easy kitchen tips Archives - Page 12 of 21 - One Hundred Dollars a Month

Should You Wash Your Chicken Before Cooking?

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By Mavis Butterfield on August 27, 2013 · 39 Comments

So you know how you’re supposed to rinse your chicken and pat it dry before cooking it? Yeah, well, at least, I THOUGHT you were supposed to, but it turns out, you’re not. I stumbled onto an NPR article the other day that explained that the science behind rinsing chicken is faulty. The article claimed that rinsing the chicken actually causes more harm than good, because it spreads bacteria around the kitchen because of splashing, etc. {It even provided a handy little germ-o-vision splash video to drive the point home}.

So if you’re not rinsing your bird, how do you make sure you aren’t feeding your family a not so healthy dose of Salmonella? The article stated that cooking the bird to an internal temperature of 165 will kill far more food born pathogens than rinsing.

Here’s the thing, I HATE rinsing chicken anyway. It’s gross. So, this is some of the best news I’ve heard in awhile. Still, I’m curious, will YOU still be rinsing your chicken before you cook it? Or will you happily stop?

~Mavis

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Cooking Ground Beef in the Crock Pot

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By Mavis Butterfield on July 29, 2013 · 6 Comments

With a massive amount of Zaycon ground beef in my kitchen, I had to have a plan. There’s only so much hamburger you can brown before you feel glued to your stove. So bring on my best friend Mr. Crock Pot. Seriously not sure how it took me this long to figure out this little time-saver trick. It’s so easy. Sure your hamburger will look a little different, so brace yourself for that. But it tastes the same and just saved me hours in the kitchen. Awesome possum.

Ingredients

4 lbs hamburger {Zaycon is the best!}
Garlic salt
Pepper
Onions {you can use fresh or dried}
Any other spices/seasoning your little heart desires

Directions

Place four pounds of meat in crock pot. Completely break up meat if you plan to walk away from your crock pot & leave it. The meat will cook exactly as you left it. Sprinkle seasonings on top of meat {a lot of the seasoning cooks off, so I added more than I normally would}.

Cook on low for about 5 hours or high for 2.5 hours. While waiting, go water your garden or catch up on Facebook and think to yourself how cool it is that you’ve saved yourself so much time. Once meat is completely cooked through, drain all of the fat off {You can throw frozen meat in the crock pot too, just cook for 2 hours on high and then break it up in the crock pot. Then follow the cooking instructions above}. Ignore the fact that it looks like you just cooked a bunch of brown worms, let it cool and then transfer to Ziploc bags. If you’re looking to freeze 1 lb bags, about 2.5 cups of cooked meat is equivalent to 1 lb {give or take}.

That’s it. So. Flippin. Easy.

I own 2 Crock-Pot Cook’ N Carry 6-Quart Portable Slow Cookers and LOVE them!!

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Tutorial: Hot Water Bath Canning

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By Mavis Butterfield on July 25, 2013 · 46 Comments

Because canning comes second nature to it me {I swear I could do it with my eyes closed} it never occurred to me that someone might actually want a step by step tutorial on HOW TO CAN using the hot water bath canning method until I received an email from One Hundred Dollars a Month reader Emily asking if I could post a picture tutorial. Um, yes, absolutely!

First, pop over to my canning essentials post to make sure you have everything you need.
Wash all of your canning jars {I use the dishwasher, mostly because I have a sanitize function on it, and I am lazy.}
Fill your canner with water. The water will need to completely cover your jars and lids, so how full you fill the canner with depend what size of jars you use.
Pour a 1/2 cup or so of white distilled vinegar into the water. This will help keep your canner and jars from getting a film from minerals in the water.
Bring the water in the canner to a boil. You will want to do all of these steps BEFORE you start prepping whatever you are canning, because it takes forever for the water to boil. Seriously, wars have been won and lost in the time it takes to get my canner to come to a rolling boil.
After you have prepped whatever you will be canning, heat a small sauce pan with water. When it reaches a LOW simmer, drop your lids into the pan and turn the burner off. Leave the lids to sit until you are ready to use them.
Fill your canning jars, leaving the appropriate amount of head space {space between whatever you are filling the jar with and the top of the jar}.
Now wipe all of the rims of the jars with a wet clean washcloth or paper towel. This is to remove anything that might cause the lid not to seal properly.
Place the lid on the jar and screw a ring onto the jar. Don’t over-tighten the rings, just screw it on like you are putting it away in the fridge, not like you are hoping to ask Ryan Gosling to help you open it later.
Now, fill your wire canning rack with jars and gently place the rack into the canner. The water will stop boiling the second you submerge the jars. That is normal. Make sure the jars and lids are completely covered and will be the entire time you are processing {boiling the jars}.
When the water reaches a rolling boil again, start your time. This may take awhile, don’t be worried.
While the jars are processing, lay out towels on your counter to place the jars when you remove them from the canner.
Once the timer goes off, grab your jar lifting tongs {the jars are, I’m pretty sure, as hot as the sun, so the tongs are a must} and gently lift the jars out one by one, placing them on the towels you laid out. Be careful to give each jar plenty of space on all sides, placing the hot jars too close together can result in the jars breaking. Also, accidentally hitting the hot jars on another jars equals breaking, or so I’ve heard. Ha.
You may hear a popping sound as the jars cool, that is the lids sealing. Yeah! {You may not hear that noise, either, but that doesn’t mean they are not sealing. No noise good. Noise good. Everything good.} After the jars have cooled, check the seals by pressing the middle of the lids with your finger. If lids spring back, lids are not sealed and refrigeration is necessary. You can further test it by removing the rings and lifting the jar an inch or two holding only the lid. If it stays sealed to the jar, you did good.
Now remove all of the rings for storing your canned goods, the sealed lids are good enough. Clean your jars with a wet cloth {stickiness on the jars is pretty normal, but you don’t want to store it that way, it will attract ants, etc.} and store them.

That’s basically it. In a nutshell, water bath canning is just boiling your jars of canned goods for a designated amount of time. Sheesh, I should have just said that instead of breaking it into 15 steps! Ha.

Happy Canning,

Mavis

Need a Water Bath Canner? Amazon has them in stock and ready to ship.

A few of my favorite canning books:

The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook
Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round
Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving
Put ’em Up!: A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide
Tart and Sweet: 101 Canning and Pickling Recipes for the Modern Kitchen

See More of my Canning Recipes HERE

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How to Peel Tomatoes

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By Mavis Butterfield on July 24, 2013 · 7 Comments

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s how to peel a tomato quickly. After all, when you grow boatloads of food in your backyard every summer, you tend to pick up a few tricks along the way.

How to Peel a Tomato.

Step 1 – Wash your tomatoes. If you bought your tomatoes at the store {Gasp!} then be sure and remove any pesky little stickers as well.

Step 2 – Bring a large pot of water to a boil

Step 3 – While you are waiting for the water to boil, score the bottom of your tomato {I cut the skin with a little x on the bottom of each tomato}

Step 4 – Prepare a large bowl of ice water and set it aside {I always put mine in the sink}

Step 5 – Once the water is boiling, with a slotted spoon, carefully place about 3 or 4 tomatoes in boiling water for about 30 seconds {or until the peel splits.

Step 6 – Once the peel on the tomato has split, using the slotted spoon carefully remove the tomato and place it in the bowl of ice water.

Step 7 – Let the tomatoes sit in the ice water for a few minutes to cool down, then core and peel the tomatoes.

That’s it. Wasn’t that easy? Now you know how to peel a tomato. 🙂

Heirloom Salsa, it rocks! {You can use store bought tomatoes too } 😉

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.