Monday will be the two year anniversary of me staying at home a lot more because of the pandemic. During that time, as I've spent more time cooking, cleaning, and organizing, I've learned some interesting things. Whether you call them household hints or life hacks, I thought I'd share them in a post. So here they are in no particular order.
Colander baskets make cooking easier
I got a colander basket and it has made it so much easier to boil and retrieve food from boiling water. Just put it in the basket and when it's done, lift the basket out of the pot.
Saving vegetable scraps for broth is a good idea
One of the things I've prepared many times in my colander basket is broth. Following some advice I learned on The Kitchn, I save vegetable scraps in a freezer bag so I have them whenever I need them. Not all vegetables work well in a broth, but I recommend celery, parsley stems, onion scraps, and carrot peelings.
I can make my own vegetable beef soup
For some reason (supply chain issues?) when I was stocking up on groceries in 2020, I had a very hard time finding one of my favorite soups, Campbell's Healthy Request Chunky Old Fashioned Vegetable Beef. But I was able to use recipes on Pinterest as a starting point to develop my own version. Now that I've perfected it, I don't even want the store-bought version anymore. All you need is:
1.5 pounds of beef stew meat
2 white potatoes
2 to 3 ribs of celery
1 can of diced tomatoes
yellow, white or red onion, to taste
1 package of mixed frozen vegetables (peas, carrots, corn, green beans)
32 ounces of beef broth
fresh parsley, Worchestershire sauce, salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic, to taste
Defrost the vegetables, sear the meat, and sweat the onions. Put everything but the parsley in a slow cooker for 8 to 9 hours on low. Garnish with fresh parsley.
Homemade marinara sauce tastes better from the slow cooker
Another slow cooker recipe I like to make is marinara sauce. It tastes so much richer that way. 2 - 3 hours on low is an ideal amount of time.
One of my refrigerator shelves isn't cold enough
Having a refrigerator thermometer and taking readings of different shelves made me realize that the shelf furthest from the freezer is not cold enough to safely store perishable foods. But it's a great place to keep things that don't need to be refrigerated when I want to extend their shelf life, like baked goods and some root vegetables.
I prefer to hand wash clothes in buckets
At the beginning of the pandemic, I was so afraid of leaving my apartment and getting COVID that I washed everything by hand. Rather than filling my sinks or tub with soaking clothes, I got some inexpensive plastic buckets from Target for hand-washing. I've also found that they're great for storing laundry that I plan to hand wash in the near future, as opposed to having to rummage through my hamper to find it later.
I can keep track of furniture hardware better in cafeteria trays
I've assembled a lot of furniture since 2020. To keep track of all the hardware, I started using some plastic trays with dividers to sort out the parts. I found that it make the process a lot easier.
I can keep my throw pillows in a basket
I love having lots of throw pillows and I won't apologize for that. I figured out where to put mine when I'm ready to go to sleep: a basket that sits between my bed and my dresser.
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