Dishwashers!

Can you stand it? I'm going to give you some tips on dishwashers now!

Today dishwashers use less water and are a whole lot quieter. What more could you want? (I know, we always want more, don't we?)

As with laundry, using too much detergent is a bad thing. Newer dishwashers use less water. Less water, less detergent! (Where have we heard that before?) Never, Never, Never, Ever use the little gel packs or any pre-measured packet of detergent. They may be 'convenient', but they are more trouble than they are worth. Most of the time they are too much. Even a full load doesn't need that much detergent. Too much detergent can ruin seals and water gets where you don't want it. Then you have to call the repairman.

Here too, we are using detergent and not soap. We DO NOT want suds. Suds in a dishwasher can spell disaster. No one needs water all over the floor. Unless of course you are scrubbing the floor, but even then too much of a good thing is bad. (Even I don't want to have to do that!)

Using too much detergent can ruin your dishes. Do your glasses look foggy and feel like they have a film on them. What has happened is "you are using too much detergent"! The detergent has eaten the finish off of your dishes. Do you rinse your dishes before loading them? Stop It!!! You spend money on detergent, let it do it's job. If your dishes are not getting clean if you don't rinse them, you have other issues.

Make sure nothing is blocking the spray arms. Also make sure nothing is in the way for the water spray to get to the detergent cup. The cup needs to have water hit it to get all the detergent out so it can do it's job. Make sure nothing is nesting. The water has to be able to get to all surfaces to clean them.

If your dishes are still not clean, it's time to call the repairman. Or get a new dishwasher.

Save Money! Stop using too much detergent!

Cheesy Potatoes

Now I would have sworn I put this recipe on here, but I can't find it. So if you know what I did with it let me know. Here it is again.

3 lb Shredded Hash Brown Potatoes, thawed

2 Cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese

1 Stick Butter, melted (that's real butter!)

1 10 ounce Can Cream of Chicken Soup

8 Ounces Sour Cream

1 1/4 Cup Milk

1 T Dried Chopped Onion

1 Tbsp Pepper Blend (Mixture of Black Pepper and Red and Green Bell peppers)

1/2 to 1 tsp Liquid Smoke, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

I start by mixing the soup, sour cream and seasonings. Then add the milk and cheese. It just mixes better for me that way. The butter goes in next. The potatoes are last.

Spray a 9X13 pan with a vegetable oil spray. Transfer the mixture to the pan and spread evenly.

Bake for about 45 minutes to an hour. Yummy!

Webstaurant

"What the heck is that?", you ask. Well I'm gonna tell you.

It's a website that my sister-in-law told me about. Has all kinds of neat things for the kitchen. Most of it is for commercial kitchens of course. But those of us who cook a lot, can benefit from it too.

I had a customer in on Friday afternoon that needed a new stove. She enjoys cooking and her husband enjoys eating. Her old stove was giving her fits. So a new one was in order.

As the conversation progressed, and we discussed a lot of things, we talked about the use of the convection oven. I told her I couldn't live without it. The way I bake, it would be very hard to do without the convection oven. I would have to quit my day job just to get my baking done! She wasn't so sure about it.

I told her about baking cookies 3 dozen at a time. We talked about angel food cake and pies. I gave her several examples of my own experiences. She still wasn't quite convinced. So we went back to the top of the stove. I was telling her about the mess I can make on the stove top and it still comes clean. "But what about bacon?", she asks. "That's always a mess."

"Never cook bacon on the top of the stove! Cook that in the oven!", I tell her. She looks at me like I've lost my mind, or she is about to lose hers. After I got done explaining how to cook bacon in the oven, she bought the stove! I gave her a card with the address for this blog. (I hope you find the bacon post. I'll try to link it here.)

Back to Webstaurant. I also told her she could get parchment paper from Webstaurant in boxes of 1000 or 2000 sheets. Parchment paper is as important as a convection oven to me. And anyone buying it in rolls is paying way too much for it.

What a great day when I can help make some one's life a little easier.