I wrote this post after many, many years of failing at making sourdough bread and maintaining a sourdough starter. It took me years, tons of research, and experimentation to find out where I was going wrong and how to fix it. 

And I’m happy to report I have finally fixed it.

I’m finally to the point, after more than 10 years of attempting sourdough, that I’m getting great results every time, and have been keeping my sourdough starter alive and thriving for more than a year. 

All those failures have inspired this post. I hope you can learn from my years of mistakes so you can get to the point of making delicious sourdough bread at home much quicker than I did. 

Maybe you’re making just one or two of these mistakes, or maybe you’re making all of them like I was. Either way, these tips should steer you in the right direction.

1. Your Starter is the Wrong Consistency

I used to make my sourdough starter the consistency of a thin pancake mix, and it was always going bad, getting too sour, and not rising when I’d make my dough.

Then I learned that the consistency should be much thicker; you shouldn’t be able to easily pour it out of its container; it should be a halfway mix between pancake mix quality and actual workable bread dough. 

Ever since I made this change, things have been going much better. My starter doesn’t get so hungry because it has more flour in the ratio, and it lasts much longer between feeds. 

2. Not Feeding the Starter Frequently Enough

Is there a chance you’re accidentally starving your starter?

Sourdough starter, especially in the first few days and weeks, needs very frequent feedings, sometimes multiple times per day. The yeast and bacteria are hungry and need to feed in order for your bread to rise and taste delicious. 

3. You’re Making a Sourdough Starter from Scratch

I’m not saying that it’s impossible to make your own sourdough starter successfully, but if you’re brand new to this, it’s way easier to buy a sourdough starter than it is to start from scratch.

There’s such a steep learning curve when it comes to making your own bread, and if you’re skipping the yeast and making your own starter, it’s even harder. 

Personally, I found it was really difficult to know if I was doing it right or not.

Having no experience making my own starter, trying to make one with just a bag of flour and some water was a bit too much for me. But if you want to give it a go, here’s how you can make your own sourdough starter.

I didn’t find success until I purchased a sourdough starter online and simply rehydrated it and fed it. I bought my sourdough starter online from Homestead and Chill and followed her blog directions precisely for how to rehydrate it. Then also followed her instructions for baking a sourdough boule, and it worked perfectly. 

Speaking of which….

4. Not Following the Directions Exactly

This was a big mistake I made over and over again. I didn’t understand for the longest time that baking is so much different from cooking.

When cooking, you can kind of fly by the seat of your pants, you can experiment, change ingredients, change amounts of ingredients to your taste, and it usually works out just fine. 

In baking, not so much. It’s so important to follow the directions on any given recipe exactly. Adding in just the right amount of each ingredient at the right times, following resting and rising times as closely as possible, and following the baking instructions.

Baking is chemistry; it needs to be done with the right things and in the right order to get it just right. Wait until you’re a few years into baking bread before you start experimenting.

5. Feeding the Starter the Wrong Kind of Flour

I did this one lots of times over the years.

Flour is flour, right? Wrong.

There are so many different types of flour out there, and it does make a huge difference in your sourdough success, especially within the first few weeks.

After your sourdough starter is established, you can play around with adding some different types of flour, but for the first few weeks, stick with the basics. Baby sourdough starters are delicate, fragile little ecosystems that need just the right amount and type of everything in order to survive. 

Don’t use bleached flour, wheat flour, rye flour, or any of the other types of flour out there. 

Plain white all-purpose flour without any weird additives is the best thing to use for sourdough starter.

If you want some extra gold stars, you can use bread flour, which has higher protein and will help create stronger gluten development. If you want a high five on top of your gold stars, use organic flour. 

But truly, all-purpose unbleached white flour will do the trick.  

Related Reading: 8 Easy & Delicious Sourdough Discard Recipes

6. Adding Water That’s Too Hot

Many people suggest adding warm water to your sourdough starter or bread dough to encourage it to ‘wake up’ quicker, and it does indeed work, but only if the water is the correct temperature. Adding water that’s too hot can kill the yeast in the starter, meaning your bread won’t rise at all. 

I personally like to add room temperature water to my sourdough starter and bread dough, then keep the dough or starter in a warm place while it’s fermenting. That way, I know I haven’t killed off the yeast with hot water, and I’m still giving it the warmth it needs to thrive and help my dough rise. 

7. Not Weighing Your Ingredients

All the best sourdough books and blogs have the ingredients listed in weights for a reason. It’s so easy to over or under-measure using measuring cups. 

Flour easily gets compacted, and you can add way too much without realizing it. Get a simple kitchen scale and keep it handy; weigh all of your ingredients while adding them so you’ll know you have the right ratios. 

This one simple thing has made the biggest difference in my success with baking sourdough bread. 

8. Adding Too Much Flour

Most sourdough breads are made with a very wet, high-hydration dough. This dough can be so wet when you first mix it that you can’t even touch it without it completely covering your hands in a sticky mess. 

For many years I saw this sticky mess and thought, there’s no way that this is correct; it needs more flour so I can knead it. And I’d keep adding flour until it was workable, which resulted in dense bread that didn’t taste great. 

After watching many a YouTube video and reading several books on sourdough, I discovered that you truly do want the dough to be very wet, and you really don’t need to handle it much right after mixing it. Instead, doing a series of dough stretches helps the dough to develop gluten without you getting all messy and having to knead it. 

Giving the dough time to sit and doing stretches with it while it sits all help the dough to come together and not be so unmanageable. 

Don’t give in to the temptation to keep adding flour until you can easily work with the dough; this will lead to the resulting bread being very dense.

9. Baking In the Wrong Container or No Container at All

I tried for years to bake my bread on a pizza stone, sliding it into the hot oven on a pizza peel, like the pros do. 

But what I didn’t realize? The pros have professional ovens. 

Their ovens get super hot, heat evenly, produce steam, and blow air. Mine just blows. My oven is 10+ years old; I’m working with old technology that can’t even heat a casserole properly. 

After I failed so very many times baking on a pizza stone, I switched to baking in a cast iron dutch oven, and it changed everything. 

Many sourdough recipes call for this style of baking because it works so wonderfully. Sourdough boules need moisture and steam during baking in order to achieve the perfect oven spring and for the crust to get that perfect consistency. Baking in a dutch oven creates a space full of steam without any real effort from you. 

Pro tip: if your bread is getting burnt on the bottom in the dutch oven, try putting a cookie sheet on the oven rack directly below the dutch oven toward the end of baking. 

10. Not Making an Autolyse Before You Bake

I skipped the step of making an autolyse for many years. It seemed such an unnecessary hassle to make a dough before I made the dough. But really, it makes a huge difference, and now that I know the reasons behind making the autolyse, it makes way more sense to do it every time. 

What’s an autolyse?

To make an autolyse, you mix the flour together with some or all of the water in the bread recipe, but leave out the sourdough starter and the salt. You let the flour and water mixture sit for a minimum of 10 minutes, and as long as overnight, so the flour can fully hydrate and the gluten gets a head start on developing. 

This makes for much better-tasting sourdough bread with a perfect structure. 

The purpose of the autolyse: 

• Gives the flour time to fully hydrate
• Increases elasticity of the dough
• Makes less kneading work for you
• Helps gluten develop
• Improves the flavor of the bread

This is really such a magical step when you think about it; it’s a tiny bit of work upfront to save you lots of work later. And really, you need to mix these ingredients together no matter what. You’re just doing it earlier in the process. 

11. Not Using Trusted Recipes and Techniques

Every bread baker has their own way of doing things, and all of them believe theirs is the best. 

Strong opinions run rampant in the sourdough bread community. The good thing is these bakers have spent years, some even decades, perfecting their craft, and many of them are kind enough to share their tips with you. 

I’ve found one of the best things I did to step up my sourdough game is to really take a deep dive into these resources and read, read, read.

It pays to take some time to research and think about which style might work best for you. Whichever one you choose, follow their schedules and recipe exactly. They do it a certain way for a reason. You may not think it matters if you let the dough sit for 10 minutes before working with it, but it definitely does. 

These are the books and websites that helped me the most during my sourdough journey. I hope they’ll help you too.

The Perfect Loaf by Maurizio Leo

Artisan Sourdough Made Simple by Emilie Raffa

Homestead and Chill – Blog

Now that you know all the mistakes that I made with my bread-baking adventures, you can avoid them and hopefully not make any of your own. Have fun with this new adventure; baking with sourdough is so versatile and delicious. It’s really one of the most rewarding homesteading hobbies.

I hope this post helps you to finally master sourdough bread baking! 

The post How I Finally Learned to Bake Sourdough Bread: 11 Mistakes I Fixed appeared first on Rural Sprout.

The kitchen is a great place to start if you’re looking for ways to cut the amount of waste your household produces. You already know what to do with all those old coffee grounds, but what if you’re a tea-drinking household?

Used tea leaves are pretty useful around the home and garden, so before you open the trash bin, here are 30 clever uses for used tea bags.

Body and Beauty

1. Banish Puffy Eyes

Whether you had a poor night of sleep or a great night on the town, puffy eyes in the morning are never a good look. Moisten used tea bags and place them over your eyelids or just below your eyes. Now spend the next five minutes meditating on how grateful you are for tannins that help reduce puffiness and caffeine’s antioxidant properties, which your skin is absorbing. Voila! Who went to bed at 2:00 on a work night? Not you.

2. Soothe Itchy Bug Bites

Tannins do wonderful things for the skin. They act as an astringent, which is great news when you’ve got an itchy bug bite. Place a warm tea bag on the bite to help draw out the toxins which cause the itch while simultaneously soothing the bite. Be sure you use black tea, as that is where the tannins come from.

3. Treat a Sunburn

Gently swipe sunburned skin with a cool, wet chamomile or black tea bag to bring relief. If your skin is especially tender, soak the used tea bags in a cup of water and put the water in the fridge. You can use a clean spray bottle to spritz the cold, weak tea solution onto sunburned skin.

4. Poison Ivy Rash Relief

For much the same reason tea soothes bug bites, it can also relieve poison ivy itch. Steep used black tea bags in a cup of warm water, then put the weak tea solution in the fridge to cool. Spray the cold tea onto the affected areas and allow it to dry. Don’t rub the areas, as you can make the rash worse.

5. Make Pimples Disappear Faster

Place a warm, damp tea bag on a pimple to bring it to a head. A warm tea bag compress can also bring relief from painful cystic acne. The antimicrobial properties in the tannins in black tea are great for the skin, and a weak tea solution makes a great facial toner to prevent breakouts. Green tea is the perfect tea to use on the skin.

6. Clarifying and Conditioning Hair Treatment

If you use any hair products to style your hair, it’s important to clarify your hair and scalp at least once a month to remove build-up. A great way to know when it’s time to clarify is if your normal styling products don’t seem as effective as they normally are.

Use spent tea bags to brew up a clarifying and conditioning hair tea. Using both black tea and herbal teas adds a double bonus for hair. The tannins in black tea will gently break down any product build-up on the hair and scalp, and if you use an herbal tea like chamomile or peppermint, both are great for your hair, leaving it smooth and shiny

Pour the tea onto washed, wet hair and massage it into your scalp before rinsing with cool water. For best results, allow the tea to sit on your hair and scalp for a few minutes before rinsing.

7. Herbal Tea Bath

Soften and soothe your skin with your favorite herbal teas. If you’re an herbal tea drinker, you’ve probably already noticed how many herbs that are good to drink are equally good for your skin. Save your tea bags for a soothing aromatherapy bath.

8. Natural Mouthwash

If you’re not a huge fan of the mouth-burning minty mouthwash options on the market, there is a better way. Create a natural mouthwash using spent tea bags. Tea has natural antimicrobial properties, and it’s the bacteria hanging out in our mouths that leads to bad breath. Brew up a weak tea solution to rinse and gargle with after you brush for fresh breath without the burn.

9. Clean Smelly Hands

If you’ve been chopping up onions and garlic for your favorite dish or handling fish or seafood, you know how hard it can be to get those smells off your hands. Regular hand soap won’t do it. Wet a tea bag and scrub your skin with it. The black tea will deodorize your hands in no time, then simply wash your hands with regular soap.

10. Honey Tea Mask

Whether it’s black tea, green tea or herbal tea, they’re nearly all good for your skin. If you want to treat yourself to a quick and easy spa day at home, mix the tea leaves from a spent tea bag with two tablespoons of honey. Gently rub the mixture on your face and let it sit for 5-10 minutes. Rinse with cool water and moisturize. Avoid using teas with spices like cinnamon or black pepper, as these can irritate the tender skin on your face.

11. Soothe Your Aching Dogs

If you’ve been on your feet all day, there’s nothing more relaxing than a good foot soak. Add in a couple of used black tea bags, and the tannins will help to soften and deodorize your feet. If you’ve got a used peppermint tea bag, toss it in for a cool and refreshing foot soak.

12. Herbal Tea Facial

Fill a bowl with boiling water, then add your leftover herbal and green tea bags. Place a towel over your head and lean over the hot water allowing the steam to open your pores. Breathe in the scent of the herbs in your tea. Ahhhh, that’s better. The oils from the herbs are carried on the steam, infusing your skin with a trace of soothing chamomile, green tea, peppermint or whatever herbal tea you use.

In the Home

13. Refrigerator Refresher

Black tea is great at absorbing odors, so tuck a few used tea bags in a jar and place it in the back of your fridge. The leaves will lock in odors and absorb extra moisture to keep your fridge fresh and tidy. You can always add more bags as you use them, but change them up every couple of weeks for the best results.

14. Get Sparkling Clean Glass

If you want clean windows and mirrors without the smell of ammonia or vinegar, grab a few used tea bags. Moisten them and use them to clean the glass or brew a weak tea to spray on and wipe off. Hint – paper coffee filters are awesome for cleaning glass and don’t leave lint or streaks behind.

15. Add Flavor to Pasta and Grains

Use tea bags to flavor pasta, rice, quinoa and even oatmeal. Add tea bags to the water when making your pasta or grains to add subtle flavor to your dishes. Get creative; the possibilities are endless – chamomile quinoa, cinnamon spice oatmeal, and Earl Grey rice are just a few suggestions to get you started.

16. Peppermint Tea to Deter Mice

If you enjoy peppermint tea, stash your dried peppermint tea bags in your pantry, in the dark corner of your cabinet, under the sink and anywhere else mice might like to hide. The strong smell of peppermint is a natural deterrent to these tiny little critters.

If you don’t drink peppermint tea, that’s okay too. Dab peppermint essential oil or extract onto dried black tea bags. They’re just as effective.

17. Carpet Freshener

Ditch those horribly-perfumed powdered carpet refreshers and opt for something more natural (and free). Save your used tea bags and allow them to dry until they are slightly damp. Open the tea bags and sprinkle the damp tea leaves over your carpet. Allow them to dry out overnight. As they dry, they will absorb odors in your carpet. Vacuum up the tea leaves the next morning, and you’ll have a fresh-smelling carpet.

18. Litter Box Deodorizer

Sprinkle dry tea leaves in your cat’s litter. The natural deodorizing qualities of black tea can help to control one of the most pronounced pet smells. Of course, this won’t eliminate the smell; the only way to do that is to be diligent in keeping a tidy litter box. However, adding tea leaves can go a long way in helping to minimize the smell of cat urine.

19. Save Elbow Grease by Cutting the Grease

Soak a few used tea bags in your dishwater to add the power of tannins to your suds. Tannins naturally break down grease, making doing the dishes less of a chore. You can even use the tea bags to scrub your pots and pans.

20. Clean and Shine Wood Floors

Using tea to shine and clean wood floors is an age-old secret. Black tea brings out the beauty in wood flooring and leaves it super shiny without making it too slick to walk on. Steep your used tea bags in hot water and at it to your mop bucket, or spray directly on the floor before wiping off. You can also use it to clean and shine wood furniture.

21. Create “Antique” Crafts

If you do any needlepoint or paper crafts, you can use spent tea bags to create pieces with an aged, antique look. Soak your needlework fabric in water with a couple of used tea bags to give the fabric a slightly yellowed look. If it’s uneven, so much the better.

You can also create yellowed paper by brushing a weak tea solution onto cardstock and paper. This gives the project a look of being much older than it is.

22. Tenderize Meat

Use a cup of water, a used black tea bag, and your favorite herbs and spices to create the perfect marinade. Not only will it flavor the meat, but the tea’s tannic acid will help tenderize even the toughest cuts of meat.

23. Clean a Smelly Cutting Board

It’s important to take good care of wooden cutting boards if you want them to last. If you have a cutting board that smells like onions or garlic after your best efforts to clean it, don’t despair. Use a warm, damp tea bag and wipe down the entire surface of the cutting board. Let the tea-soaked board air dry. Bye-bye, stinky board.

24. Herbal Sachets

Save spent herbal tea bags to scent drawers and closets. Be sure the bags are completely dry before tucking them in the back of a drawer or closet shelf. Use a few black tea bags for their natural deodorizing properties.

25. Protect Cast Iron with Black Tea

If you own a cast iron teapot, you already know that the tannins in tea prevent it from rusting. Keep your cast iron looking great by wiping the entire surface with a slightly damp tea bag. Use this trick each time you’ve washed and dried your cast iron skillet, or use it before putting away pieces you don’t use that often.

26. Easy Tea bag Fire Starters

If you love camping or have a fireplace at home, this tip is for you. Make fire starters using dried tea bags and paraffin wax. Be sure the tea bags are completely dry first, then dip them into melted paraffin and lay them on a sheet of parchment paper or tin foil. Once the wax is set up, store your fire starters in a tin or baggie. These are especially great when you use old cinnamon tea bags.

27. Deodorize Stinky Shoes

A dried tea bag tucked into each shoe is a great way to help absorb extra moisture after wearing them. The tea leaves are also a natural deodorizer and will help to keep stinky foot odors at bay. Just don’t forget to remove the tea bags before your wear your shoes.

Around the Garden & Outside

28. Fungal Plant Protection

Prevent fungal diseases before they start by spraying plant leaves and watering the soil with a weak tea solution. The tannins will prevent the growth of many fungal diseases. This works well both in the garden and in your houseplants.

29. Car Air Freshener

Tuck dry tea bags under each seat in your car for a natural air freshener. Not only will you enjoy the smell of whatever tea you use, but the leaves will help absorb odor and moisture in your car. If you want something with a bit more scent, dab your favorite essential oil on the tea bag first. You get a burst of fragrance and a deodorizer in one.

30. Compost

Anyone with a sharp eye will notice that most ideas for reusing spent tea bags still land you with a used tea bag when you’re done. And you would be right. When you’re finished giving your tea bags another go, you can always compost them.

Granted, some tea bags can’t be composted; I’m looking at you, fancy plastic tea pyramids. But more and more tea manufacturers are switching to tea bags that can be composted, so always read your packaging first.

The post 30 Brilliant Ways To Reuse Tea Bags Around Your Home & Garden appeared first on Rural Sprout.

Greetings, Witches and Vampires! Welcome, Werewolves and Zombies! The glow of ghostly grins on the front porch means Halloween is nearly upon us.

Carving Jack-o-lanterns is a time-honored tradition that most of us look forward to each year. That is until we’re up to our elbows in pumpkin goop, and we’ve bent three different knives trying to cut into the silly thing. It’s about this time that we remember how much work this tradition is.

I’ve got a dozen pumpkin carving hacks to make this year’s jack-o-lanterns your easiest, longest lasting and best looking yet.

1. Give Your Pumpkin a Vinegar Bath

Make your pumpkins last longer with vinegar.

An hour before you carve your pumpkins, spray them down with a water and vinegar solution. Mix water and white vinegar 10:1 and either spray or wipe down the outside of the pumpkins until they glisten. Let the vinegar solution sit on your pumpkin for fifteen minutes before wiping it dry.

The vinegar will kill any surface yeasts or bacteria that can cause your pumpkin to rot faster.

2. Bottoms Up!

Cutting the top of the pumpkin to remove the insides always presents problems.

• If you cut it too straight, the lid falls inside the pumpkin after a day or two
• Trying to get the lid back on the right way
• Getting a candle to sit upright on the slick and lumpy pumpkin bottom
• And the awful sagging and sinking that starts to happen after a few days

Save yourself the headache and cut a hole in the bottom of the pumpkin instead. Set it on your lap or in a bowl to scoop and carve. When you have finished, you can set the pumpkin over the candle or light you’re using. If you cut a large enough hole, it allows the pumpkin to sit level.

3. Wear Gloves and Long Sleeves

Pumpkins contain three different naturally occurring acids – citric, malic and fumaric. Quite a few high-end beauty products contain pumpkin for this reason. But for those with sensitive skin, carving a pumpkin can leave our hands and arms itchy and tingling.

Protect delicate skin by wearing disposable or kitchen gloves and a long-sleeved shirt that you don’t mind getting dirty.

4. Grab Your Trusty Hand Mixer for ‘Pumpkin Guts’

Whip out your trusty hand mixer and use it to wind up and scrape away the worst of the mess. This trick works best with just one beater attached. Make circular passes inside the pumpkin, clean the beater, and dump the remains. Now you’ve only got a little bit of scooping left to do.

5. Ice cream scoop

Speaking of scooping, use an ice cream scoop to remove the remaining stringy flesh inside your pumpkin. Metal ice cream scoops are meant for scooping rock-hard ice cream, so a pumpkin is no match for them.

If you have an especially thick pumpkin, use the ice cream scoop to thin the inside wall of the side you wish to carve. Thinning out the walls first will make carving much easier.

6. Ditch the Sharpie

Rarely does a design get drawn perfectly on the pumpkin in the first go. Using a permanent marker often leads to frustration in the smaller pumpkin-carving artists of the family. (And swearing in the older ones.)

Instead of a Sharpie, use a dry-erase marker. That way, if you make a mistake, you can easily wipe it off and try again. When you’re finished, if you still have any visible tracing lines, they will wipe right off.

7. Choose the Right Knife

Skip the kitchen knives for carving pumpkins. We want Halloween to be spooky-scary, not go-to-the-ER-scary. Use a serrated pumpkin carving knife. The teeth are not sharpened, making them much safer for all ages.

Plus, because they are sawing through the pumpkin flesh, space is created where you cut. A knife easily gets pinched and stuck in the pumpkin when slicing into it. Not that I’ve ever had that happen personally.

8. Get Out the Power Tools

Have an adult grab the drill and drill bits. Using an electric drill, you can make some cool designs, like your favorite constellation or a dot-to-dot of your favorite Avenger.

If you use a tiny drill bit, like a 1/16, you can use it as a tiny saw and cut out shapes quickly and easily. But again, let’s avoid the ER, wipe down your pumpkin with a towel, so it’s nice and dry and only let an adult operate the power tools.

9. Rubber Mallet & Cookie Cutters

If you want a quick and easy jack-o-lantern, dig through your cookie cutters. Use a metal cookie cutter and a rubber mallet to cut shapes and letters into your pumpkin. Just be sure the pumpkin is thin enough for the cookie cutter to penetrate all the way through. If it isn’t, see tip #5 again.

10. Make Sure Jack Doesn’t Get Chapped Lips

Once you’re all finished, use petroleum jelly to line around the cut edges. This creates a barrier that prevents your pumpkin from drying out and keeps mold, yeast and bacteria (which will cause it to spoil faster) from getting in.

11. Ground Cinnamon

If you use the traditional candle to light your pumpkins, sprinkle the inside of your carved pumpkin with ground cinnamon. The heat from the candle will turn Jack into a natural pumpkin spice air freshener. Mmm, it smells like pie in here!

12. Don’t forget to save the seeds

And, of course, don’t forget to save those seeds! I’ve got a trick to get the tastiest and crunchiest roasted pumpkin seeds ever.

You might even want to save a few to grow your own pumpkins next year.

If you’ve got more pumpkins than you know what to do with, we’ve got you covered there too.

The post 12 Pumpkin Carving Hacks for Your Easiest, Spookiest Jack-o’-Lantern appeared first on Rural Sprout.

Among my friends, I’m known as a dab hand in the kitchen and garden. However, my family knows better. They see all the kerfuffles, gardening-endeavors-gone-wrong, terrible meals, and dead houseplants it’s taken for me to become the domestic goddess everyone else mistakes me for.

Much of my knowledge comes at the cost of learning what not to do before figuring out that amazing thing that works every time. While this stinks for me, it’s great for you – I fail, so you don’t have to.

So, when it came time to purchase my first food dehydrator, I failed miserably. Of course.

Read on so you don’t make the same mistake.

Why Should You Buy a Food Dehydrator in the First Place?

Gardening and foraging generally leave you with more food than you can eat before it goes bad. If you do either, you learn pretty quickly how to preserve your bounty. Because there’s nothing worse than putting in the hard work of growing or finding food and then watching it go bad on your counter.

Okay, that’s great, Tracey, but why dehydrate stuff in the first place? Isn’t freezing it or canning it better?

Yes.

And no.

A Backup Plan

Whenever you decide to preserve food, using more than one method is the way to go. If one method fails, for instance, the deep freezer you keep in the garage dies, you will presumably still have canned and dehydrated food to supplement your losses.

Different Preservation Means Different Food Experiences

Food behaves differently depending on how it’s preserved, especially with our limited tools at home. Take mushrooms, for example. In theory, yes, you can freeze them, but once they’re thawed…yeah, I’m a huge mushroom fan, and even I don’t want to eat that slimy mush. However, dehydrated mushrooms that have been reconstituted properly are nearly as good as fresh.

What you plan on doing with your preserved food often determines the method of preserving it.

Dehydrated Food is Efficient

Dehydrating food for storage is a great choice if you’re short on space or want food that will last. Once the water is removed, it takes up much less space than, say, canned or frozen food. Dehydrated foods have a much longer shelf life than other methods of food preservation. And once it’s dehydrated, no further energy is needed to keep it fresh.

I know most of you are thinking, “Okay, so use your oven to dehydrate things.”

Your oven is a great place to start. But you soon learn that an oven has its drawbacks, mainly temperature control. Most ovens can’t be set lower than 150-170F, and that’s problematic when dehydrating.

The higher heat from cooking causes chemical reactions that change the color and flavor of food – think of how much better browned meat tastes or how much sweeter roasted veggies are because of the caramelization of their natural sugars.

When dehydrating foods, we simply want to reduce the water content, not cook them, so lower temperatures are called for.

Other factors that make an oven less-than-ideal is the fact that you’re tying up a major appliance for hours on end. It can make preparing meals a pain if you’re waiting on that batch of apple slices that need eight hours to dry. And depending on your model, your oven may not have an internal fan to circulate air, which helps in the dehydration process.

Everyone Loves a Trainwreck

Since I know this is why most of you clicked, yes, I bought a crappy food dehydrator on Amazon.

And got exactly what I paid for.

Two months after buying my dehydrator, I spent a Saturday drying some beautiful maitake mushroom I had foraged the previous day. I felt funny all afternoon like I had mild food poisoning. My stomach was queasy, and I had a headache. I couldn’t figure out why I felt so bad and chalked it up to a night of poor sleep. (Yay, middle age!)

That is until I went to swap the topmost tray with the bottom one and noticed my dehydrator had gone all surrealist on me.

Suddenly, I realized I felt so awful because I had been breathing in the smell of slowly melting plastic all afternoon.

Lucky for me, the dehydrator was kind enough to wait until just after the return window closed before deciding to have its little meltdown.

Out of curiosity, I opened a jar of mushrooms I had dried the week before and sniffed – plastic. In the end, everything dried with this thing went in the garbage. I didn’t feel safe eating it.

I still don’t know what makes me angrier – having to replace a kitchen appliance I had for only two months or throwing away all the food impregnated with melting plastic fumes.

Why I Won’t Buy Another Stacking Countertop Model (& maybe you shouldn’t either)

I wasn’t all that impressed with this thing, to begin with. It was incredibly underpowered at 350W and took nearly three times as long as suggested in the manual for veggies to dry. I made dehydrated mirepoix with it, and it took a solid thirty hours to dehydrate celery.

The controls allowed you to choose a temperature range rather than a specific temperature. This is quite common on these types of smaller food dehydrators.

When I tested the temperature output using an infrared thermometer, it was never the range at which it was set.

It fluctuated wildly, sometimes being ten degrees cooler or hotter than its intended temperature range – not great if you need consistent heat for things like jerky.

It came with five stacking trays, but because of the design, with the heating element and fan on the bottom, using all five trays at once meant I was constantly left with food on the top two trays that wasn’t dried. I had to shuffle the trays every hour to ensure even drying.

You couldn’t order more trays (you know, like, if they melted), and no other accessories were offered, so making fruit leather wasn’t an option.

The dehydrator decided to self-destruct, running on the lowest setting (95-104 degrees F), which is astonishing considering how warped the trays were. In hindsight, I’m glad I was home.

Who knows what would have happened if I had let it run all afternoon without being home.

I checked Amazon and filtered the reviews to show only one-star reviews, and sure enough, they were littered with photos of melted plastic trays and numerous grumblings of the dehydrator melting.

Unfortunately, when looking at reviews of other stacking tray models, I saw similar issues with melting trays.

I knew I needed to do my homework before making another purchase.

After a couple of months of reading Amazon reviews and articles with titles like “Top Food Dehydrators of Insert Year” and asking my electrical engineer sweetheart for electronics-purchasing advice, I knew I wasn’t going to find what I needed in a stacking tray model. I was looking for a box-style dehydrator with a fan in the back. Here are the criteria I used to choose my current food dehydrator.

What to Look for In a Food Dehydrator

Power Output

Look for 500W at the bare minimum; 600W and above is even better. I knew I wanted something with significantly more power. We would use the dehydrator quite a bit throughout the year, but mostly during the growing season. So, durability and power are a must.

Consistent Temperature

This is so important. When drying things like herbs, higher heat can cook off the volatile oils that give them their scent and flavor. Having a dehydrator that can hold a low setting is important.

Just as importantly, if you plan to dry meat or make jerky, you’ll need something that can hold a higher temperature too. Too low, and you could end up with a finished product that could make you sick.

While most manufacturers say their machines hold a consistent temperature, look for Amazon reviews where someone has tested the temperature of the model in question with an infrared thermometer or an oven thermometer.

Easy to Read and Set Controls

One of the things I wanted was a food dehydrator where I could control the temperature to the degree—no more knobs with a vague temperature range. Because, let’s face it, 95-104 degrees can mean the difference between fragrant, flavorful lemon balm and what is this unidentifiable green leaf with no flavor?  

I wanted a push-button interface with a digital screen.

Air Circulation

As I mentioned, with the heating element and fan on the bottom, I constantly had to swap trays to make sure everything dried evenly. I wanted a dehydrator where the fan was in the back so it would circulate air around the trays evenly.

Tray Spacing

We grow a lot of curly kale that we dry for smoothie powder. I wanted enough space between the trays to allow good airflow without the kale being smashed by the tray above it. This meant no more fixed-height stackable trays.

Metal Trays

For obvious health reasons. If these suckers melt, I’ll eat my hat.

Metal Construction

I wanted a mostly metal body. A food dehydrator creates heat and runs for hours; even if it functions properly and doesn’t melt, I didn’t want to smell hot plastic in my kitchen all day. Plus, metal is more durable, and I’m clumsy.

Accessories

I wanted a model with additional trays and accessories like a fruit leather mat for purchase.

UL or ETL Listing

My sweetie insisted this was the most important thing to look for. And while I agree with him, I couldn’t find any dehydrators that weren’t UL or ETL listed.

What I Ended Up Buying

Ultimately, I decided to purchase a COSORI stainless steel six-tray food dehydrator. And I love it. It ticked all the boxes and then some. It has all the features I wanted, but what won me over was its 5-star rating with almost thirteen thousand reviews. That’s an impressive track record.

It’s on the bigger side of what I would consider being a small appliance, at 17.8 x 13.5 x 12.2 inches. But it fits easily in my pantry. And when I know I will be using it for a while, I don’t mind having it on my countertop, as it’s pretty sleek.

It even came with a fruit leather mat, but you can purchase more. You can even purchase silicone mats for it.

It’s a 600W machine and has an automatic shut-off. The timer can be set in thirty-minute increments for up to 48 hours, and you can set the temperature – to the degree – anywhere from 95 to 105 degrees F. And most importantly, the temperature is accurate.

I can use all six trays at once or leave a few out to create more space. The stainless-steel metal trays are easy to clean by hand or in the dishwasher, and I usually wipe out the bottom of the unit if there’s a lot of dried herbal matter or crumbs on the bottom.

It’s easy to set the temperature and the timer, and once it’s going, the fan is surprisingly quiet.

And yes, honey, it’s ETL listed.  

I’ve dried lots of fruit, vegetables and herbs in it with ease. I’ve even used it to set the dye on some tie-dye t-shirts. As I write this, I’ve got a batch of “sun” dried tomatoes going, and the house smells amazing.

As we head into prime mushroom foraging season, I can rest easy knowing whatever I find, I’ll be able to keep this year. I won’t have to worry about throwing out mushrooms that taste like plastic.

I hope my cautionary kerfuffle helps you to make a more informed decision when purchasing your own food dehydrator.

The post My Food Dehydrator Melted – Why It Sucked & What I Replaced It With appeared first on Rural Sprout.

There are things we learn growing up, not because someone took the time to teach them to us, but because “that’s just the way we always did it.”  It’s how things were done at home, so that’s what we do now as adults.

Nowhere does this scene play out more than in the kitchen.

Butter gets stored in that funny little drawer in the fridge door; cheese gets wrapped in plastic after it’s opened, and who put the empty milk jug back in the fridge door?

Now look, I’m not saying anything against your upbringing because we did this stuff at my home too. But what if I told you we’ve been storing food incorrectly our entire lives.  

1. Butter

Can we all agree that toast is just a butter delivery mechanism? I love a good piece of toast with lots of melted butter. But there’s nothing more infuriating than trying to scrape cold butter over a piece of toast. (Unless it’s trying to put cold butter on bread.) The butter cools the toast too quickly and doesn’t melt, or you rip a hole in your toast, trying to smash the butter into submission.

It’s because we’ve been storing our butter wrong.

The best place to store butter is right on your kitchen counter. Yup, not in the fridge. The salt in salted butter preserves the butter from spoilage and inhibits bacteria growth. So, you can safely store your salted butter on the counter for weeks.

Pfft, who am I kidding? Like a stick of butter is going to last weeks in my kitchen. It’s more like days. Especially, when I make butter with my stand mixer.

Butter at room temperature tastes better as well. If you want spreadable butter with the best flavor, I suggest picking up a butter bell. The butter is stored in a little crock that is part of the lid, then inverted into the bottom part filled with water. The water keeps out air which can cause oxidation and off flavors.

Unsalted butter, generally used for baking, should still be stored in the fridge. Without the salt, the fats will quickly go rancid.

2. Eggs

This one is tough.

How you store your eggs depends partly on where you live and where you get your eggs. Many Americans are shocked to learn that eggs aren’t refrigerated in the UK (and most of Europe). You buy them off the shelf in the supermarket, like a bag of flour or a box of pasta, and when you get home…they go on the counter or in the pantry, where they will last for a few weeks.

I can hear the gasps now, “But salmonella!” and “Don’t they get sick?”

Well, no, I’m pretty sure it would be in the news if an entire continent kept getting sick from eating spoiled eggs. And salmonella isn’t an issue because they vaccinate their poultry against it in the UK.

Wait? You mean there’s a vaccine that will prevent salmonella in chicken, and we haven’t adopted it here in the US?

Yup. It’s been around since the 90s.

(Yeah, I’m not going to touch that one.)

With the salmonella issue taken care of, that leaves spoilage. I mean, don’t eggs have to be refrigerated, so they don’t go bad?

No.

Unwashed, unrefrigerated eggs do not require refrigeration.

This is because of what’s known among chicken owners as “the bloom.” The final layer in a developing egg is a special protein coating that seals the entire egg, preventing bacteria and gasses from getting in or out of the egg. This way, the yolk inside stays fresh and uncontaminated to nourish the developing chick. Or, if the egg is unfertilized, it means it is shelf-stable without refrigeration for weeks.

Once the egg is washed or refrigerated, the bloom is destroyed, and the egg’s pores will allow bacteria and oxygen to penetrate the shell, requiring refrigeration.

Wait, so you’re telling me we have an easy way of storing eggs, just as they are, for a couple of weeks to a month, with no electricity or refrigerated trucks, which would also reduce the carbon footprint for shipping and storing them, but we don’t do it here in the US? Why?

Because the FDA requires that all commercially produced eggs be refrigerated to protect against salmonella.

Yup. So, there’s that fun bit of irony.

If you buy your eggs at the store or have been previously refrigerated, they must continue to be stored in the fridge. However, if you buy your eggs from a farmer’s market or a friend with chickens, ask them if the eggs have been washed or refrigerated. If not, you can store them on your counter.

Or better yet, start your own small backyard flock and enjoy the freshest eggs you’ve ever tasted that require no refrigeration.

3. Cheese

I love cheese, and judging by the ever-increasing cheese selection in supermarkets these days, you do too. I can’t control myself when I hit the cheese counter. Ooh, that looks good, and I’ll take a couple of ounces of that too, and I think I polished off the Stilton last night.

The cheese we buy comes wrapped in plastic, and we bring it home and toss it in the fridge. We transfer it to more plastic wrap or a Ziploc baggie when we open it.

But if you’re spending the money on decent cheese, you owe it to yourself to store it properly.

You’ll end up with less food waste and more flavorful cheese.

Good cheese is a living organism; like most living organisms, it needs to breathe. So plastic is a no-go for keeping cheese at its best. This is good news if you want to reduce plastic in the kitchen.

To store cheese, opt for parchment or freezer paper.

I prefer to buy parchment sheets rather than rolls as it’s much easier to work with. Placing your unwrapped cheese in the center of your paper, wrap it up tightly, much like you would wrap a present. Then secure the paper with painter’s tape. You may need to wrap the tape around the cheese and stick it to itself. Nearly all other tape will not stick to parchment paper. Label your tape with the date and type of cheese.

If you have a drawer in your fridge for cheese, keep your paper-wrapped treasures there. If not, you can pick up a container with a lid to store the cheese, but don’t seal the lid, just set it on top.

We all know cheese can be rather pungent, so to prevent other foods from smelling like cheese, you can put a small baby food jar full of baking soda in the drawer and refresh it with new baking soda monthly.

Trust me, it might seem like extra work, but it’s worth it. You’ll be amazed at the improved flavor of your cheese. Let your cheese come to room temperature for the best flavor before enjoying it.

4. Tomatoes

This one is pretty simple. Don’t put your tomatoes in the fridge. Unless you hate tomatoes, then, by all means, put them in the fridge.

Tomatoes don’t play well with the cold.

As gardeners, we know this, so I’m always baffled by folks who put their homegrown tomatoes in the fridge. Tomatoes contain natural enzymes that are cold-sensitive. Some of these enzymes will start to break down the cell walls of the tomatoes (Frost damage, anyone?), causing that gross mealy texture we all know and loathe.

But more importantly, tomatoes stored below 54F will stop producing the enzymes that give them their quintessential tomato flavor. By storing your tomatoes in the fridge, you’re ensuring they will be tasteless.

The best reason to skip the fridge is that tomatoes will continue to ripen on the counter. If you end up with a tomato that’s a little underripe, it will taste fine after a couple of days on the counter.

5. Nuts

Store my almonds in the pantry; are you nuts?

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.

But seriously, this is one of those situations where the item in question should be stored in the fridge, but most of us rarely do. Most of us don’t give too much thought to how we store nuts.

Once you store nuts correctly, though, you’ll wonder how you stomached those gross rancid pellets you used to eat. That’s because much of the flavor in nuts come from their oils.

The natural oils in nuts are highly volatile and begin to degrade even at room temperature.

To ensure you’re eating the best tasting almonds, pecans, walnuts, peanuts, etc., keep your nuts in a tightly sealed, airtight container in the fridge.

For the best flavor, let them come up to temperature before you eat them. (You know, set them next to the cheese you’re waiting on.) You’ll be amazed at the improvement in their flavor.

6. Raw Meat

Why do we always seem to be in a rush when we get back from grocery shopping? Things get pitched in the refrigerator wherever there is a spare bit of space because we’ve got to get dinner on the table or the kids have some activity to go to.  

However, some care should be taken when storing meat in the fridge.

If you’re anything like me, you pull the meat out of your grocery bag, stuff it in the fridge, and forget about it.

In doing so, you’ve probably cleaned up plenty of gross spills and drips from doing this, also like me.

If you won’t be using the meat right away, the freezer is the best option to store meat. Most packaged meat will give you a date to use it or freeze it by, but ideally, that decision should be made as soon as you bring it home. If you aren’t using your meat within a few days, put it in the freezer.

A better way to store meat in the refrigerator is to have a storage bin on one of the shelves you can put your meat in. This way, if the packaging leaks, other food won’t be contaminated, and you have only one container that needs washing. If you want to get fancy, you can have separate containers for each type of meat: beef, chicken, and pork.

7. Milk

Aren’t those little shelves inside the door of your refrigerator great? There’s no digging through nearly empty bottles of mustard and moving last night’s leftovers to get to the milk. You open the door, and there it is.

Unfortunately, those shelves are the worst place in your fridge to store milk. You expose the milk to light and warm air whenever you open your fridge. This repeated exposure to warm air can significantly decrease the shelf life of fresh milk.

The best place to store milk is toward the back of the fridge, where it’s coldest. If your family goes through milk quickly, this is less of an issue. But if a container of milk lasts you more than a week, you should consider moving it to the lowest shelf and storing it towards the back.

This is easier to do than you think. Instead of purchasing milk in plastic jugs, opt for milk sold in cartons. Most of these have a small twist-off cap at the top of the container, meaning you can easily store your opened milk carton on its side, lengthwise.

For a few reasons, buying milk in cartons is better than plastic jugs.

The obvious reason is plastic waste. Even in an area where recycling is an option, we’re learning that most plastic doesn’t end up getting recycled.

Milk is best stored in a container that doesn’t let iin light, such as a paper carton. Light also contributes to spoilage and a loss of flavor.

And finally, even if you have a large family that goes through lots of milk each week, purchasing milk in quart-sized cartons instead of gallon jugs means fresher tasting milk and easier storage – quart-sized cartons are stackable!

Now that you’re wiser (we’ll skip the older part, it didn’t take that long to read this article), go forth and enjoy better tasting food and more room in the refrigerator.

The post 7 Foods You’ve Been Storing Wrong Your Whole Life appeared first on Rural Sprout.

There’s nothing worse than realizing you’re out of an ingredient when you’re in the middle of cooking. Maybe you used it all up and haven’t been to the store to replace it yet. Maybe you forgot about it, and it spoiled before you could use it.

For whatever reason, you’ve found yourself without an ingredient you need to get dinner on the table.

Or perhaps you’re noticing shortages of fresh ingredients at the grocery store, and you’re wondering what you can use to replace them.

When we rely on grocery stores for the bulk of our fresh ingredients, we rely on a long supply chain to make sure it arrives on the shelves. Many people have begun to see just how tenuous that whole network is during this past year.

As it’s becoming common to see empty grocery store shelves, more people are choosing to plan ahead. We’re all starting to pay closer attention to where our food comes from.

But what do you do when that supply chain is disrupted, and an item you need isn’t available, or in the reverse situation, you can’t get to the store?

Start by putting up a few dried ingredients in your pantry that can be substituted when their fresh counterpart isn’t available.

We don’t need worldly troubles to put them to good use. Having a few dried items in your pantry means you don’t have to go to the grocery store when you’re sick. When the weather is bad and you can’t get out, it’s no big deal. Of course, there’s my favorite reason to poke around in the pantry instead of heading to the store – I want to stay home and don’t want to go out.

Having a few alternatives to fresh ingredients tucked away is just as much about convenience as it is about saving for a rainy day.

Canned vs. Dried

Some of these items can already be found canned, which means they have a nice long shelf-life. So, what’s the advantage of purchasing the dried version instead of canned?

Space.

Canned goods are great, but boy, they take up a lot of room in your cupboards. And they aren’t exactly light. A bag of dried beans is much easier to tote home from the supermarket than six cans of the same amount of canned beans.

Dried goods take up far less room in your pantry than their tinned counterparts.

Grab your grocery list and a pencil, and we’ll add a few handy dried items that can be substituted for their fresh counterparts. You may even be surprised that some of these exist. (Ever since I learned of #3, I make sure I always have some on hand.)

If you plan accordingly, you’ll never get caught out when you run out of these fresh ingredients. You’ll have a dry backup in the pantry ready to save the day.

1. Powdered Milk

While it’s not something most of us want to drink every day, having powdered milk in the pantry does come in handy. I don’t know about your family, but milk is one of those items we seem to run out of the most. It’s always on the grocery list.

When you keep a box of powdered milk in the cupboard, there’s no need to make a special trip just for milk.

Not to mention it’s great to have on hand for weather emergencies. Whether you lose power from a storm and don’t have refrigeration for a while or get stuck at home due to a blizzard, you don’t have to worry about running out of milk.

2. Dried Mirepoix

Mirepoix is the French name for the mix of carrots, onions and celery that make up the foundation of so many tasty dishes. This trio is the start of good stew, soups, and fancier fare like Bolognese.

While it’s always best fresh, sometimes you find yourself with only two out of the three ingredients on hand. Or, if you’re like me, sometimes you just can’t be bothered with all of the chopping, so tossing in a cup of dried mirepoix to your soup or stew is just easier.

3. Powdered Heavy Cream

Oh my gosh, dear readers, if there is one thing off of this entire list you should start keeping around, it’s powdered heavy cream.

I discovered this stuff ages ago when I was working out my homemade keto hot cocoa mix. I wanted something extra creamy and low carb, and this did the trick.

However, I quickly found powdered heavy cream to be indispensable. I was reaching for the tub time and time again. It’s great for coffee creamer when you’re camping, without all the gross stuff in ‘normal’ coffee creamer.

I keep my powdered heavy cream in the freezer to extend the shelf life even further.

Where I live, heavy cream shortages keep popping up, and this has been a lifesaver for someone who takes heavy cream in their coffee in the morning.

4. Dried Beans

Yeah, I know what you’re going to say. The tinned ones are faster, and you would be right. However, it’s still a good idea to have a couple of bags of dried beans on hand. Again, whether it’s for emergency use or just because you don’t want to run to the store. They last much longer than tinned beans, too.

If you’re in a hurry, you don’t have to soak them overnight; use the quick-soak method to cook your beans instead. Anyone with an Instant Pot can really shave off some cooking time.

And if you’re on a budget, dried beans are the way to go.

5. Powdered Eggs

Nuts! You’re making chocolate chip cookies and go to grab the egg carton when you notice it’s suspiciously light – one egg left.

No worries, you’ve got powdered eggs in the pantry. So, you add eggs to your shopping list, grab your powdered eggs and continue baking your cookies.

While they might not make for an appealing breakfast, powdered eggs are excellent for baking emergencies. And they work quite well for emergency emergencies too.

6. Powdered Coconut Milk

This is a great vegan option for powdered milk. It’s also just great to have on hand if you do a lot of Asian cooking. It works out to be around the same price (once reconstituted) as canned coconut milk but lasts longer and takes up a lot less space in your pantry.

And for those of you who love your bulletproof coffee, a tablespoon of powdered coconut milk gives you your MCT oil without creating “greasy” coffee.

7. Cheddar Cheese Powder

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, but you can unwrinkle your nose. This isn’t that gross powdered orange stuff on Cheetos (or your preteens son’s jeans every time he eats them). Nope, this is 100% the real deal, only in powdered form.

This is another one that is kept as a ‘just in case’ but gets used far more often. Sprinkle it in scrambled eggs, dust broccoli with it for picky eaters, and sprinkle it over popcorn for movie night.

You can also store this in the freezer to help extend the shelf life.

8. Dried Onion Flakes

I’ll admit to reaching for this one even when I have fresh onions on hand. Sometimes you just don’t want to mess with the hassle of peeling and slicing an onion. Dried onion flakes are inexpensive and last nearly forever.

Whether it’s for convenience or just in case, keep a jar of dried onion flakes in your cupboard, and you’ll always have one of the most commonly used fresh ingredients on hand, no matter what.

9. Butter Powder

Again, this is another ingredient that we use all the time and that it’s very easy to find yourself missing suddenly. I don’t know how many times I’ve reached into that little flap on the door of my fridge to find it empty – no more butter.

Even when I know I have more in the freezer; sometimes the butter powder is faster.

This is another one of those things that, once I discovered it was a thing, I try to keep on hand. Butter powder is so useful when you can’t get to the store.

10. Bouillon

Homemade broth or stock is the bee’s knees, and you just can’t beat it when cooking. While I prefer to make my own stock using my Ugly Broth Bag method, there’s always at least one jar of bouillon in my pantry.

And it always gets used.

Whether it’s because of time constraints or you just forget that you’re completely out of broth, having some bouillon tucked away in the pantry can save the day. Or at least dinner.

Bouillon isn’t the greatest option to reach for every time you need broth. It usually has a lot more sodium than liquid stock or broth and almost always contains MSG. That being said, it has its place and works great in a pinch when it’s all you have on hand. Bouillon is inexpensive and has an impressive shelf-life making it the perfect rainy day pantry staple.

I know it seems like a relatively small list of items, but having each of these on hand can help you out in a pinch or offer you a buffer when the fresh items aren’t in stock at the store. Having a little food security in the back of your cupboard always makes life easier.

The post 10 Dry Substitutes for Fresh Ingredients You Should Always Have in Your Pantry appeared first on Rural Sprout.

The kitchen is probably the most cluttered room in any home. We live in a world where you need this new thing because it will cut your cooking time in half! You need this tool because it will save you money! You need this gadget because it’s going to make your life so much easier!

But, before you know it, your kitchen drawers and cupboards are bursting with stuff, stuff that was supposed to make cooking easier. If that’s the case, then why does it always seem so overwhelming?

Maybe it’s time to declutter, to simplify, to find your kitchen again.

I’ve got some tips to help you do just that and rediscover the joy that can be found in cooking. We’ll also take a good look at some everyday kitchen tools we all have and discuss how necessary they are.

I’m not talking about a list of obviously silly gadgets that most of us would roll our eyes at, like this handy-dandy electric indoor s’mores maker. (Psst, you already have one, it’s called the burner on your stove.) We’re going to talk about items in nearly every kitchen that you don’t need.

My experience might just help you.

I love to cook.

Feeding people is my love language. Just ask my family, friends and neighbors. If I like you, I’m going to put food in you. However, I noticed as my love of cooking grew over the years, my kitchen gadget collection reached critical mass. I needed all the gadgets to become a great cook; the food websites told me so.

Oddly enough, as my kitchen filled up, my desire to cook seemed to disappear.

(I think it got lost in the junk drawer.)

Even if you don’t love to cook, I’ll bet this scenario sounds familiar.

To save my sanity, I decided to pare down.

At first, I just got rid of the easy things – doubles (or even triples) of things like spatulas and wood spoons, or broken stuff, and the weird gadgets that were buried in my cupboards and drawers.

Then I began paying attention to how I cooked, what tools I reached for time and time again, and more importantly, the stuff I hadn’t touched in months. I made several trips to Goodwill, where oddly enough, I noticed lots of other kitchen gadgets seem to end up.

The Big One

Some of you may need to sit down for this next bit. I know I’m about to commit food blog heresy here, but I even gave away my trusty Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

I know, I know.

Over the years, I found myself using it less and less. It always seemed like such a hassle to set up. I hated having it take up space on my counter, so I put it away. And when I did want to use it, I hated having to get to it in the back of the pantry and haul it out. It became this negative thing that prevented me from baking when I wanted to.

So, I gave it to a friend and breathed a sigh of relief.

(I replaced it with a much smaller hand mixer, the Breville Handy Mix Scraper, in case you’re curious.)

The funny thing is, now that it’s gone, I bake more. And I don’t miss my stand mixer for a second.

The Purge

At some point, this purging of kitchen stuff became a challenge for me. I began to look critically at everything in my kitchen. “Are you earning your keep? Do you deserve a spot in my cupboard? Why are there three of you? Why is there so much dust on you?”

I started looking at tools that served one purpose to see if I could find another multi-purpose tool that would do the job instead.

And something weird started happening.

In this simple space, with (mostly) simple tools, cooking became easy and enjoyable again.

Simplicity created ease.

To Thine Own Kitchen Be True

Here’s the thing, folks, if you crave an easier, more organized kitchen, you have to know how you cook. It’s imperative for any of these suggestions to work.

Do you bake a lot but keep meals pretty simple? Maybe ditching your rolling pin isn’t really an option. Are you a master griller that hasn’t made cookies in decades? Then go ahead and donate that rolling pin.

Knowing how you cook and eat goes a long way in knowing what tools are necessary for you.

Before you start pitching kitchen tools, take a month or two and be mindful of how you cook. Pay attention to every piece of kitchenware you put your hands on and how often. Then you’ll have a better idea of what can stay and what needs to go.

Let’s start with a common cause of kitchen clutter (say that three times fast) – multiples. These are tools that you probably need, but maybe not as many of them as you own.

1. The Jar or “That” Drawer

Take a look at the jar next to your stove. You know the one.

Or that one drawer that you have to shuffle stuff in just right for it to close, and if something pops up at an odd angle once it’s closed, you can’t get it open again. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about.

How many wooden spoons are in there? How many nylon turners do you have leftover from mismatched sets you bought over the years? What about whisks or rubber spatulas? Does anyone need four ladles?

Do you see where I’m going with this? I think these kitchen tools breed in the drawers where they’re stored. They must; I once found a mini spatula in mine I had no recollection of buying.

Pull all of these tools out and lay them on the table so you can see them. Keep your favorites and only enough of them to reasonably get the job done, then get rid of the other multiples.

2. Pot Holders 

Yes, I know, we all need potholders and oven mitts and the like, but do you need three oven mitts and eleven potholders? Maybe it’s time to go through your stash and pare down.

3. Dish Towels

How often do you do laundry? How often do you change out your dish towels within that cycle? Now take those numbers and have a good hard look at the drawer bursting with dish towels.

I get it; I do. They’re cute and funny, and you can change them out with the seasons. But maybe you don’t need several dozen. (I’m saying this more for my benefit than yours.)

If it helps you to let go, think about that moment when you’re folding laundry, and you keep reaching into the laundry basket thinking, “Good grief, where are all these dish towels coming from?”

4. Baking and Casserole Dishes

The emphasis here is on the plural. Take a look at how many casserole and baking dishes you have in your cupboard.

I’ll bet you’ve got duplicates that rarely ever get used. How often do you make a meal where you need to use more than one or two baking dishes at a time?

Maybe it’s time to decide once and for all – do I really need a round 2-quart baking dish and an oval 2-quart baking dish?

Moving On

Now that you’ve got a couple of spaces under control, let’s look at some tools you can lose to simplify your cooking space further.

5. Cookie Cutters

For many of us, there’s a drawer or a bin in our kitchen that’s a flour-covered abyss filled with cookie cutters. And we probably only use a handful of them. The rest just keep getting shuffled around every time you’re looking for the ones you do use.

Let’s be honest, how many different heart-shaped cookie cutters do we actually need? And why do we still have that one in the shape of a dog when the tail always burns. And this one, no one can figure out what it’s supposed to be in the shape of anyway. Is it a shoe or a church?

6. Honey Dipper

When it comes right down to it, these things are silly. Use a spoon and be done with it.

7. Bundt Pan

In theory, the bundt pan creates a pleasingly shaped cake, but in practice, how many of them actually see the inside of an oven. And most recipes that call for a bundt pan can just as easily be baked in something else if you adjust the baking time. Instead, try a 9×13 pan.

8. Pizza Cutter

We’re so used to this kitchen gadget that the thought of not using one to cut pizza seems weird and alien. But think about it, the only time you need it is if you make the pizza, either from scratch or frozen.

Delivery pizza comes pre-sliced by a restaurant that makes hundreds, if not thousands, of pizzas a day. You know, where it makes sense to have a dedicated tool for this task.

Unless you eat a lot of frozen or from scratch pizza, and I mean a lot, a chefs knife or carving knife works just fine. It doesn’t even take longer than using a pizza cutter.

9. Popcorn Maker

Do you own a pot? Yes? Good. Do you have a lid for that pot? Yes? Good. You own a popcorn popper.

This is another one of those gadgets where it’s hard to justify the space it takes up for the number of times it gets used. I have a friend who makes popcorn two to three times a week, every week, all year long.

He needs a popcorn maker.

For the rest of us, five minutes and a pan with a lid are all we need.

10. Rolling Pin

Oh, I know this one will have a lot of folks frustrated. But, if you rarely bake, then there are other things you can use in a pinch instead of a rolling pin. In fact, I’ve made a list of them.

• An unopened bottle of wine
• A metal water bottle or travel mug
• A can of soda
• A tall, sturdy drinking glass
• A thick wooden dowel

Depending on the recipe, you can use your hands to press the dough into the general size and thickness you want. I have a scone recipe that I make quite often, and I’ve only ever used a rolling pin the first time I made it. Every time after that, I’ve found it’s much quicker just to use my hands. Anything that gets you through the making part to the eating part sooner, right?

11. A Muddler

Okay, granted, this one might only apply to those of us who make cocktails at home. You use a muddler to crush fresh herbs for cocktails, like mint in a mojito.

Instead of buying one and giving up space in your kitchen drawers, use a wooden spoon. Depending on the glass you’re doing your muddling in, you can use either end of the spoon.

12. Avocado Slicer

It seems like everyone has one of these silly things, knows they have it, and still uses a paring knife and a spoon anyway. So, maybe it’s time to let it go.

13. Knife Block With ALL THE KNIVES!

Many moons ago, when I first got married, my husband and I had it in our heads that we needed a knife set. You know, one of those fancy knife blocks with the eight steak knives and the bread knife, the carving knife, three paring knives, the short filet knife and the long filet knife and that long honing thingy… You know, one of those.

Look, can we just agree that no one needs eight steak knives.

Seriously, when was the last time you made steak for eight people? Also, why wasn’t I invited; what’s one more steak when you’ve already made seven? Who came up with this number as the prerequisite number of steak knives needed in every home?

Then there’s the actual knife block itself, which is really a glorified crumb and dust-catcher that eats up precious real estate on your counter.

Spend some time paying attention to the knives you use, and you’ll probably find you only need three or four good, sharp knives – a chefs knife, a carving knife, and a pairing knife. Notice the emphasis on good and sharp.

Decide on the number of people in your life you’d have over for steak at one time, get yourself one of these and donate everything else.

14. Meat Tenderizer

Oh, if only there were other blunt, heavy objects in our kitchens with which to tenderize all eight steaks! You know, like a tin of tomatoes, a solid coffee mug, the pestle from our mortar, or an unopened bottle of wine, or…you get the idea.

Let’s face it; your kitchen is full of heavy objects that will do the trick. That room is only one surprise attack away from being a crime scene.

15. Garlic Press

A garlic press usually only does a half-hearted job when it comes to its intended purpose. There is always that portion of garlic unpressed which you have to cut up anyway. They’re annoying to clean and take up too much room in the drawer.

You know what’s already in your kitchen and takes less time than fiddling with a garlic press? A heavy coffee mug. Give your garlic a few whacks with the bottom of a coffee mug and a couple of passes with a knife, and you’re all set.

If you want to do it even quicker, skip the coffee mug and use the flat side of your blade to smash the garlic before chopping it.

And you can ditch any fancy gadgets for peeling garlic, too, because I Tested 6 Popular Garlic Peeling Hacks – See How They Stack Up.

Some Helpful Tips When You Decide to Declutter

Temporary Hold

Letting go of a few of these items can be hard. Not the actual using something else in its place part, but the letting go. Try it out first. Before you donate an item, use another tool in its place for a while.

Get used to reaching for your chefs knife when it’s time to cut the pizza. It feels a little weird at first, but you get used to it, and it becomes a habit. After your sixth frozen pizza, you’ll be ready to give away that pizza cutter and gain some space.

Don’t Let Guilt Keep You Holding On

We all have that dish or tool someone gave us as a well-meaning gift, but we never use it. Or maybe you balk at getting rid of something because you remember how much you paid for it.

I can tell you from personal experience that guilt will keep popping up every time you lay eyes on that object. But the moment you let it go – oh yeah, it’s like stepping on the scale and, surprise, you lost six pounds!

It’s a little different if something is an antique or an heirloom that’s been in the family. Maybe you can find another family member or friend who wants the piece or consider putting it into storage.

Holiday or Seasonal Tools

You might have some tools in your kitchen that only get used once a year on a specific holiday, but you would be lost without them on that holiday. I have a turkey roasting pan that I have to dig out every November, but it isn’t going anywhere. And you can have every cookie cutter I own, but don’t you dare touch any of my vintage Christmas cookie cutters.

If you have the space, it might not be a bad idea to put all of your once-a-year holiday kitchen tools in a storage tote. You don’t even have to keep it in the kitchen; stick it in a closet or under the bed. This will free up some kitchen space and keep those special tools easy to find, in one place and ready to go. 

Just Because It’s a Gadget Doesn’t Mean You Have to Ditch It

Your kitchen should work for you and the way you cook. Occasionally you will find a tool that does make your life easier.

They will have to pry my iSi Cream Whipper from my cold dead hands because making whipped cream in seconds fits with how I cook. But I haven’t cut one pizza with my chef knife and thought, “Boy, having a pizza cutter clutter up my drawers would make this thirty-second task so much easier.”

Resist the Urge

Most kitchen-related purchases are impulse buys. In the future, before you purchase that new toy, ask yourself the following questions.

• Does this tool have more than one purpose?
• Do I already have something that does this, even if it’s a simple tool?
• Do I have the space for this, and do I know where I would put it right now?

That last one is key; knowing your kitchen’s limits often makes it easier to say no to things.

The Best Tool In the Kitchen

If you really want to simplify cooking and make the entire process easier, the best tool you can invest in is yourself. Even if you hate to cook, brushing up your knife skills and mastering a few cooking basics will make cooking easier, faster, and tastier.

And who knows, you may find yourself enjoying the time spent in the kitchen.

This Is a Process, Not a Project

You may start out taking a huge box to Goodwill, and that’s great, but remember, this is an ongoing process. Once you start paying closer attention to your space, you may find a few more things here and there that you no longer want to be responsible for. Or one day, you may open a cupboard, look directly at that kitchen thingamajig you haven’t touched in six months and say, “You’re out of here!”

Here’s the thing about stuff. Once you accumulate enough of it, your stuff owns you. Letting go is hard, but you may find yourself surprised at how much simpler cooking is without all those things we just have to have.

More Kitchen Articles You May Enjoy

How to Clean Copper Easily Without Harsh Chemicals

12 Simple Steps to Create a Plastic-free Kitchen

22 Kitchen Storage & Organization Hacks For Homesteaders

The post 15 Kitchen Tools We All Have But Don’t Need + What To Use Instead appeared first on Rural Sprout.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; if there’s one kitchen offense that makes me feel guilty, it’s food waste. I could eat an entire bag of Milano cookies in one sitting and not feel as guilty as I do pitching spoiled food in the garbage.

For many of us, we’re so used to an abundance of food that we don’t even notice the amount of food we throw away.

Tossing that spoiled package of lettuce we bought (and didn’t eat a leaf of) doesn’t even cause us to pause. Sure, we may feel guilty, but it’s easily replaced, no matter the season, with a trip to the grocery store.

At least, that’s how it was for me for a long time. Until…

The Challenge

We may not be aware of what’s going on in our pantry all the time, but there is one area most of us are constantly aware of, and that’s our bank accounts.

I knew I was wasting money by throwing away spoiled food, so I challenged myself to keep a log of how much that wasted food cost for an entire month.

I included perishables that spoiled before I got around to using them, like yogurt, fresh fruits and vegetables. And I took stock of pantry items, things that had gone out of date just sitting there unused. I even included leftovers that sat in the fridge uneaten.

At the end of that 30 days, I was shocked to see I was throwing away nearly 1/10 of my monthly grocery budget. That’s like throwing away a month’s worth of groceries a year. Ugh!

I encourage you to take the same challenge and see what your food waste situation looks like. You may be pleasantly surprised, or you may find yourself not so pleasantly surprised like me.

This little financial reality check convinced me that things needed to change.

I tackled this in two ways. First, I figured out how best to shop for and use my perishables. Then I concentrated on my dry goods, the stuff you keep in your cupboards and pantry, how they were stored and organized. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

When it comes to pantry staples, most folks bring them home from the store and toss everything in the pantry. And there it sits until we’re ready to use it.

But if you want to get the most bang for your buck from your groceries, if you want the freshest, best-tasting food, if you want to stop throwing away food, then there’s something missing in this practice.

It all revolves around packaging.

Nearly all of the packaging our food comes in is meant to protect the food during shipping. That’s all. Those boxes and bags are supposed to keep your food stable from wherever it’s manufactured or grown until it reaches you, the consumer, in the grocery store.

And let’s face it, plastic bags and cardboard boxes leave a lot to be desired when it comes to keeping things fresh and tasty.

I adopted a new strategy that revolves around one rule for storing dried goods –

Repackage, Repackage, Repackage

You should always repackage dried goods in a container that’s better suited for storage when you bring them home.

I’ll cover what packaging and storage looks like for many common dried goods. But before we dive in, it’s probably a good idea to discuss spoilage.

What Causes Spoilage?

When it comes to food spoilage, four main culprits affect the shelf-life of your food – temperature, air, moisture and light.

Temperature

The world is filled with microbes; bacteria and yeast are everywhere. While we’re only beginning to understand our relationship with many of these bacteria, we’ve known for quite some time that many of them cause food to break down and spoil. These bacteria thrive in warm environments. If food isn’t stored at the proper temperature, these naturally occurring bacteria can cause spoilage in a matter of hours. Some of them can even make us sick if we eat spoiled food.

We owe a lot of how we live today to inventions like refrigeration and pasteurization; these processes allow us nearly unlimited access to foods that would otherwise spoil in a matter of hours.

You wouldn’t necessarily think so, but temperature is just as important to storing many dry goods as it is for perishables. Even foods with small amounts of fats or oils in them, such as flour, can go rancid quickly if they aren’t stored at the proper temperatures.

Even if they don’t make you sick, they can taste funky and ruin whatever you’re making.

Air

Or rather, oxygen. It’s everywhere, and while it’s kind of important for, you know, breathing, its presence causes a slow chemical chain reaction called oxidation in nearly everything, including food. In food, oxidation can cause funny smells, flavors and discoloration over time.  

As well as oxidation, exposure to air causes moist foods to dry out, making them stale and inedible. Things like bread, homemade cookies or coffee are good examples.

Moisture

Food that’s become too moist can grow mold and other funky microbes that will cause it to spoil faster. A great example of this is bread, especially during the humid days of summer. While some food needs to remain moist for the best texture and flavor, too much moisture can quickly turn things into a slimy mess, like the way lettuces or spinach break down when they’re too wet.

Light

Both natural and artificial light causes food to discolor. Natural light can cause vitamin loss and change the flavor of the food. If your food is sitting in natural light, then you can bet that heat comes into play too. Even minor temperature changes can encourage the growth of harmful microbes that will speed up spoilage.

Naturally, we want to protect our dried goods from these spoilage culprits. As we’ve already established, for nearly all pantry items, preventing spoilage and getting the best flavor depends on how you store them once you bring them home from the grocery store.

Optimize Conditions in Your Cupboards and Pantry

When it comes to where you store your food, remember, food that’s seen is food that’s eaten. Whether you’re using cupboards or a pantry, you’ve got to be able to see everything you have easily.

I’ve got a few tips and tools that will help you get organized.

Puck Lights

Storing food in cupboards isn’t my first choice. While it’s good to keep food stored someplace dark, it sure makes finding it harder. Often, cupboards have deep shelving or shelving above eye level making it hard to see what’s actually there. And that’s not a good combination when you’re trying to keep food where it’s easy to see what you have on hand.

If the shelves in your pantry or cupboards are dark, get a couple of packs of LED puck lights. You can easily stick them on the underside of the shelves; no hardware is necessary.

Yes, they’re battery operated, but as long as you get the LEDs and remember to turn them off when you’re done getting what you need, the batteries last quite a while. (I’ve got some on some shelving in my living room, and I’ve only had to change the batteries twice a year.)

Tiered Shelving

Make food easy to see by stacking it in tiers.

Have you ever opened a cupboard looking for a can of beans and had nothing but a sea of gray can tops looking up at you?

You start grabbing them one at a time, trying to find the pinto beans you bought for chili. Instead, you grab diced tomatoes, coconut milk, canned carrots, hash? I don’t even remember buying corned beef hash. You get the idea.

This is how food gets lost and forgotten. Stack food in tiers, so it’s easier to see.

And don’t feel like you have to run out and spend a ton of money on fancy little shelves or baskets. Do you know what makes great tiered shelves? Small cardboard boxes, I’m looking at you, Amazon. And shoe boxes with the lids. Reuse those boxes by putting them at the back of the shelf to raise food that would generally get lost in the dark up where it’s visible.

You can fortify the boxes a bit by stuffing them with newspaper, plastic grocery bags, or even the plastic bags of air used for shipping. Stuff the box full, and then tape it shut and stack away.

You don’t have to spend a dime; get creative by reusing items you already have.

Of course, you can buy fancy tiered shelves for your cupboard and pantry. But before you run out to the store, take the time to measure your cupboards and shelves. Figure out how many shelves you’ll need before you make a purchase; otherwise, you may come home with a bag full of shelves that don’t fit your space or your needs.

Mason Jars

There are so many fancy containers and canister sets on the market for storing food, but at the end of the day, I still reach for a mason jar. They’re inexpensive, you can see what’s inside them, they wash and wear well, and they never go out of style.

And if you’re trying to minimize plastic use in your home, you can’t beat good ol’ glass jars.

I use every size of jar you can find for my food storage needs, from the tiny 4 oz jars up to the half-gallon jars. 

Mason Jar Vacuum Sealer Attachment

If you have a vacuum sealer, this little guy is worth its weight in gold. It’s not a necessary item, by any means, but if you’re in this for the best flavor, then it’s certainly worth picking one up. Vacuum sealing things like baking powder and corn starch can make them last longer too. And vacuum sealing something like cocoa powder will help lock in the flavor.

Whenever you’re sealing anything powdered, place a clean paper coffee filter in the jar on top of the food item, baking soda, for example. This will keep the powder from getting sucked up into the sealer and causing damage.

Labels

If you’re repackaging items into a container more suited to storage, you’ll want to label what it is and when you bought it. Labeling the lid and the side of the container makes it doubly easy to recognize what’s in your jars.

I found these dissolvable food labels a few years back, and I use them for everything from canning to labeling bottles of homemade mead, and of course, my storage jars in my pantry. If you want to get fancy, you can even find them in fun shapes.

Your Freezer

But we’re storing dried goods, Tracey.

Yes, we are! And your freezer is probably the most underutilized space in your “pantry.” I think you’ll be amazed at how many items you can store in the freezer and nearly double their shelf life.

On to the dried goods! Let’s see how each of these commonly used pantry staples should be stored for optimum flavor and shelf-life.

1. Flour

And speaking of your freezer, let’s start with flour. You might be shocked to know that your freezer is the best place to store any kind of flour. While flour, especially white flour, has a pretty decent shelf-life, 3-6 months, you can easily store flour in your freezer for two years.

White flour lasts the longest on the shelf because of its low fat content, but flours with higher fat can go rancid pretty quickly. These include whole-wheat flour, almond flour and coconut flour.

For the longest shelf stability and the best flavor, store your flour in a labeled, airtight container in the freezer.

You can freeze bags of flour as they are, but you run the risk of it picking up smells from your freezer if you don’t use it right away. If you’re looking to store flour for a long time, it’s best to store the unopened bags in another container, like a large freezer bag or a small plastic tote.

Obviously, this is easier if you have a chest or standing freezer. Even if you only have the freezer on your fridge, storing one bag at a time this way is a great way to keep flour fresh.

Let frozen flour come to room temperature before you use it for baking. I find it’s easiest to measure what I need and let that portion come to room temperature rather than waiting for the entire container to warm.

2. Sugar

Sugar does best when stored someplace dry and cool. Even a little moisture can cause clumps to form, making it hard to measure and use.

For this particular pantry item, the freezer or fridge isn’t a great spot. It only takes a little bit of moisture to cause lumpy sugar.

The half-gallon size mason jars work great for storing sugar. For easy measuring, I bought a Rubbermaid cereal keeper years ago with a pour-top, and it’s where I store my sugar. Cereal keepers are amazing for sugar because you can pour the sugar as well as scoop it out.

Whatever airtight container you choose, make sure it’s big enough to hold an entire bag of sugar. Most canister sets available leave you with a full sugar canister and a few cups left in the bag defeating the purpose of the cannister.

3. Brown Sugar

For the freshest brown sugar, you should always store it in an airtight container. Leaving it in the bag or box it comes from in the store is just a recipe for a brown sugar brick. Again, a mason jar works great for this purpose. Wide-mouthed jars make scooping much easier.

For the absolute best way of storing your brown sugar, you’ll also need a brown sugar keeper. They come in some seriously cute shapes and designs. Usually made of terracotta, these little clay pieces keep just the right amount of moisture in your container, so the brown sugar remains soft and easy to scoop.

4. Rice

Rice is an incredible pantry staple because if it’s stored properly, its shelf-life is basically forever. So, you know what I’m going to say next. Rice needs to be stored in an airtight container. Remember, the packaging it comes in is only to protect it during shipping.

Ideally, rice should be stored in a vacuum-sealed container, making that vacuum sealer attachment a great idea. You can always vacuum seal rice in individual bags and open them as needed, pouring the unused portion into a mason jar.

If you purchase 25lb or larger bags (always a great deal), then it’s important to store it properly, which is definitely not the bag it comes in. A food-grade bucket with a locking lid is a good option for large bags of rice.

If you want to get serious about extending the shelf-life of rice, opt for mylar food storage bags with some oxygen absorbers.

5. Dry Beans & Lentils

Much like rice, dry beans and lentils have a nearly indefinite shelf-life when stored properly. If you leave them in the bags they come in from the store; you’re just inviting mice and bugs to help themselves (and make a big mess). At the very least, you’ll want to put them in a sealed container. Even storing them in a zip-top plastic bag is an improvement over the thin bags they come in.

The best way to store beans and lentils is in clear containers that allow you to see at a glance what’s in them. (Provided you’re storing the containers somewhere dark.)

6. Baking Powder/Baking Soda

Both baking powder and baking soda are leavening agents that give your baked goods that light, fluffy texture they need. If they aren’t stored properly, baking powder and soda will lose their effectiveness, causing disappointingly flat muffins, pancakes and bread.

Air is the biggest culprit for spoilage when it comes to these leavening agents.

For the most part, baking soda comes in boxes, not exactly airtight. Store your baking soda in an airtight container, preferably one that can be vacuum-sealed.

Another reason we need to store baking soda somewhere other than its porous cardboard box is because it’s a natural deodorizer. Once the box is opened, your baking soda will begin absorbing odors from the environment it’s stored in. Keeping baking soda in a jar or other sealable container means you won’t be left with baking soda that has a funky smell.

Most baking powder comes in a sealed can. It’s okay to leave it in this container as long as it’s sealed. However, once you open it, you’ll want to store it the same way you would baking soda, again, opting for vacuum sealing if you can.

7. Grains & Seeds

At the end of this article, you’re going to be sick of reading the words “airtight container,” but that’s because it’s the best way to store dried goods. Quinoa, millet, barley, farro and bulgar wheat are all tasty grains and seeds that have grown in popularity recently. To get the best flavor, keep them stored in…yeah, you know what I’m going to say.

It’s important to store grains and seeds somewhere cool and dark as well. Kept this way, they will last about a year. You can also freeze them in airtight containers and double that shelf life.

8. Pasta

In general, pasta can be stored for a year in your pantry as is. But if you want to extend the shelf-life and flavor, dry pasta should be stored in an airtight container. When we’re talking about spaghetti, fettuccini or other longer pasta, it can be challenging to find a container they will fit in.

This is one case where purchasing an airtight container specifically designed for pasta is helpful. Amazon has quite a few to choose from. Click here to check them all out.

9. Dried Fruits

Have you ever grabbed a box of raisins from your pantry only to find tiny hard pebbles instead of soft, chewy raisins? Yeah, let’s put a stop to that. Dried fruit needs to be kept in ideal conditions to maintain that balance between chewiness and rock hard.

An airtight container in a cool, dark place goes without saying. But I learned a little secret that comes in handy if you enjoy lots of dried fruits, especially raisins. Do you know that brown sugar keeper I mentioned above? It does a great job of keeping raisins, dried cranberries, and shredded coconut soft and chewy too!

10. Nuts

Nuts are a little tough to crack. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.) They can be stored both in and out of their shells. As nature intended, nuts stored in their shells have the best shelf-life, but that means a lot of work when you’re ready to use them.

Nuts (in or out of their shells) need to be stored in an airtight container as they tend to absorb the odors of other items around them. For this reason, it’s best not to store nuts near strong-smelling foods.

Nuts have lots of healthy fats in them; this means they will go rancid quickly if stored in places that are too warm. Nuts that have gone off have a sour flavor to them.

For the best flavor, store your shelled or unshelled nuts in some sort of airtight container in the fridge or freezer. (Let them thaw before you use them, and once thawed, they shouldn’t be refrozen.)

11. Popcorn

First of all, if you aren’t already growing popping corn, you’ve got to check this out

Grow Your Own Popcorn + 6 Varieties to Try

It’s far superior to the store-bought stuff and worthy of extra special handling. But regardless of whether you grow it yourself or have a favorite brand, you buy at the store, for the best, fluffiest, popped kernels, you should always store popcorn in airtight jars. Keep your popcorn someplace cool and dark, and it will last around two years. And yes, you can even freeze it and really stretch the shelf-life.

12. Oatmeal

Cool, dark and dry is the motto for oatmeal. If you go through a lot of oatmeal relatively quickly, those cardboard canisters it comes in are just fine. But if you prefer to buy your oatmeal in bulk, or it’s not a regular breakfast at your place, you’ll want to store it in something else.

Because it’s a tasty grain, oatmeal is prone to getting nibbled on by pests, both the insect and tiny rodent variety. For this reason, it’s always a good idea to store oatmeal in a (you guessed it) airtight container. Those mason jars are always a great option. You can also freeze or keep it in the fridge in jars or plastic freezer bags too.

13. Yeast

Yeast in its original packaging can be stored in a cool, dark place; once opened, though, it definitely needs to be stored in an airtight container. The freezer is a great place to store yeast, again, nearly doubling its shelf-life. Once you’ve opened the package, though, you will need to store it in the fridge.

Or you can store it in a mason jar in the freezer and just measure it out as you need it. If you decide to go this route, that handy vacuum sealer jar attachment will ensure your yeast stays viable.

If you’re using frozen yeast, let it warm up a bit before using it, or it may take longer to activate.

14. Salt

Salt should not be stored in a metal container. You may wish to use a clay or ceramic container or any other container without a metal lid. If you decide to use a mason jar to store your salt, use a plastic lid or place a piece of parchment paper between the lid and the jar to prevent it from rusting.

15. Tea & Coffee

Tea and coffee can easily lose their flavor when exposed to air and light. It’s important to put them in some sort of container that will protect them from both.

Tins are a good option for tea, provided they have a snug fitting lid, anything that will keep air and light out will work. Thrift stores are a great place to find pretty tins.

As a self-professed coffee snob, I can say that coffee does best in a specialized coffee container. Coffee beans off-gas carbon dioxide once they’ve been roasted; for the best flavor, you want to store them in a container that has a one-way gas valve. I have two of these canisters that keep my coffee tasting delicious every morning.

And if you want the best flavor, it’s not a good idea to store the beans in the freezer. Coffee contains natural oils that don’t freeze well. You can end up with some weird flavors if you store beans in the freezer.  

Wrapping It All Up

I know there’s a lot of information here, but don’t feel like you have to overhaul your entire kitchen in one go. (Unless you love big projects like that, and that’s how you roll.)

Start small with your next grocery trip. Just repackage the items you bring home with you. And then, as you run out of ingredients in your pantry, you can begin storing them in containers that will extend their usefulness.

The nice thing about organizing your cupboards or pantry is that you can always make adjustments or reorganize it again until you find the layout that works best for you.

Cooking should be fun!

Unless you hate cooking, and then at the very least, cooking shouldn’t cause you additional stress with items past their best-by date or funky smells coming from your pantry. This whole process is about making your time in the kitchen easier and more enjoyable. Also, airtight container. Okay, I’m done now.

Related Reading

How To Store Salad Greens So They Last Two Weeks Or More

21 Brilliant Ways To Reuse Glass Jars

12 Simple Steps to Create a Plastic-free Kitchen

32 Brilliant Ways to Reuse Plastic Grocery Bags

22 Kitchen Storage & Organization Hacks For Homesteaders

The post 15 Pantry Staples You’re Storing Incorrectly appeared first on Rural Sprout.

If you’re peeling these fruits and veggies, you’re missing out on a whole heap of goodness and flavor.

In this article we reveal which fruits and veggies you really shouldn’t peel – and one very important consideration when it comes to eating the peel of some produce. Plus we share some more quick tips for reducing food waste at home.

Why You Should Eat the Peel

Let’s first assume that all the fruits and vegetables you consume are organic.

I know, that’s the dream, right? The ideal world that seems a million miles away from conventional growing. Yet, that’s one of the bonuses of growing your own fruit and veg.

If you don’t already have a garden, maybe it is time to think about getting seeds and putting one in.

So, organic. You’ve heard that it’s healthier for you, puts less strain on the environment and uses next to no chemicals. But, it costs more.

I get that. More attention has to go into organic crop production. And sometimes the end result is smaller, or knobbly, or whatever. Eat it anyway.

Another thing about food waste is that we shouldn’t be so picky as to only eat what looks perfect. Go for quality, not quantity. Search for nutrients in food, not sugary mass.

Which bring us to the peel itself…

Fruit and vegetable peels, in general, contain more antioxidants, fiber, minerals and vitamins than the rest of the fruit or veg.

“Unpeeled fruits and vegetables may have up to 33 percent more fiber than those without the peel. And antioxidant levels in the skins of fruits could be up to 328 times higher than those found in the flesh.”

Peels are full of amazing things our bodies need. But sometimes they contain higher levels of pesticides too, even foods grown in organic production.

Take the peel on a case-by-case basis. If it’s organic, go ahead and eat everything on this list. Non-organic? Wash and remove the peel if you must, though research shows that in some cases you miss out on more by not consuming the peel.

Removing the peel may get rid of more pesticide residues than washing alone, but the difference is minimal.

In any case, be sure to give every fruit and vegetable a good wash before eating or cooking.

List of Foods You Shouldn’t Peel

Begin with pesticide-free veggies and fruits for the best possible experience.

Then think about how you are going to process them. Not peeling your garden crops is best done when you plan to grate, mash or roast them. Yet if you are eating them raw, you should also lean towards leaving the skins on.

The only time you might want to take on the extra work of peeling, is if you are searching for a homogeneous texture. Some peels are thicker than others, so if you plan on making a purée or steaming your veggies, grab a peeler or paring knife to get the job done quickly.

But, wait a second. Aren’t peels bitter?

Fruit and vegetable peels are only bitter to the point that they are inherently good for you and your digestion. There’s plenty of necessary fiber in those peels.

You can balance out some of the bitterness, for example, by adding a drizzle of lemon juice and honey to your baked beets with the peel on.

When roasting veggies with the skin on, you can also balance bitterness by adding a small amount of honey or maple syrup.

But, you don’t actually need to add any kind of sweetener to enjoy the peels. Most of them are tasty on their own. Go ahead and try it. In the process, you are preventing food waste.

It feels good to use the whole plant, doesn’t it? Like eating carrot tops or beet leaves. Even radish pods.

1. Beets

Just about everyone I know peels beets. Why? Perhaps because they taste soily or they are hard to clean. Whatever the case may be, know that beet peels are indeed edible.

Though finding a way to enjoy them can be a bit harder. Mind over matter here, you just need to reframe your mind and stop following everything you were taught to do. This applies to all fruits and vegetables on this list.

Once you realize that something is good for you, why not eat it? Or at least try it and see if you like it.

With beets, all you need to do is cut them in small enough pieces. Then the toughest of skin is pleasantly palpable. If you need a more motivation than that, start with eating young beets which have thin skins.

Trust me, it’s not worth turning your hands pink to peel a few beets.

2. Carrots

As long as you wash and scrub your carrots, you absolutely do not have to peel them. The entire carrot is edible from leaf tip to root.

Some people claim that the carrot peels are bitter. This may depend on the variety, growing stress or time of harvest. In general, you are going to be okay with not peeling your carrots. If the skin tastes bitter, it may just be bitter all the way through.

Refuse to peel your carrots when making:

• soup stocks
• hearty stews
• carrot juice
• roasted carrots
• carrot purées

Simply scrub the roots and toss them in a pot or baking sheet along with the other ingredients.

If you are going for looks, let’s say you are making a carrot and apple salad for unpeel-worthy guests, go ahead and strip the carrots if your roots are getting a bit old.

Or do leave them unpeeled to make a zero food waste statement. You might turn your dinner guests onto something new.

3. Cucumbers

If you have exercised caution in the past about not peeling your vegetables, it may be that you’ve heard about the “Dirty Dozen“. It’s a list of foods that are more contaminated with pesticides than other crops.

In 2021 the dirty dozen included: strawberries, spinach, kale/collard/mustard greens, nectarines, apples, grapes, cherries, peaches, pears, bell and hot peppers, celery and tomatoes. Common garden crops to be sure.

In other years, cucumbers also make the list. But, this shouldn’t prevent you from getting all the vitamins, minerals and fiber from the peels. Cucumber peels contain potassium, magnesium and molybdenum – all of which are good for your skin. But you already knew that.

Modern varieties of cucumbers are sweeter than ever. Go ahead and eat the entire fruit.

4. Eggplants

Growing eggplants at home is such a rewarding experience. You can get so much more variety than just the standard purple fruits.

It’s said that the skin gets tougher on older, larger eggplants. The remedy to that is to eat them younger. Then there is absolutely no doubt that you can eat eggplant with the skin on.

Keeping the skin on also depends on your recipe.

If you are breading slices of eggplant – by all means, leave the peel on. Not only does it taste fantastic, it holds the integrity of the eggplant together.

Stuffed eggplant? Definitely don’t peel it. Roasted or tossed in a stew? Also feel free to leave the nutritious skin on.

Do peel your eggplant, however, if you are making baba ganoush or zacusca.

5. Kohlrabi

Not everyone likes kohlrabi. Many of you reading this may have never even tried it.

Yet, I believe it is a garden vegetable that deserves a lot more attention. Some varieties of kohlrabi are ready to harvest in as little as 6 weeks and they are generally free of pests. Easy-to-grow is the best way to describe their garden habit.

In the kitchen, you can use kohlrabi in a variety of ways, even with the peel on. Bake, boil or eat it fresh. Again, the only time you’ll need to peel it, is if the skin becomes tough.

It’s your call. If it’s hard to cut, then it’s probably hard to eat. Next time choose a younger vegetable to get all the nutrients of the peel.

Don’t forget that kohlrabi leaves are edible too. Use them as you would kale or collard greens.

6. Potatoes

To maximize the fiber, vitamins and minerals in your diet, make sure to eat your potato peels.

Baked potatoes in jackets. Skins in mashed potatoes. Loaded potato wedges. Hash browns and more.

No matter how you cook or bake your potatoes, it is absolutely not necessary to peel them. See, potato skins are a good source of vitamin B3 and potassium. They also contain iron, fiber and flavonoids which can protect your body from infection and disease.

Potato skins are good for your skin, your hair and bones. So stop throwing them away! Especially if they are organic.

You can even make potato peel crisps to use up leftover potato peelings.

Related reading: 30 Unusual Uses For Potatoes You’ve Probably Never Considered

7. Squash

Do you know how hard it is to peel squash before baking? Naturally, it depends on the thickness of the squash as well as how sharp your knife is. But trust me, it’s one of the more difficult fruit/veg to cut in half.

Why fight it if you can eat it?

The skin of squash is edible, so it is of pumpkins. And zucchini? Don’t waste your time in peeling that either. Not only do you save time in the kitchen by not peeling your veggies, you also give your body some beneficial nutrients that need not come by way of a vitamin tablet to be swallowed with water.

Squash contains vitamins A, C, E – and it is meant to be eaten whole, including the valuable skin.

Simple: wash it well and roast it in the oven with some spices. Pure yum!

8. Swedes aka Rutabaga

Swedes are often confused with turnips, in part because they are both members of the cabbage family. When we lived in Scotland, it was our go-to vegetable for both lunch and dinner. However, in the States, you’ll probably find it at the grocery store listed as rutabaga.

Like kohlrabi, it is another vegetable that deserves more praise. For it is also easy-to-grow, incredibly delicious and it can grow in partial shade. Rutabagas are one of the heartiest and hardiest roots you can grow. Read more about the health benefits here.

If it feels like I am on repeat here, it’s because I am. Most people peel the Swede/rutabaga. Which is, of course, because the skin gets thicker as the season progresses. Consequently, this hardening of the skin makes it great for long term storage.

However, if you eat the vegetable while young, go ahead and nibble on the skin too.

9. Zucchini

When it comes to eating zucchini, squashes and pumpkin peels, skip below for a moment to read about waxes on your food.

If you know for sure that it isn’t waxed, go ahead and omit the peeling. So long as the skin is soft, eat the whole fruit from stem to blossom end.

Remember, the highest level of antioxidants are found in the peel, or the fruit’s skin. Your body needs plenty of that, so just grate the zucchini with skin on. You won’t see it or feel it in your chocolate zucchini bread, but the goodness is all there for your body to absorb.

10. Apples

True fruits, the ones we don’t treat as vegetables, can be a touchy subject when it comes to eating the peel or not.

You might wonder why apples are on the list. It may be more true to say that most people do eat their apple peels, particularly when eating them fresh.

But, did you know you can eat the whole apple, core and all? That’s about as zero-waste as you can get.

One reason to make sure you eat the apple, skin and all, is that unpeeled apples have double the fiber, 19% more potassium and 142% more vitamin A than their peeled counterparts. It also contains 332% of the recommended daily value of vitamin K.

That’s a whole lot of nutrients to toss in a landfill if you skip out on eating the peels.

11. Lemons

If you are eating any sort of citrus rind, always go for those grown in organic production to get the most out of bioactive compounds. And, of course, the least amount of pesticides and other things you shouldn’t be ingesting.

There are at least 9 well-known benefits of using the lemon peel, so go ahead and preserve all the lemons you can get your hands on.

Can you eat a whole lemon? The Whole Portion has the answer.

12. Oranges

Only in the last couple of years did we begin to question whether or not to eat the whole orange, peel and all. After eating organic oranges (which for us traveled quite some way) we tended to toss the peel on the fire to get rid of the waste. Wait. What waste?

While we’ve eaten candied orange peels, we had never tried eating it raw. Call it social conditioning, or listening to the wise ways of our grandparents, it never occurred to either my husband or I to slice and eat oranges with the peel on. Yet, we’ve always dried the orange peel to use in tea or mulled wine. See the contradiction here?

Orange peels are in fact good for you. Organic, of course. 1 tablespoon of orange peel provides 14% of all the vitamin C you need in one day, three times more than the pulpy juice inside.

Orange peels also contain provitamin A, folate, riboflavin, thiamine, B6 and calcium. Nature is full of vitamins and minerals if we only know where to look.

If you are sticking to a more local and seasonal diet, don’t forget about foraging too. It’s an excellent way to give your body all the nutrients it needs.

And if you still have some apprehension about eating lemon or orange peels, go ahead and save them for making all-purpose cleaner. It’s fragrant stuff!

13. Kiwis

Fuzzy, yes. Is kiwi skin really edible? Affirmative to that too.

While it may hard to get over the texture thing, know that kiwi peels, like everything on this list, are rich in many nutrients. Kiwi skins contain fiber, folate, as well as vitamin C and E. Both of which have strong antioxidant properties.

If you can hack it, eat it like an apple. Or slice it for a more refined food.

The caveat: if you have a kiwi allergy, oral or latex food allergy, you should avoid this fruit on the list.

One Thing To Watch Out For Regarding Peels

If you aren’t yet growing your own produce and rely on the store to fill your belly, there is something to watch out for: wax.

In order to preserve fruits and vegetables, a shiny wax is applied, a commercial coating if you will.

It makes the food appear more appealing and sellable. While at the same time it contains fungicides to inhibit mold growth, it also delays ripening. In essence, it extends the life of a fruit so that it can be sold weeks, or months, after harvest.

Is it a good or a bad thing? Or something in between? If you are ever in doubt about the wax, go ahead and peel your fruit and veg.

Or purchase all you need from a local farmer/grower. They are very unlikely to use waxes. Investing in small-scale agriculture will help prevent food waste too.

The benefits of eating the peel are as valid as not removing chicken skin, or the skin of any poultry. In the skin, there are vitamins, minerals, protein and healthy fats that your body needs. You should be eating all of that! Nose to tail eating is the concept.

Now practice it with those “safe” vegetables too. Let’s call it: blossom to stem eating.

Don’t automatically reach for the peeler next time you are cooking dinner. Give the peel a second chance and see how you get on.

You may find that it tastes quite fine indeed.

11 Quick Tips For Reducing Food Waste

Aside from eating the peels, here are a handful more quick tips that can cut your food waste significantly.

1. Buy only as much food as you need for any given amount of time. Don’t binge shop!
2. Make more, smaller trips to the store to eat fresh produce.
3. Always shop with a list.
4. Learn to preserve an overabundance of food.
5. Blend otherwise unused peels and stems into a smoothie.
6. Properly store your food, whether in the fridge, freezer or containers.
7. Keep an ugly broth bag.
8. Eat the seeds of pumpkins and squashes.
9. Cook at home, rather than eating out.
10. Compost.
11. Eat your leftovers – and enjoy it!

Of course, there are more ways than this to reduce food waste. You’ll easily pick up on new ideas as you go.

Related reading: Yes, You CAN Eat That! 15 Food Scraps You Didn’t Know Were Edible (& Delicious!)

The post 13 Fruits & Vegetables Everyone Peels But Shouldn’t appeared first on Rural Sprout.

It’s sweet corn season!

Eating fresh corn on the cob is something we all look forward to each summer. But as you’re working your way through our list of 20 Creative and Delicious Sweet Corn Recipes You Need To Try, you’re going to end up with a lot of corn husks.

What do you do with your corn husks?

Pitch them in the trash?

Compost them?

Do you save them to use around the kitchen and garden? Did you even know you could put corn husks to good use?

Oh, dear reader, we will change the way you look at these bright green corn wrappers.

But before we get into what you can do with them, let’s take a look at choosing good ears of corn and a couple of ways to husk corn.

Husking corn seems to be one of those summer chores that people either love or hate. I’m in the latter group; if I’m cooking, this is one task I am happy to pass off to the kids or a helpful dinner guest.

What to Look for When Choosing Corn

We all need to stop peeling the husk back to observe the kernels; it just dries out the corn. Everything you need to know can be deduced from the outside of the corn.

Pick up an ear of corn and look for these factors.

• Corn should be firm and hefty.
• The outer husk should still be bright green and tightly curled around the ear. It should not be brown or starting to curl away from the ear.
• The ear should always have a tassel that is golden to brown. Avoid ears with no tassel or black or mushy silk.

That’s all you really need to choose good corn from a pile of ears.

2 Ways to Husk Corn

If you plan on roasting or grilling your corn, you may not want to husk the corn until after it’s cooked. The husks and silk do an excellent job of creating a nice, steamy cooking environment.

However, if you plan to boil your corn, you’ll need to remove the husks and pull the shiny silk from the ears of corn first.

1. Hand-Shucking

This time-tested method is the way we’re most familiar with. But there’s a trick to it to remove as much silk as possible while you’re at it.

Start by removing the outer leaves until there’s only a few left. Now grab the corn by the tassel as close to the top of the corn as you can and pull the leaves off. Most of the silk should come away with it too. Do the same on the other side of the corn.

Then you’ll pull all of the fine silk from the corn kernels (otherwise, you’ll get it stuck in your teeth).

If you’re husking a large batch of corn for canning or a big barbecue, you might want to pick up a corn silker brush. This special brush will make quick work of removing all the tiny silk hairs from a cob.

2. Microwave

By far, this has to be the easiest way to husk corn ever devised. You simply cut the end of the corn off (the end attached to the stalk) and pop the entire thing into the microwave for 30 seconds to a minute.

You may wish to use oven mitts when handling the hot corn.

After you’ve microwaved the corn, you simply squeeze the corn out of the husks holding onto the tassel end. It’s a bit like squeezing toothpaste out of the tube.

Out will pop a silk-free ear of corn. It truly is a thing of beauty.

If you want to, you can even cook your corn on the cob this way, simplifying the whole process. Just bump up your time to 4-5 minutes and serve immediately after you’ve removed the husk.

If you don’t plan on eating the corn right away, you can keep it hot by boiling a pot of water, adding the corn and then turning the heat off. Cover the pot, and your corn will still be perfectly hot and tasty when it’s time to eat.

Finally, you’ll need to decide if you want to break off the stalk at the bottom. Some folks leave it on as a handle. I prefer to break mine off, so the corn fits in my pot better. If you use corn picks, you’ll want to break off the stalk.

Fresh Husks or Dried Husks?

Fresh Husks

Fresh corn husks have quite a few uses. The nice thing about sweet corn is that little to no pesticides are needed to grow it. In fact, sweet corn is #2 on the Environmental Working Group’s “Clean 15 List” for produce containing the fewest pesticides.

When cooking with corn husks, be sure to use husks from the inner layers of the corn, as they will be the freshest, cleanest and have the most moisture.

Dried Corn Husks

You can also use dried corn husks. To dry them, lay them flat on a metal baking rack and place them in a sunny location. You may want to cover them with cheesecloth and tuck in the ends to keep them from blowing away.

Similarly, you can dry them in your oven on the lowest setting. Keep the oven door propped open with a wine cork or wooden spoon handle. Check the husks frequently after about an hour or so. Be careful when opening the oven door; once the husks are dry, they could catch fire if they fall onto the heating element.

So, what can you do with corn husks?

1. Tamales

This might be the one most of us are familiar with. Tasty masa (a corn-based filling) mixed with spices and pork, chicken or beef, all wrapped up in a corn husk. Save your dried corn husks and make tamales from scratch. You won’t be disappointed.

Give this authentic tamale recipe a try from My Latina Table.

2. Steam Fresh Fish

Use fresh corn husks like you would parchment paper to steam fresh fish. Wrap the fish in several corn husks and throw it on the grill or in the oven.

3. Keep Dumplings from Sticking to the Steamer

I am a sucker for a good dumpling or baozi. I usually toss a piece of parchment paper into the bottom of my steamer basket to keep the dumplings from sticking. But you can use fresh corn husks too. The husks will prevent your dumplings from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Mmm!

4. Use Corn Husks Instead of Banana Leaves

Many dishes from the Pacific Islands use banana leaves as wrappers. Fresh corn husks make a great replacement when making things like sticky rice,

5. Tinder for Starting Fires

Dried corn husks are great for starting fires. Save husks for camping trips or for starting fires in your fireplace and wood stove.

Make Beautiful Crafts with Dried Corn Husks

Corn husks can be used to make beautiful rustic crafts and decorations.

6. Make a corn husk wreath for your front door

7. Create rustic corn husk dolls

8. Christmas trees

9. Corn husk angels

10. Create corn husk flowers

11. Use Corn Husks as Mulch

Corn husks, and the silk, make for a great mulch because they cover so much surface area. And they add nutrients back to the soil as they break down.

You’ll want to wet the corn husks well, so they don’t blow away. A great way to do this is to shuck your corn directly into a 5-gallon bucket. Then add water to the bucket, so it’s good and sopping. Now grab handfuls of the husks and mulch away.

If you have the means, you can also chop the husks first and use the resulting mulch as you would with any other shredded mulch.

An easy way to chop the husks is to lay them on the lawn and make a pass over them with the lawnmower. Rake up your chopped corn husk mulch and layer it around your plants to lock in moisture.

If you grow corn, you can do this with the stalks at the end of the season too.

As corn stalks and husks are readily available in the fall, they’re perfect for all that all-important fall mulching of the garden.

For even more mulch ideas you’ll want to read – 19 Types Of Garden Mulch & How To Use Them

Save the Cobs for Corn Cob Broth

The corn cob is the largest part of an ear of corn, and it’s the part we always throw away. Instead of pitching them, make corn stock with the cobs.

Add your ears of corn to a stockpot and cover with cold water. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer your cobs for half an hour. Drain the liquid and save it in a jar in the fridge (it will last for a week) or freeze it in ice cubes in the freezer.

The resulting corn broth will have corn starch in it, a natural thickener. Use your corn broth to add flavor and body to soups and stews. Use it as a thickening agent for gravies and stews. Boil rice in it for a little extra flavor.

Not bad, right? When you think about how little of the corn plant we eat, it makes sense to put the rest of it to good use, with all of these ideas that should be easy enough to do.  

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