will be much easier.

For this reason and to boil water faster for pasta, tea, etc., we have an electric kettle in the kitchen. They are everywhere – Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Amazon, etc – and cheap.  It’s worth every penny.

If you don’t like the idea of consuming too many paper towels, you can even use the soiled napkin from dinner, . (BUTT, just don’t use the paper towel you used to wipe your baby’s butt!)

Unlike baby butts, you don’t need these fancy moist towelletts. It’s better to use very hot water with sturdier paper towel for dishes.  (I like Bounty.)

For dirty baby butts, soft and warm. For dishes, on the other hand, sturdy and super HOT (because they won’t scream, and actually like it that way.) Different cleaning supplies for different jobs.

This hot water trick also works for stove top and kitchen counter.  On the flat surface, carefully and slowly drizzle a little amount of very hot water to just wet ONLY the soiled area to loosen up a gunk, and then wipe with a clean paper towel or dish towel.  Please be careful… otherwise, you’ll have to clean a huge hot puddle and may even be burning yourself. Not fun.  Also make sure there’s no plastic around!

Then use detergent and re-wipe if you choose to. (I like Green Works.)  That’s it!

Because of this tip, our dish duties are more joy now.  Plus, my husband is more willing to do dishes… without me asking…  Nice, isn’t it?

Technorati Tags: cleaning,easy,tips,kitchen,dish,dirty,counter top,stove top,paper towel,electric kettle