1. Handy Kitchen Tips that You cannot Miss : Solutions for all your Problems
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Time management - cooking, cleaning, and exercise

Discussion in 'Spotless Kitchen' started by kkrish, Apr 22, 2012.

  1. messedup

    messedup Platinum IL'ite

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    Thanks for the reply mam. I know scope is less still you tried to find out something. I too will look into that if it is possible or not. Thanks a lot.
     
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  2. kkrish

    kkrish IL Hall of Fame

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    Thank you periamma.
    Yes, time is the most precious and the most elusive.

    How we make use of that time which, once gone is forever gone, truly shapes our lives.
     
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  3. justanothergirl

    justanothergirl IL Hall of Fame

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    That is such a neat tip Kamala. I am going to try too...even for my work related stuff. Divide in small chunks and see repetitions. Brilliant! Always learn something new here.:beer-toast1:

    @messedup I also looked at ur schedule ma. It seems hard to optimize more unless u can get help for some of ur chores .Not sure how feasible that would be.
     
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  4. Rihana

    Rihana Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Planning to make onion/tomato gravy and freeze in ice cubes tray. One Instant Pot recipes website suggested using IP for that. The usual - heat oil, cook the onion, ginger-garlic (optional), add tomato puree or chopped, saute 2 min, then, pressure cook 2-3 mins. Natural Pressure Release.

    Question - is it better to make it in IP or on stove top with flat 10/13 inch saucepan? The IP's base seems narrow to me when cooking onions. Have a nice big gas burner on the side of outdoor grill. Thinking of using that rather than the IP.

    Thoughts?
     
  5. Amulet

    Amulet IL Hall of Fame

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    Cooking in a sauce pan requires chef paying attention to it. If chef is busy in the house, the IP's auto stop function takes care of things, and one would not run out of sauce in the saucepan due to accidental over/longer heating. Safe to go with IP.

    cook the onion with salt, so that it is faster to cook that to the right stage for curries. In the eventual use of the gravy/sauce remember how much salt had been put in it already. We always over-salt the initial stage, so as to take care of the salt for what is to come into that gravy. In one episode of her show Martha Stewart had Madhur Jaffrey cook shrimp curry. MJ had added extra salt in the gravy to account for the shrimp..etc. that would come in later. MS saw the nice red sauce simmering away in the skillet, and she took a spoon to take a sample and taste it. MJ reacted quite fast, and almost slapped the spoon off MS's hand. It was so funny that only we (desi's) can appreciate it.
     
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  6. Rihana

    Rihana Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    IP not needing babysitting is fine, but in this case of making the gravy in big batch, I wouldn't mind watching the pan. The IP's narrow base makes it harder to sufficiently brown the onion. My curries need the onion to be well browned.

    The tip about remembering salt added is a good one.
     
  7. Amulet

    Amulet IL Hall of Fame

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    Sauce pan caramelizing onions is the better way to go for taste, even in small amounts. Salt helps to ooze the water out of the onion, so that it browns faster.
    I was wondering why use ice-cube tray ? Is that tray plastic or metal ? Why not use freezer ziploc bags ? [many plastic icecube trays have pthalates, the plasticizer used in injection molding that shape] My view is that a closed freezer bag preserves the aroma (this is so true in self-defrosting freezers) of the gravy much much better than frozen icecubes left open in their trays.

    [ in another thread there was a discussion of cooking Karela. Cutting it lengthwise, removing the seeds+core, and packing some salt in the nullah (channel), and letting it sit would make the karela "weep", ooze the water out, and take out much of its bitterness. After a couple of hours, the kerala can be washed, cut into small pieces and fried. Even children will eat it without complaint. @GeetaKashyap ]
     
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2018
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  8. Amulet

    Amulet IL Hall of Fame

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    Ooops... I was wrong. It was not Martha Stewart. It was Julia Child.
    at 9:36 on the video, MJ stops Julia Child from tasting the salty sauce that is simmering in her skillet:

     
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  9. Rihana

    Rihana Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    FoodSaver vacuum sealing system -- useful for Indian household?

    Commonly cooked foods include dry vegetable subji's like aalu-peas, aalu-gobi, okra fry, beans. Daal, sambhar, Rajma, chole, black eyed peas, dry chicken dish, gravy chicken dish, chicken grilled, fish shallow fryed, fish grilled on skillet, pasta, and other onion-tomato gravy dishes. Other seafood once in a while.
     
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  10. Amulet

    Amulet IL Hall of Fame

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    I had resisted buying that (from Costco), mainly because of the list of parts/accessories that are specialty items, and not generic. Mostly got by with large freezer (ziploc) bags. Removed the air by manual methods, before the ziploc was closed. I still use the same method for storing Tandoori Chicken thigh-legs for the airfryer. One less thing to plug in a kitchen wall socket and take up room on counter or somewhere in the pantry.

    All these are frequently (commonly ?) cooked, and put away in the fridge/freezer ? I read that list of items in your post, and chuckled. You have/store sauces in fridge/freezer also. That is a lot of items to cook and store. Perhaps the IP is what is helping you do all that. I never had such a lot in storage.

    Compare the prices of regular ziploc freezer bags of the size you'd normally use, and the vacuum freezer bags sold in the accessories section of the foodsaver website, and see if it makes sense for your home.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2019
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