Planning Ahead
It’s been a few months since I passed on kitchen tips, and a list has been gathering on my desk. This seemed a good time to do it since we’re now looking down the short end of the year toward, what is for most of us, the Holiday Season, when we spend more money on food and more time cooking than any other. Personally, I not only have three major dinners within six weeks, but three birthdays and an anniversary to celebrate in the month before Thanksgiving, so it really is a “Season of Giving” and I need all the help I can get.
My first tip combines the advice I offered several months ago on Party Planning, with the concerns over projected price hikes, I discussed last week. I have always believed preparing ahead for a party eased strain on the finances and the nerves. The larger the occasion, in this case plural, the further ahead you start. This year, I actually began several months ago by stocking up on butter. Now, I have made a list of all the items I’ll need for each event, have crossed off those in my supplies and am ready to move onto buying the rest. I’ve done my comparative shopping homework and have a good idea of the prices of these things, and will begin to buy those that aren’t competitive on my visits to those markets. I’ll be studying the flyers for specials on the others and include them in my weekly shopping plans. Of course, one starts with the products with long shelf lives, especially this far out, baking ingredients, canned goods, packaged foods and paper products, then on to frozen items, and finally, closer to the affairs, the fresh produce and meats.
Preparation follows the same routine. Things that need to, or can, age are done first. In the next week or so, I’ll bake my fruit cakes, then make my cheeses. I’ll also chop and freeze the onions and celery for my stuffings. That’s one of the little things that are a welcome time saver later. Although Thanksgiving pies and vegetables are made the day before, the Christmas cookies are made by the first week in December, as are the nuts, and the cakes are baked, iced and frozen by the second one. Everything needed for New Year’s is purchased by Christmas. There are many other small steps in my routine, but this is the general idea. Frankly, it’s the only way I know to avoid a slew of small problems, be able to cope with any large ones and face January 2nd with my energy, sanity and finances reasonably intact.
Some more specific tips that may help you prepare for coming events are:
1. A Microwave Neck Wrap, the type used for minor aches and stress, heated and wrapped around a bowl of dough will make it rise in half the time.
2. A Garlic Press can also be used for olives, sun dried tomatoes, capers and onions to make quick spreads, pasta sauces or to flavor dips. Hot peppers can be pressed to season foods, but should be done separately. A quick Garlic Paste or Spread can be made by dry roasting individual cloves until soft, then pressing them. The skins stay in the press for easy clean-up.
3. Ginger Root stores for months in the freezer wrapped in plastic wrap and sealed in a plastic bag. It peels, chops and grates easier frozen. Simply cut off the length you need and proceed. If you need help grating it, pierce it with a fork and hold the fork handle as you grate.
4. Graters are easily cleaned by rubbing a piece of stale bread over them, then rinsing with hot water.
5. The Hardware Store is an untapped source of inexpensive kitchen utensils. Painter’s palette knives are excellent spatulas, especially the off-set ones to replace icing spatulas. A welders brush is a great grill brush, a yard of a small-link chain can used as a blind baking weight for pie crusts, tin sheers make great poultry sheers and super fine steel wool is gentler on metal, glass and ceramic baking dishes than most scouring pads. If you use your ingenuity, you’ll find many more!
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7. Newspapers are a true friend. Not only can they protect a stove top from splatter, but to drain fried food, save on paper towels by placing several layers of newspapers under just one layer of paper towels. The very best way to clean glass surfaces, windows, mirrors, table tops, is to wipe the surface with plain water and rub it dry with newspaper. The chemicals in the ink are the secret.
8. Spice Grinding can be easy using a cheap peppermill from a Dollar Store. I keep several with different whole spices like cloves, cumin, cardamom and allspice, and even a few seed herbs such as caraway and anise. Freshly ground spices do taste better.
9. A Kitchen Scale can get messy or become difficult to read when weighing large items or cuts of meat. Simply put a lightweight cake stand, or make one from a bowl or cup and a plate wide enough to hold the thing to be weighed on the scale and set the tare to zero.
10. Plastic Bags save time by preventing sticky hands when multi-tasking in the kitchen. Use one as a glove to grease pans and cookie sheets. I use two to kneed cookie dough. Also a plastic bag under a grater collects the shavings making clean-up easier.
11. Parchment Paper is great for baking all sorts of things, but it often curls, especially on cookie sheets. To stop this, place refrigerator magnets on the corners, until the weight of the food holds it down. Often I have odd sized ends left after cutting the paper to fit the pan. I used to throw them away, but now I save them to use between pancakes, French toast even crepes that I make ahead for events. They keep the individual pieces separate for easy access and re-heating.
12. Roasting Peppers is much neater if you do it on foil lined cookie sheet. After roasting, simply crimp the foil over to enclose them and let them steam, then remove the skins and throw the foil, with all the caramelized juices and the skins away. Skip using paper bags.
13. Cupcakes are in demand for many functions, school, club, family, over holidays, but they can get messy from baking to transporting to eating. A way to avoid this is to bake them with an occasion appropriate topping, some cinnamon and sugar, colored sugars, jimmies, a candied cherry or other fruits. Then cut the baked cupcakes in half horizontally and ice them like layer cakes. They wrap easily, are a cinch to pack and are neater to eat, especially in little hands. Plus, being different they have a novel appeal.
So there you have a “Baker’s Dozen” of tips, and hints to ease your way through the upcoming season. I truly hope they help to make things easier for you and the months ahead less stressful. The main thing to remember is not to procrastinate. Calculate what you have to do, how long it will take, how much can be done in advance and then GET STARTED. You’ll be glad you did!
