Ten Tips for Quicker Kitchen Clean Up

I like to cook, but I hate the clean up. After my slaving over the stove or oven, my family was happy to consume the fruits of my labors, but not so happy about helping with the clean up. I wasn't all that happy about it either. Over a lifetime, I have found a number of ways to make kitchen clean up quicker and easier for everyone. Read this article for my top ten tips for quicker kitchen clean up.

1. To minimize sticking, when baking or roasting, spray the baking pan or dish with an aerosol cooking spray. If you don't like aerosol sprays, warm your baking pan or dish, then apply olive or cooking oil to the pan using a paper towel to spread.

2. To minimize sticking, when frying, warm your frying pan before adding the oil or cooking fat.

3. Use roasting bags to minimize clean up and keep food moist.

4. Once your remove food from a frying pan, turn off the pan, let cool slightly, then add enough water to cover the bottom. The water will deglaze the pan and make removing any "fried on" bit easier, when you clean it. This also works for roasting pans. DO NOT do this if you have oil still in the pan. Oil and water do not mix, so adding water will not help and could cause spattering.

5. Save old pickle or other food jars and pour used (cooled) cooking oil into them for neat disposal.

6. Use a piece of tin foil on table or counter for rolling out cookie dough.

7. Use tin foil on baking sheets for a quick clean up.

8. Peel potatoes or other vegetables onto paper towels for a quick toss of the peels.

9. Use a large bowl for all your disposable cooking scraps and everything to be tossed will be in one place-instead of all over the counter.

10. Wash as you go. As you are cooking, immediately wash any used bowls, pots, pans, or utensils, before food has time to dry and stick. This is particularly true for any pot where you have cooked a starchy food such as potatoes or pasta.

If you use these ten tips for quicker kitchen clean up, you will be out of the kitchen faster and on to doing other things.

P.S. For those of you who can find them, Reynolds has just come out with crock-pot cooking bags. Yippee! Easy crock-pot clean up too.