I'm occasionally guilty of planning a main-dish menu for the week and when it's time to make dinner, I'm at a loss for sides. I'm prone to serving the same things over and over again. Cooked green beans... again? Okay, they were great the first 2 days... but by day 3, everyone wants something different. Something that actually goes with whatever meal I'm serving.

To combat the mental block that often accompanies my menu-planning attempts, I've started writing serving suggestions on my recipe cards. This is my way of remembering what made a good "main" food into a good meal.

Sometimes food packages will have serving suggestions on them, such as recipes or photos. I try to find (and remember) serving suggestions whenever possible!

What turned beef vegetable soup into the meal everyone loved? Hot fresh biscuits drizzled with butter and honey. (Fresh homemade wheat bread is another great option, if I plan ahead.)

What made my simple dinner of chili a hit? Having chopped onions, cheese, and fresh jalapenos, along with a sheet of oven fries on the side.

Serving suggestions: Write them on your recipes! :)

There's something else I like to write down these days, too. More on that tomorrow. No, not next week... tomorrow! Yes, I am blogging 2 days in a row. (Has anyone missed me? I hope so... I mean, I hope you're ready to read again. :D)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Hardened spices (Titus 2 Homemaker)
2. Pizza dough rolling tip (Feel Good About Dinner)
3. Grocery shopping tip (The Local Cook)

Joshua's been wanting to try smoked paprika for a while now (ever since he first heard of its existence!), so when we saw this 8.5 ounce bottle of smoked paprika at Costco for $3.75, we got one.

I was expecting it to be strong and, well, not something I would be too crazy about. However...

...I love it!! It's not too strong at all, and it has a delicious, sweet, smoky flavor.

Here are some of the things we've tried with smoked paprika and loved the results:

Fish (white or salmon)
Chicken Parmesan
Potato wedges (almost impossible to use too much on these!)
Fried eggs (not too much)
Potato soup
Potato salad
Chicken breast
Chili
Popcorn
Taco meat (or anything Mexican)

I find smoked paprika especially delicious with potatoes, which is handy since we have lots of potatoes to use right now, thanks to my brother's generosity (and garden)!

We also have plenty of fish, so "fish and chips" is on the menu frequently. I make baked versions of both the fish and chips rather than fried, which is healthier while still delicious.

Have you ever tried smoked paprika? What are your favorite foods to use it with? If you see a bottle at Costco (or maybe Sam's or BJ's?) I recommend getting it to try! :) I already bought another bottle to have a spare on hand... let's hope Costco doesn't stop carrying it... Costco has great prices on their spices/herbs for cooking! :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Homemade bread cutting & keeping tips (Extraordinary Ordinary Wife)
2. Gluten-free baking tips (Whole New Mom)
3.
4.
5.

While I love the convenience of a dishwasher, I am not always happy with how it cleans the dishes. (Getting the water level sensor -- whatever it's called -- fixed on our dishwasher last fall did help get the dishes a lot cleaner though!)

After so many years of only hand-washing dishes, I notice the tiny scratches that appear after dishes have been washed in the dishwasher for a while. I notice the annoying way water pools in the crevices in plastic containers. I can feel any tiny specks left on what should be a completely smooth clean glass surface...

BUT, I do love using the dishwasher to lighten my evening kitchen cleanup routine! So, I ignore the less-than-perfect aspects of a dishwasher. After all, life is a lot about choosing to be happy about the "good" in things. :)

Our "real" drinking glasses (as opposed to mason jar drinking glasses) have had a cloudy surface on them since shortly after we started using a dishwasher 4 years ago. It's embarrassing to use them for guests because the glasses do not look clean, even though they are!

Today I decided to do some research and try to remove the cloudy film. I learned that cloudy drinking glasses could be either:

#1. Hard water deposits, which can be removed using vinegar, or

#2. Etching/scratching on the glass from the combination of soft water and dishwasher detergent, which cannot be removed.

Since Seattle tends to have pretty soft water, I figured it was more likely the second scenario. But, I had to try some vinegar. I scrubbed with vinegar, and then scrubbed with baking soda, and then discovered that the "film" was actually on the outside of the glasses, not the inside! So, I scrubbed the outside with vinegar and then with baking soda and when I rinsed and dried the glass...

...it looked exactly how it did when I started.

So, my glasses are doomed to look dirty forever, I guess. Good thing we've broken all but 5 of that set (it was a wedding gift 11 years ago)...

SO, guess what Joshua got for me at Costco last week? New drinking glasses! And they are so pretty and so sparkly and so fun to drink from (and I so don't want to put them in the dishwasher but I will because they weren't that expensive anyway).

However, starting today I am going to use less detergent in my dishwasher. Hopefully these will stay nicer... :)

Do you have any tips for keeping drinking glasses nice in the dishwasher? I'd love to hear! :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Saving time on meatloaf (Sabby Ink)
2. DIY Softscrub (Whole New Mom)
3. Organizing frequently-used recipes (Titus 2 Homemaker)

Since my last trip to Ohio to visit my parents (in November), I've been copying my mom's dirty dishes stacking trick.

A stacking system for dirty dishes? Sounds a little OCD but honestly, for me it's all about reining in the dirty dishes piles while still only doing dishes once a day (after dinner). :)

My system (we have 2 sinks):

Stack bowls, small plates, and silverware neatly in one side of the sink.

Set glasses, containers, etc. on the counter beside the sink. (This means I still have one side of the sink free for washing produce, etc.)

This usually keeps things tidy until dinner, when I actually cook and make a big mess in the kitchen. After dinner is when I load the dishwasher and clean everything up. Since I hand-wash the pans, strainers, large bowls, etc. I can get away with running the dishwasher once a day, after dinner. This allows plenty of time for the dishes to air dry overnight, and one of the kids unloads and puts everything away the next morning.

The good part: With a stacking system, the kids can clear their own dishes after breakfast and lunch without filling up my counter with miscellaneous stacks... and it's a lot faster to load the dishwasher in the evening, too!

Notice all my small plates in use? Some months ago I discovered two things:

Small plates are often sufficient for breakfast or lunch, and any time for little kids or weight-losing individuals (me).

Small plates also fit 3-wide in the bottom of my dishwasher. This is one of the ways I am able to still run the dishwasher only once a day with 7 people in our family: We only use big plates at dinner. :) Granted, this may change as my children get older (our oldest is 8), but overall small plates help reduce portion size (the kids can always get seconds!) and mess. :)

If you have a difficult-to-efficiently-load dishwasher like mine, take note... :)

I don't have any tips on conserving silverware use. We go gung-ho and fill that silverware basket to the max. I bought spoons for 20 cents each at GoodWill, picking out the nicest-feeling ones, and while they sure don't match my set, we never run out of spoons anymore! :)

I also watch for Corelle plates and bowls at GoodWill and have been able to supplement my set more affordably that way. :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Princess flavoring (Make Do & Mend)
2. How to clean your crock pot (A Proverbs 31 Wife)
3. 5 ways to use a bakery baguette (Feel Good About Dinner)
4. Make-ahead lunches tip (The Local Cook)
5.

Sometimes my thoughtless hurrying gets me into trouble! A couple weeks ago I was making blackberry pie for Eliyahu's 7th birthday. (He had requested pie instead of cake.) My Foolproof Pie Crust recipe calls for shortening, which I don't keep on hand, and so in recent years I'd been just using butter instead. But, an all-butter pie crust wasn't turning out as perfectly, so I decided to use coconut oil instead of the shortening called for in the recipe.

At first the dough was too soft, so I put it in the fridge... and got busy making dinner. Three hours later, it was rock-hard.

It ended up being tricky to work with and made only an okay crust. (Tip: Since I was using coconut oil in place of salted butter, I added extra salt to the crust. We can really tell a difference when a substitution is made for butter and additional salt isn't used.)

I had an audience while I was rolling out the pie dough and lining the pans. I suppose that's an indication of how rarely I attempt anything as time-consuming as a "real" pie these days.

I was able to "wow" my audience when I took my difficult-to-work-with pie dough and instead of making a flat top for the pies, I made a lattice top with strips of dough. Tip: When you have pie dough that isn't cooperating, a lattice top can save the day!

Eliyahu had a marvelous birthday and the blackberry pie was so delicious that Ruth said it's what she wants instead of cake this week for her birthday, too. :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Slice, dice, and chop (Cooking Up a Sale)
2. 3 ways to cook dried beans (The Local Cook)
3. Quick-add apples to instant oatmeal (Feel Good About Dinner)
4. Easy microwave cleaning tip (Extraordinary Ordinary Life)
5.

This week's kitchen tip is so simple, but I wish I had thought of it weeks ago! It would have saved months of annoyance!

I have two plastic trash cans under my kitchen sink: one for trash and one for recycle. We've had them for many years now and with the constant use they get in the kitchen, the recycle trash can was cracked on several sides and even cracked half-way across one side. It was difficult to continue to use like that, so I went in search of a new plastic trash can at the store.

I went to one store but they didn't have the size I wanted for under the kitchen sink. Something too small, and we would be emptying it more than once per day. Something too big, and it wouldn't fit under the sink (key to keeping little hands out of the trash can and making the kitchen look tidy).

Then I spied duct tape. Duct tape can fix anything, right? And surely it couldn't hurt to try fixing a very broken kitchen trash can before it ended up in the trash itself!

I started taping and was VERY pleased with the results. The trash can is very sturdy again and appears to have quite a bit of use in it yet. I wish I had thought to take a "before" picture, because it looked pretty bad! I'm not worried about the appearance of duct tape since this will be hidden behind a cupboard door. Although, a bright colored duct tape might have been fun! ;)

I'm excited that I get to keep using my perfect-sized trash can and it's not going to the landfill. :D

The handles were starting to break on my other kitchen trash can, so I went ahead and duct-taped them to prevent the cracks from getting worse.

Do you have broken plastic trash cans in your kitchen? Have you ever used duct tape on them?! :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Pie dough tip (A Proverbs 31 Wife)
2. DIY kitchen tips (Whole New Mom)
3.
4.
5.

My brother gave us two banana boxes full of beautiful red potatoes from his garden this fall. They are delicious! I am enjoying having fresh potatoes. :)

Recently, I gathered the smallest ones for Turkey Sausage and Kale Soup. It's fun to use tiny potatoes in soup and have them whole or just halved (not peeled). So pretty!

I brought my bowl of tiny potatoes into the kitchen and ran cold water over them to soak off some of the dirt. You know how dirty garden-fresh potatoes are, right? :)

After soaking them a while, it was time to scrub them. Normally my hands cramp up when scrubbing lots of tiny potatoes, so I came up with an alternative method that worked great.

Put the potatoes in a bowl with just enough water to cover them. Use a scrub brush to stir and scrub the potatoes in the bowl. Change the water as needed. Scrub and stir with the brush until potatoes are clean.

This took about 5 minutes for probably dozens of tiny potatoes! They were squeaky clean and made delicious soup. :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Neatly cutting homemade fudge (Feel Good About Dinner)
2. Rescuing old hotdog buns from the freezer (Cooking Up a Sale)

Earlier this year, Costco had a great deal on Kraft Singles using a coupon from their coupon booklet. We use processed "American Cheese" occasionally, and normally buy Costco's store brand when we buy it.

I was excited that the Singles were even more affordable, along with the convenience of being individually wrapped (great for occasional use!) and bought several boxes. I put 1 in the fridge and the others in the freezer.

A few weeks later I was organizing my freezer and the end of the box of Singles popped these words into my face: Do Not Freeze.

Oh no! Was I doomed to dozens of cheese slices that wouldn't unwrap after thawing or would otherwise be a big pain to use or not "work right"?!

Fortunately, no. I don't know why the box says "do not freeze", but I haven't noticed a bit of difference in the boxes that have been frozen. The wrapper comes off just fine, and we've used them for burgers, grilled cheese, and lots of other things with complete success. :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Pie crust tips (Whole New Mom)
2. More pie crust tips (Trial and Error Home Ec)
3. Crock pot tips and recipes (Purposely Frugal)
4. 10 tips for shopping at Costco (Cooking Up A Sale)
5. Sourdough tip (The Local Cook)
6. Cake carrier substitute (Premeditated Leftovers)

Cooking with stainless steel.

For those accustomed to using Teflon, the idea of using stainless steel for much more than boiling pasta can be a bit intimidating! I know, because I was there once too.

Even though my mom has been using her stainless steel cookware for longer than I've been alive, I honestly didn't do much cooking until after I was married -- at which point I was using my husband's Wearever Teflon pots and pans.

I loved using Teflon, but studies have shown that the fumes released during high heat are just not good for us (and DuPont, the maker of Teflon has lied about this for financial gain). (Since this isn't a post about the dangers of Teflon, I'll let you do your own further research if you desire!)

When our Teflon pans wore out, I relied on my cast iron skillet more than ever (read about cooking with cast iron here!), along with a few stainless steel pans from a garage sale. Even though my stainless steel pans weren't the highest quality (far from what I now use!) they worked well enough and keeping the health benefits in mind, using the stainless steel pans was not the nightmare I had envisioned! :)

Obviously, the quality of the stainless steel cookware will determine somewhat how easy it is to use.

In a nutshell, when looking for stainless steel cookware (at thrift stores or even brand new) the best options are 18/10 stainless steel (18/8 is all right as well) and have either a thick multi-ply bottom or else multiple layers all the way through (like All-Clad or Multi-Clad), which help conduct the heat evenly. Pans that are thin just burn too easily. If you do a lot of cooking, good cookware is an investment that you'll be enjoying every day!

Tips from my personal experience with stainless steel cookware

1. Keep the heat at medium or below (sometimes higher but never above medium-high!) and keep an eye on what you're cooking. Stir, check, and adjust the heat as you learn about your cookware and even your stove. (The electric burners on my stove are all very different from each other! Truly!)

2. Don't be afraid to add some oil (for frying) or water (for re-heating leftovers). I often refer to package instructions for the best way to cook different frozen veggies. I've learned when I prefer to use my pan lids, and when I prefer to leave the pan uncovered. Usually it's just a matter of experience and trial and error for the various foods! :)

3. Don't expect stainless steel to cook exactly like Teflon cooks. But since I do have a high-quality set of cookware, I haven't had issues with sticking food or burning things. (It is amazing how much difference the quality of the cookware makes when it comes to food sticking!!)

There is one exception though. I am still experimenting with the best way to cook scrambled eggs in stainless steel. (Cast iron seems to work better for eggs, usually.) Sometimes my eggs don't stick a bit; other times they stick a lot. I'm guessing that there is a perfect balance of pre-heating time/temp, oil, and cooking temperature (which of course is affected by the number of eggs thrown into the skillet!) and I just haven't figured out how to do it on my stove. Yet. :) (Anyone have tips for this??)

UPDATE: I tried your suggestions and now making scrambled eggs in my stainless steel cookware is easy and successfully non-stick every time!!

4. If something is stuck on stainless steel, I usually just do a soak in soapy water and it wipes clean the next day. If you're in a hurry or have a particularly annoying stuck-food issue, Bar Keeper's Friend works wonders. It's mild and effective. You could also put some water in the pan and bring it to a boil, to loosen the food.

5. While it is certainly safe to use metal utensils on stainless steel, they will leave small scratch marks on the cookware. This is mostly cosmetic, though larger scratches could increase sticking.

For these reasons, I have personally opted to use only wooden/bamboo, silicone, or nylon utensils whenever they will touch the cookware. I do still have two of my "garage sale pans" and use metal serving utensils with those. They are very scratched but still don't stick much, as long as I've followed rules #1 and 2 above! ;)

6. Bonus tip: How to make perfect fried eggs in a stainless steel skillet

Does anyone have any tips to add to my list?

Here is my review of the stainless steel cookware we own!

Originally published in April, 2009

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link in a comment here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please! We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Homemade breadcrumbs (A Proverbs 31 Wife)
2. Keep a running grocery list (Recipes Happen)

This week's Kitchen Tip Tuesdays is being hosted by Jessica at Good Cheap Eats. Head over to Good Cheap Eats to read her kitchen tip and share yours there!

At home, I love making coffee with my Aero Press. But, I didn't bring it with me on this trip to my parents' house. Even though it's small enough to easily take traveling, I don't drink coffee daily and already had tons of stuff to bring for 6 people. :)

Here at my mom's house, I've been using their drip coffee maker. At first, the coffee tasted watery to me. It seemed like the first coffee dripping through had hardly "brewed" at all!

My solution?

Use two coffee filters instead of one. The coffee filters more slowly and is much darker and stronger.

Does anyone else use two coffee filters instead of one? :)

Costco coffee I brought with me as a gift, and Starbucks coffee from my sister

For more kitchen tips or to add yours, visit Good Cheap Eats!