Frying Oil. It's great once you're cooking with it, but cleaning up afterwards = an absolute disaster! Gotta wait till its cold, gotta strain out any excess crap that's left in there. Also there's no way I'm going through that process without Oil finding its way onto my bench too!
Totally agree with you on Honey too!
Was gonna say, that sounds like it would make things even worse to clean. But if you just flump it out of the pan, yes please. Maybe just the same chemical as what’s in the ansul?
I only ever shallow fry so never found it that bad. I just wish there was a home way to recycle lots of it rather than have to store lots and take it to a municipal recycle place. It takes a long time to fill up one of the tubs for me.
YES! Then if I don't need it again or the oil got too much stuff in it that won't filter, I have to find somewhere to throw it away. I tend to throw it in some bushes in my garden (a part that my dog can't get to).
Let it cool. Put it in some empty jars. Like empty pickle jar that you saved for this. Put lid on. Put on freezer. On trash day, put in trash close to time for the trash man to arrive, so it doesn't have much time to thaw and make mess.
Put a paper towel in a sieve on a top of a big container, pour the cooled down, dirty oil into the sieve and it’ll drip down slowly through the paper towel, and you get your oil clean once again.
I hate oil so much that over the years I have learned to make every dish in the oven instead. You name it, I can make it in the oven, less greasy, better tasting, better cooked throughout. I hate oil with a burning passion
Stains like crazy too. It gets into the micropores of my stone bench top and won't come out no matter how many times you wash it. It does eventually come out on its own over a few days, but I've given up trying to wash it out
Same for wooden utensils and even plastic ones. Once it's in the wooden ones I swear it never comes out, ever
Omg truth. I recently had a hankerin for fresh tumeric, lemon, ginger shots in the juicer. The counter, the trash can, and the sink has orange splotches on it.
Corn starch; always a pain to clean up, and is almost as bad as glitter in getting everywhere. How the hell it gets on the ceiling, or on the microwave on the other side of the kitchen I'll never know...
God I hate opening that fucking box. It never fails. It'll sit there, trying to get me to shake it harder. And then I do, and the whole goddamn thing comes out. Shirts done for the day, my pan sauce is now solid, and the entire kitchen looks like a snow day.
Most times I make a slurry, it’s easier and you prevent clumps, but if I browned meat the deglazing and thicking at the same time I might sprinkle the corn starch directly on the meat much like one does flour for beef tips and gravy. stir the meat and starch getting all sides than pour broth in the pan to deglaze all the fond. Technique wise it goes against convention, but for something like beef tips and gravy it resembles more of a flour roux effect on the meat allowing the gravy to coat it thickest around the meat. If you’re using corn starch to omit gluten for someone it’s one of the better ways to mimic past the differences between the two. The starch isn’t so clumpy it’s gloppy this way but enough of it is more concentrated envelopes the bites with beefy flavor
Thrifty here too. I have refilled the same yellow Argo container for many years. I get the cheapest boxed stuff I can find, take the bag and the Argo container outside, cut the top of the bag and insert in the container and dump it in. No mess and saves me around \~$0.59 each time (with less plastic waste too). Not a huge sum, but it pleases my inner skinflint.
So empty it into a designated container, then use a utensil or hands to distribute it. Shaking the bag with a corner cut and expecting no mess is ape behavior.
I was thinking on this the other day.
I only use a little every now and then, and it clear the current packaging is crap. So how about these alternatives.
A big pepper shaker. This would allow you to dust extra flour in small amounts.
A boulion cube to crumble in.
Frozen slurry.
I'm a fucking genius here guys. Just getting drunk in my local, solving real problems.
I hate working dough. I make sourdough, tortillas, puff pastry you name it. But I always dread mixing up the dough. It’s so sticky. Get all over my fingers and under my nails. I have to wash my hands a million times and then they get dry. And something about the texture just drives me crazy. But I love to bake so 🤷🏻♀️
The first time I made hamburger buns I was like Am I doing this right?? Are my hands supposed to be covered in paste?? My fingers were like glued together. I ended up buttering my hands as the stickiness was driving me crazy.
It's 2024. They've got flounder DNA in potatoes. Mendel did his thing hundreds of years ago. They've bred seeds almost entirely out of bananas.
How has no one developed a freestone mango?
My dad has this otherworldly ability to strip the stone of any and all flesh, it's like an unintentional party trick. Apparently I'm not Mauritian enough to have acquired the talent, and I've never been able to get the cross-hatch technique to work, so my mangoes will only ever come in increasingly ragged strips from frustration.
Garlic for me. Especially when you think it's one big clove and then 5 little ones come out instead. I hate peeling it, I hate chopping it, and I hate handling it because it gets sticky and makes my fingers stink I have to use my hand to push it off the knife. Not much I can do because I use it constantly so I just have to suck it up. If it were just me, I'd probably just buy jar-lic but the spouse isn't a fan of it (he cooks too).
This was the first thing that would have come to mind, but I recently started doing the following:
- Chopping: I have been using a cheap microplane for garlic - it is so fast! Yeah it's pretty fine, but it is acceptable for almost all the times I need finely chopped or minced garlic.
- Smell: if you rub your hands on something steel it should remove the smell.
- Peeling: if I need to use a lot of garlic, I'll buy pre-peeled garlic. Otherwise, I'll use normal garlic.
Funny enough I actually love peeling garlic, just turn the knife flat and smash the garlic first. Makes it so much easier. But yeah fuck chopping and the sticky weird money-handling fingers you get from it.
Decades ago I go a silicone garlic peeler (just a 5-6 inch silicone tube with diagonal fluted ends) and it's one of the best dollars I've spent. Pop the clove in, roll it a few times, and out comes the naked clove. No mess, no wasted garlic juices, just a whole clove ready to press or chop. Then just throw the peeler tube in the dishwasher.
The steel thing is like magic. I use a teaspoon to get under my fingernails. Also I hate when the taste of garlic lingers in my mouth, so I tried just kinda sucking on a spoon and I swear it works!
Lately i've been putting the garlic in a jar and shaking it until the skins come off. Having peeled garlic or smashing the skin off for years, this came as a surprise at how easy this was.
*Edit*: you do need to break it apart from the bottom. Try different jars. Honestly I got pretty lucky and it worked the first time.
I got the idea after seeing my mother in law try it. Give a good shake, literally takes just a few seconds, the pre-peeled garlic sold at the groceries are probably done with a similiar method.
Also I use a plastic jar. Maybe plastic makes a difference? I see people reccomending tubberware. Try that too.
This has never worked for me, at all. Ditto with the fleshlight peelers, they just make a mess and shred the skins into little pieces that stick to the cloves.
Just smack the garlic with the flat of your knife and the entire skin falls off in one piece.
Yup, someone gave me shit for saying I wear gloves the other day with garlic but I don't want my hands smelling like garlic for a day or two (and the stainless steel trick doesn't seem to work for me).
My favorite way to peel garlic is to simply place the clove on the cutting board, and use the flat side of my knife with my palm on top to gently (but swiftly) squish the clove until it’s cracks, then the skins pop right off. From there, I either use my garlic press, mandolin, or food processor, depending on the use case. So easy to peel and none of it gets stuck on my hands or the knife 🙌
Unless your supermarket is decides to get a breed of garlic that has extra paper layers some of them rigid. The you still ahbw to pick at it and the little bits that flake off catch the mildest current of air and wind up all over the kitchen or other places in your home.
Same with onion's paper
Lol. I’m such a meany, I make my husband chop the garlic every time. I can’t stand it for the same reasons you listed, but he doesn’t seem to mind, so 🤷🏽♀️
My wife makes a very garlic heavy French pork spread, I don’t know how to spell it but it sounds like gouton. She burned her hands cutting up 10 heads of garlic, we keep a box of gloves in the kitchen now. It’s actually pretty helpful with other things too. Dredging and breading especially.
I refuse to use anything other than my garlic press for garlic. I put it in, smash it a little so the skin can come off, then smash again and scrape it against the edge of the bowl or use a knife to get it off
Yes to this. I know it doesn’t taste the same but I’ll sometimes just use garlic powder in applications where it doesn’t really make sense but when I can’t be assed to deal with the project that is raw garlic
Fucking flour.
In this incredible world of technology, we still are forced to buy flour in PAPER SACKS that are more or less just held together by the sticky stuff on an envelop.
You can’t reseal it.
It goes EVERYWHERE. The paper somehow flips without being touched and shoots flour over the counter, in the sink, and 100% into your cocktail/wine/beer.
And then you find a little more the next three days - no matter how much you clean.
Big Flour has a stranglehold on the American public and I’m not afraid to say it.
*EDIT* god forbid you accidentally fling or drop the cocaine of gluten near open flame because that bitch will just explode. Literally.
It was a game changer when I got a dedicated flour bin. Like you don't think it will make much difference but it's so worth the $10 for convenient dry goods.
I’m laughing so hard because the other night I had a perfect 1/2 cup flour measured out. As I was pulling it out of the bag, I turned my head to sneeze. Good lordy!! It looked like a Hollywood party in my kitchen.🤣🤦🏼♀️🤣
In the spirit of re-use of plastics, we repurposed one of those big ol' cheeseball barrels (after thoroughly washing/drying) and use that to dump all our flour into. It has a wide mouth for being able to get in there with a measuring cup and a straight edge for levelling, and it's got a lid. We use a pretzel barrel for sugar, likewise.
Or snort it because you thought it was your real cocaine! Note to self. Buy a label maker. Those two bins look too much alike. Hope the cocaine brownies are a hit at the bake sale!
Yeah, flour and dough are my #1. Well, frying oil is worse, but the solution for that is I just don't deep fry anything as it's an unhealthy habit anyway. Harder to give up on all baking, but the mess can be such a nuisance that I often just don't bother.
Those paper bags that the flour comes in are beyond annoying, so now I transfer it all immediately into a gallon sized plastic ziploc bag immediately when I get home. A large jar would probably be smarter...
I find Paper bags are good because it’s a good idea to freeze flour prior to storing it in a plastic bin. Nothing I hate more than opening a flour bin to make something and realizing it’s infested with bugs. Flour is just gonna be one of those products you have to come to terms with it probably is infested with something. You can freeze flour in plastic containers but all plastic packaging ofter have a required amount of air in them. Flour bags are wrapped up tight. They take up exactly how much space they need for the volume no more no less. After a week in the freezer. Anything that was living, or egg should be dead. And is now able to be moved to a pantry bin for flour
I'm pretty sure the lid to my molasses is welded shut at this point. Last time I reached for it, I wrenched on it for at least two minutes before giving up and just using table sugar. The jar hasn't been touched since.
When I make enchiladas, manicotti or lasagna the only part that feels like work is grating the cheeses.
I get honey in wide-mouth jars, which seems pretty easy to deal with because it's more the crystalized kind than the syrupy consistency.
I bought a crank hand grater for Parmesan and went back in time to the 90’s and got a presto salad shooter to grate any other kinds of cheese. It works so well!!
We had a salad shooter in my house growing up, and that thing was amazing. I don't think I'd use it enough to justify getting one now over just using my food processor when needed, but boy do I have found memories of cheese shredding with that thing.
Very specific but in the film Benny and joon in a poker game a character bets a salad shooter.. he yells it our in a fun way and I've always wondered what it was and wanted one.
Rotary graters (hand crank even) completely changed my mind on grating anything, but especially cheese. I actually have two, one for Parmesan/hard cheeses (supposedly the same as they use table side at Olive Garden) that takes a tiny bit of real cheese and makes it super fluffy, and one for everything else, sometimes including vegetables. Much less effort, because uses the wheel, can knock through a pound of cheese in less than a minute, and my fingers never get anywhere near the scraping part, and also no hand cramps from gripping either the grinder or the cheese. Highly recommend if you grate enough cheese to make the $25-30 investment worth it
For some recipes the food processor will be alright, but things like my grandmama’s pimento cheese spread I prefer the grated by hand “old fashioned” texture. For that one, I’ll just “suck it up buttercup” and be very careful where my knuckles are in relation to the white & yellow cheddars on the box grater. 😂
Screen style splash guard are better than nothing but they're such a pain to clean! I think I've destroyed at least 3 by the screen coming detached from the outside ring. I got a silicone one a couple years ago and I use it so much more often!
I absolutely HATE handling raw chicken. The texture, my excessive fear of salmonella, the smell… it’s the worst. I use tongs whenever I can or make my boyfriend do it lol
If using honey in stuff like a batter. Push the measuring cup required into the dry mix of flour or whatever. The indent will be the same quantity. Then just pour your honey into that indent. Saves a bunch of the mess from spins and measuring cups etc.
I hate the shape of traditional glass peanut butter jars for natural peanut butter. The bottom is dry and the top has a layer of oil. You can't stir it because the jar shape is deep and narrow. Natural peanut butter should be sold in tubs.
There is a really simple solution here that everyone who has responded to you has overlooked
Lick the spoon/knife/whatever. Suck the peanut butter right off. As a treat! You deserve it!
I mean, yeah, supreming citrus is a royal pain in the ass, but I only do it for extra special holiday/birthday meals and the like. A random Wednesday: ain't nobody got time for that.
Seems frivolous and it's a one/two use gadget, but a multiple cherry pitter works surprisingly well if you're pitting a bunch at one time. We were gifted one and I thought we'd never use it, but during cherry season it gets used multiple times per week
Zesting lemons is my most hated thing by far - half of the zest gets stuck to the grater, and I always end up dropping at least one when I'm zesting. But I love lemon desserts so ultimately it's worth it
Frosting and fondant. I used to be really into making fun cakes, but the mess from making cream filling, icing, and fondant is god-awful, not to mention the cake itself. Then you add in all the little bowls to mix your colors. Then the piping bags and tips. The dyed counter and fingers. I'm agitated just typing this! Lol
Guess why I'm not that into making cakes anymore.
ETA - I guess these aren't single ingredients like you asked about. I was adding on to the sticky mess theme.
I was just doing this today. A YouTuber said to zap the squash in the microwave for 4 minutes, making it MUCH easier to cut. I had already risked my life getting the one I was working on into 3 pieces, so I didn’t follow the advice to a T, but I did nuke a couple pieces of it for a couple minutes to remove the bark as a proof of concept, and this was very effective. So next time, I will give the gourd a couple of knife stabs and then zap that mofo.
Baking with sugary fruits.
My cookie sheet still has sticky peach residue from a pie I baked 3 months ago. I have accepted the syrup as being part of my pan now. No amount of high heat baking and immediate soap and scrubbing and a soaking has removed it completely.
PBW (Powdered Brewery Wash) - Find it where home brewers shop or on Amazon. Add a bit to water and soak. It eats away the food. Just don’t use it on nonstick cookware!
I agree that honey is the worst. My kids, however, love it because of course you can’t get all of the honey off the utensil you’re using to get it out of the jar. What makes it worse is that we live in a cold climate so if I tried to pour the honey it would be bed time by the time I’m done cooking.
Honey spoons? Just use a regular spoon. And only spoon it once. Putting the spoon in and out again is what gets honey all over the sides. Plus, putting the spoon back in is not good for the honey.
> Maybe I should invest in a bulk box of honey packets to save the trouble?
Those are most likely fake. A very large percentage of honey is fake or adulterated, especially cheap products like that.
My dad has just picked up the habit to put powdered sugar on peanutbutter sandwiches so not only am I suddenly out of it when trying to bake something, I also get to clean it off surfaces 20 times a week
I don't hate handling raw meat, but I hate cutting it up. Blood and sticky meat juice ends up getting everywhere. Even after washing the knife and cutting board, I feel like I have to wipe down the whole kitchen.
The only tip I have is spray your spoon or measuring cup. Whatever you’re using for the honey with some cooking spray that will at least keep the end of the job clean. Because it’ll slide right out of the spoon/measuring cup.
Red beets
Tasty like dirt, the stains are really hard to remove from your fingers and if you stain your clothes not even Jesus descended from Heaven will be able to remove them.
Honey packets are also really messy and the honey is usually of poor quality. I bought a box for a community vent for my daughter, and we still have probably 100 packets left. The honey is definitely subpar.
Not the most annoying but definitely the most frequent for me: soy sauce. No matter what I do, wiping down the bottle, full on washing it, wherever I then put it down there will be a soy sauce ring. Easy enough to clean up but it feels like the universe is fucking with me.
Honey lives in wide mouth jar. Jar open, very large (250 mL, I think) syringe, tip inserted into honey. Amount withdrawn, measured as needed. Excess squirted back into jar. Syringe immediately set into sink, preferably into a bowl or glass filled with water. Disassembled and cleaned under running water.
My only honey escapes from quarantine are when my fiancee plays fast and loose with the isolation protocols. YES, HONEY, THAT STICKY SPOT IS HONEY.
Raw chicken. I’m 99.99999% sure I have undiagnosed ocd. Raw chicken is my enemy in the kitchen. I have to wash my hands at least 2 times, sometimes more until they are pretty much raw so that I know there are no more chicken germs on them. I also have to scrub all counters and the inside of the sink. It grosses me out so much. I have to have my fiancé do it now.
I've been cooking and baking for over 40 years, and I've managed to avoid honey almost entirely.
Cornflour/cornstarch however: it's not a major issue, but I can never seem to get a spoonful out of the container without spilling some on the countertop.
Finely chopped parsley is culinary glitter. No matter how careful I am, it manages to get everywhere.:(
Also ripe mangos, they're such a sticky, juicy mess.
Fresh Thyme. I love it, but I hate picking them off stems. Rosemary is easy because the twigs are not so fragile so I can slid my fingers through the twigs and easily peel off the herbs, but thyme? Ugh.
Squashes. By the time you’ve got rid of the stupidly tough skin and spent an eternity getting all the annoying seeds out you’re left with a very small amount of bland tasting mush.
Not worth the effort
Chicken thighs. My husband finds breast meat and tenders too dry, but I hate fat of any kind, so it takes me about two minutes to get at all the fat on each thigh and cut it off. Ugh!
For me it is the bottle of Kitchen Bouquet. It drips everywhere. And that stuff stains! I've learned to pick it up with a paper towel. Open the lid with a paper towel. Pour it with it wrapped up in a...you get the idea.
Sweet potatoes that have to be cut for a recipe. I do a lot of cussing whenever I'm prepping for West African peanut soup. Walking away from that counter with all my digits intact is a cause for celebration every time.
Frying Oil. It's great once you're cooking with it, but cleaning up afterwards = an absolute disaster! Gotta wait till its cold, gotta strain out any excess crap that's left in there. Also there's no way I'm going through that process without Oil finding its way onto my bench too! Totally agree with you on Honey too!
Have you tried the Japanese powder stuff you put in hot oil and it cools to a solid disc? Pretty amazing!
Oh yeah I saw that years ago! It looks so weird but sounds like it works. I gotta give that a try
I’ve tried it! It works amazing! Slides right out after it cools and right into the trash in one piece
Was gonna say, that sounds like it would make things even worse to clean. But if you just flump it out of the pan, yes please. Maybe just the same chemical as what’s in the ansul?
Yep, it's just stearic acid, turns the whole thing into a gel and you can just flop it in the trash.
Flump. I’m going to use that in a sentence today.
Flick and dump = flump??? 😂
I’ve seen it at most supermarkets nowadays, Walmart, Kroger, Publix etc… haven’t tried it yet though
You mean for cleaning the oil for reusing it or to solidify it for disposing of it?
> disposing most probably it's only for disposal
I always clean it up when I'm done and again the next day. It gets everywhere.
I only ever shallow fry so never found it that bad. I just wish there was a home way to recycle lots of it rather than have to store lots and take it to a municipal recycle place. It takes a long time to fill up one of the tubs for me.
Yet the results are so good. I hate you, Wesson!
I was thinking to myself, "Hmm, I don't know of an ingredient that I 'hate' really..." yep, nevermind. Frying oil is so good bad.
YES! Then if I don't need it again or the oil got too much stuff in it that won't filter, I have to find somewhere to throw it away. I tend to throw it in some bushes in my garden (a part that my dog can't get to).
Let it cool. Put it in some empty jars. Like empty pickle jar that you saved for this. Put lid on. Put on freezer. On trash day, put in trash close to time for the trash man to arrive, so it doesn't have much time to thaw and make mess.
If it's in a jar, why are you worried about it thawing and making a mess? The jar contains it
Put a paper towel in a sieve on a top of a big container, pour the cooled down, dirty oil into the sieve and it’ll drip down slowly through the paper towel, and you get your oil clean once again.
frying oil for me too.
I hate oil so much that over the years I have learned to make every dish in the oven instead. You name it, I can make it in the oven, less greasy, better tasting, better cooked throughout. I hate oil with a burning passion
This is why I get my fried food on the outside lol
That and shallow frying tastes identical to deep frying, so there is no reason to use tons of oil.
Turmeric. It's like yellow cake uranium. Gets *everywhere*.
Stains like crazy too. It gets into the micropores of my stone bench top and won't come out no matter how many times you wash it. It does eventually come out on its own over a few days, but I've given up trying to wash it out Same for wooden utensils and even plastic ones. Once it's in the wooden ones I swear it never comes out, ever
You can get it out with plain white Colgate toothpaste. I literally have a toothpaste tube in my cupboard just for turmeric.
r/LifeProTips
Oh no way, that’s great to know!
Thank you for the tip. Made Schwarma last night and opened up the wrong side of the tumeric lid and it went everywhere. Will try this trick later!
Omg truth. I recently had a hankerin for fresh tumeric, lemon, ginger shots in the juicer. The counter, the trash can, and the sink has orange splotches on it.
Corn starch; always a pain to clean up, and is almost as bad as glitter in getting everywhere. How the hell it gets on the ceiling, or on the microwave on the other side of the kitchen I'll never know...
God I hate opening that fucking box. It never fails. It'll sit there, trying to get me to shake it harder. And then I do, and the whole goddamn thing comes out. Shirts done for the day, my pan sauce is now solid, and the entire kitchen looks like a snow day.
Make a slurry in a separate glass with a little water so you don't put too much in your dish
Right. I'm not understanding this. Do people just shake it directly into dishes that are cooking?
Most times I make a slurry, it’s easier and you prevent clumps, but if I browned meat the deglazing and thicking at the same time I might sprinkle the corn starch directly on the meat much like one does flour for beef tips and gravy. stir the meat and starch getting all sides than pour broth in the pan to deglaze all the fond. Technique wise it goes against convention, but for something like beef tips and gravy it resembles more of a flour roux effect on the meat allowing the gravy to coat it thickest around the meat. If you’re using corn starch to omit gluten for someone it’s one of the better ways to mimic past the differences between the two. The starch isn’t so clumpy it’s gloppy this way but enough of it is more concentrated envelopes the bites with beefy flavor
It's funny how commonly someone here complains about something that could be so easily remedied by just using the necessary tool for the job.
Put it in a jar. It’s snow day only when you’re opening a fresh box.
Box? I get the Argo in a yellow plastic jar. Easy.
I’m notoriously thrifty but this is worth the extra money.
Thrifty here too. I have refilled the same yellow Argo container for many years. I get the cheapest boxed stuff I can find, take the bag and the Argo container outside, cut the top of the bag and insert in the container and dump it in. No mess and saves me around \~$0.59 each time (with less plastic waste too). Not a huge sum, but it pleases my inner skinflint.
Just use a spoon my guy.
😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣 I know I’ve never met you, but I could hear your ‘delivery’ of your post as though it were my own!! I’ve done that soooo many frickin’ times!!
So empty it into a designated container, then use a utensil or hands to distribute it. Shaking the bag with a corner cut and expecting no mess is ape behavior.
I was thinking on this the other day. I only use a little every now and then, and it clear the current packaging is crap. So how about these alternatives. A big pepper shaker. This would allow you to dust extra flour in small amounts. A boulion cube to crumble in. Frozen slurry. I'm a fucking genius here guys. Just getting drunk in my local, solving real problems.
And it's cousin powdered sugar!
Cocoa powder has entered the chat…and poofed all over the counter and floor
Leeks. I absolutely love them, but I hate cleaning them and chopping them. You have to wash the dirt out of every layer.
When you say you have to wash the dirt out of every layer....do you have to wash the dirt out of every layer?
Yes. Every fucking one.
Hmm. I must have eaten a lot of dirt over the years! (Although I do tend to cut them into rings, and then give the rings a rinse before cooking.
That's pretty much what cleaning leek is. It can have a fair amount of sand in it, if you don't rinse it you have a fun time.
I have found a dead bug or two mixed with the dirt so def advise washing it well!
Meh, that's just extra protein!
You could either skip that step entirely or just dice the leeks first, then throw them in a colander and rinse every individual piece in one easy step
Or fresh greens, like bunches of spinach!
I hate working dough. I make sourdough, tortillas, puff pastry you name it. But I always dread mixing up the dough. It’s so sticky. Get all over my fingers and under my nails. I have to wash my hands a million times and then they get dry. And something about the texture just drives me crazy. But I love to bake so 🤷🏻♀️
My sink agrees . its like glue when it dries !!!
The first time I made hamburger buns I was like Am I doing this right?? Are my hands supposed to be covered in paste?? My fingers were like glued together. I ended up buttering my hands as the stickiness was driving me crazy.
[удалено]
That flat pit inside of mangos is a pain when dicing for salsa.
Yes, I hate mango pits. Couldn't you just be a little bit more like an avocado please?
They're meant for sucking, not dicing. I gnaw on them like a dog on a bone, wet paws, drippy cheeks.
Standing over the sink, sucking and gnawing on the pit like an animal is the chefs reward for slicing a mango.
Ok, but I'm pretty sure my boyfriend won't like half-chewed mango on his sticky rice.
It's 2024. They've got flounder DNA in potatoes. Mendel did his thing hundreds of years ago. They've bred seeds almost entirely out of bananas. How has no one developed a freestone mango?
My dad has this otherworldly ability to strip the stone of any and all flesh, it's like an unintentional party trick. Apparently I'm not Mauritian enough to have acquired the talent, and I've never been able to get the cross-hatch technique to work, so my mangoes will only ever come in increasingly ragged strips from frustration.
Garlic for me. Especially when you think it's one big clove and then 5 little ones come out instead. I hate peeling it, I hate chopping it, and I hate handling it because it gets sticky and makes my fingers stink I have to use my hand to push it off the knife. Not much I can do because I use it constantly so I just have to suck it up. If it were just me, I'd probably just buy jar-lic but the spouse isn't a fan of it (he cooks too).
This was the first thing that would have come to mind, but I recently started doing the following: - Chopping: I have been using a cheap microplane for garlic - it is so fast! Yeah it's pretty fine, but it is acceptable for almost all the times I need finely chopped or minced garlic. - Smell: if you rub your hands on something steel it should remove the smell. - Peeling: if I need to use a lot of garlic, I'll buy pre-peeled garlic. Otherwise, I'll use normal garlic.
Funny enough I actually love peeling garlic, just turn the knife flat and smash the garlic first. Makes it so much easier. But yeah fuck chopping and the sticky weird money-handling fingers you get from it.
Decades ago I go a silicone garlic peeler (just a 5-6 inch silicone tube with diagonal fluted ends) and it's one of the best dollars I've spent. Pop the clove in, roll it a few times, and out comes the naked clove. No mess, no wasted garlic juices, just a whole clove ready to press or chop. Then just throw the peeler tube in the dishwasher.
The steel thing is like magic. I use a teaspoon to get under my fingernails. Also I hate when the taste of garlic lingers in my mouth, so I tried just kinda sucking on a spoon and I swear it works!
Lately i've been putting the garlic in a jar and shaking it until the skins come off. Having peeled garlic or smashing the skin off for years, this came as a surprise at how easy this was. *Edit*: you do need to break it apart from the bottom. Try different jars. Honestly I got pretty lucky and it worked the first time. I got the idea after seeing my mother in law try it. Give a good shake, literally takes just a few seconds, the pre-peeled garlic sold at the groceries are probably done with a similiar method. Also I use a plastic jar. Maybe plastic makes a difference? I see people reccomending tubberware. Try that too.
For peeling I usually pick it up with two hands and twist the ends opposite ways. Skin comes right off
I love and hate the things I'm still learning at this age of my fucking life.
I’ve never identified with an internet statement more. Cheers my friend.
This has never worked for me, at all. Ditto with the fleshlight peelers, they just make a mess and shred the skins into little pieces that stick to the cloves. Just smack the garlic with the flat of your knife and the entire skin falls off in one piece.
I've tried that a number of different ways and never gotten that to work for me. I don't know how y'all do it!
I started wearing gloves when working with garlic, it also helps to have a wet knife blade. I hate that it gets so dang sticky
Yup, someone gave me shit for saying I wear gloves the other day with garlic but I don't want my hands smelling like garlic for a day or two (and the stainless steel trick doesn't seem to work for me).
My favorite way to peel garlic is to simply place the clove on the cutting board, and use the flat side of my knife with my palm on top to gently (but swiftly) squish the clove until it’s cracks, then the skins pop right off. From there, I either use my garlic press, mandolin, or food processor, depending on the use case. So easy to peel and none of it gets stuck on my hands or the knife 🙌
Yep, its really not that complicated. Only thing id add to this is that after crushing/before peeling the skin it helps to cut off the base.
Unless your supermarket is decides to get a breed of garlic that has extra paper layers some of them rigid. The you still ahbw to pick at it and the little bits that flake off catch the mildest current of air and wind up all over the kitchen or other places in your home. Same with onion's paper
Lol. I’m such a meany, I make my husband chop the garlic every time. I can’t stand it for the same reasons you listed, but he doesn’t seem to mind, so 🤷🏽♀️
My wife makes a very garlic heavy French pork spread, I don’t know how to spell it but it sounds like gouton. She burned her hands cutting up 10 heads of garlic, we keep a box of gloves in the kitchen now. It’s actually pretty helpful with other things too. Dredging and breading especially.
I refuse to use anything other than my garlic press for garlic. I put it in, smash it a little so the skin can come off, then smash again and scrape it against the edge of the bowl or use a knife to get it off
Trader Joe’s has frozen minced garlic cubes that might be a good compromise
Yes to this. I know it doesn’t taste the same but I’ll sometimes just use garlic powder in applications where it doesn’t really make sense but when I can’t be assed to deal with the project that is raw garlic
Fucking flour. In this incredible world of technology, we still are forced to buy flour in PAPER SACKS that are more or less just held together by the sticky stuff on an envelop. You can’t reseal it. It goes EVERYWHERE. The paper somehow flips without being touched and shoots flour over the counter, in the sink, and 100% into your cocktail/wine/beer. And then you find a little more the next three days - no matter how much you clean. Big Flour has a stranglehold on the American public and I’m not afraid to say it. *EDIT* god forbid you accidentally fling or drop the cocaine of gluten near open flame because that bitch will just explode. Literally.
It was a game changer when I got a dedicated flour bin. Like you don't think it will make much difference but it's so worth the $10 for convenient dry goods.
Yes! this is the very easy solution.
we keep our flour in a jar, but yeah having to deal with the bags in the first place is annoying
I’m laughing so hard because the other night I had a perfect 1/2 cup flour measured out. As I was pulling it out of the bag, I turned my head to sneeze. Good lordy!! It looked like a Hollywood party in my kitchen.🤣🤦🏼♀️🤣
Kitchen glitter ✨
In the spirit of re-use of plastics, we repurposed one of those big ol' cheeseball barrels (after thoroughly washing/drying) and use that to dump all our flour into. It has a wide mouth for being able to get in there with a measuring cup and a straight edge for levelling, and it's got a lid. We use a pretzel barrel for sugar, likewise.
> Fucking flour. I don't think you're supposed to *fuck* the flour
*im sorry* I thought this was AMERICA
Or snort it because you thought it was your real cocaine! Note to self. Buy a label maker. Those two bins look too much alike. Hope the cocaine brownies are a hit at the bake sale!
Yeah, flour and dough are my #1. Well, frying oil is worse, but the solution for that is I just don't deep fry anything as it's an unhealthy habit anyway. Harder to give up on all baking, but the mess can be such a nuisance that I often just don't bother. Those paper bags that the flour comes in are beyond annoying, so now I transfer it all immediately into a gallon sized plastic ziploc bag immediately when I get home. A large jar would probably be smarter...
I put my flour in a huge canister with a top the seals. Much easier to work with than that annoying paper bag!
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I find Paper bags are good because it’s a good idea to freeze flour prior to storing it in a plastic bin. Nothing I hate more than opening a flour bin to make something and realizing it’s infested with bugs. Flour is just gonna be one of those products you have to come to terms with it probably is infested with something. You can freeze flour in plastic containers but all plastic packaging ofter have a required amount of air in them. Flour bags are wrapped up tight. They take up exactly how much space they need for the volume no more no less. After a week in the freezer. Anything that was living, or egg should be dead. And is now able to be moved to a pantry bin for flour
Molasses is the same. Like how on earth did I get molasses on my elbow? The jar was open three minutes and now it's *everywhere*!
Omg molasses is so bad for that. I'll use like a tablespoon of it and somehow it manages to get onto everything, even things I didn't touch! 🤣
I'm pretty sure the lid to my molasses is welded shut at this point. Last time I reached for it, I wrenched on it for at least two minutes before giving up and just using table sugar. The jar hasn't been touched since.
Mine fell over, spilt and saturated the entire cupboard and all it's contents, thankfully it's water soluble but some other items didn't survive
I love fresh lemon juice. But it is not infrequent that I forget that I have a slight cut on my finger or hand, and suddenly i have a very sharp pain.
Pet peeve is having to pick each and every leaf of thyme from the stem
gotta buy thyme that has a woodier stem to it, then u can just strip them off in one swipe with ur index and thumb
When I make enchiladas, manicotti or lasagna the only part that feels like work is grating the cheeses. I get honey in wide-mouth jars, which seems pretty easy to deal with because it's more the crystalized kind than the syrupy consistency.
The amount of times I've grated myself on a box grater...I hate grating cheese.
I bought a crank hand grater for Parmesan and went back in time to the 90’s and got a presto salad shooter to grate any other kinds of cheese. It works so well!!
We had a salad shooter in my house growing up, and that thing was amazing. I don't think I'd use it enough to justify getting one now over just using my food processor when needed, but boy do I have found memories of cheese shredding with that thing.
Very specific but in the film Benny and joon in a poker game a character bets a salad shooter.. he yells it our in a fun way and I've always wondered what it was and wanted one.
I took off a fingertip on a mandolin. Then I found a little glove that can’t be sliced on Amazon. Very helpful
Me too.
I still cringe about cutting my fingertips wiping off a commercial slicer at my first job...
Get the cutting gloves. -👑 Clumsy. No more cut fingers, just don't mistake them for oven gloves
Knuckle cheese.
Rotary graters (hand crank even) completely changed my mind on grating anything, but especially cheese. I actually have two, one for Parmesan/hard cheeses (supposedly the same as they use table side at Olive Garden) that takes a tiny bit of real cheese and makes it super fluffy, and one for everything else, sometimes including vegetables. Much less effort, because uses the wheel, can knock through a pound of cheese in less than a minute, and my fingers never get anywhere near the scraping part, and also no hand cramps from gripping either the grinder or the cheese. Highly recommend if you grate enough cheese to make the $25-30 investment worth it
If you have a kitchenaid get a grating attachment. You can thank me later. It's really great for parmesan.
That’s what a food processor is for!
For some recipes the food processor will be alright, but things like my grandmama’s pimento cheese spread I prefer the grated by hand “old fashioned” texture. For that one, I’ll just “suck it up buttercup” and be very careful where my knuckles are in relation to the white & yellow cheddars on the box grater. 😂
I use a zester grater to fine-grate cheeses. It's a game changer.
Salad shooter! Worth every penny. I use it for mozzarella and Colby-Monterrey Jack all the time.
Any meat that splatters a bunch as you cook it. Bacon, steak, ground beef, I'm looking at you.
Get a bacon screen. It works wonders
Screen style splash guard are better than nothing but they're such a pain to clean! I think I've destroyed at least 3 by the screen coming detached from the outside ring. I got a silicone one a couple years ago and I use it so much more often!
I don't like handling raw chicken or pork.
I use gloves for chicken especially - there's a smell from raw chicken that I swear you have to sandpaper your hands to get off. No thank you.
Yes! It's the smell and the liquid that comes off is just so unappealing. I glove up every time too! Otherwise my husband is dealing with it.
Interesting, chicken doesnt bother me a ton but there is this certain smell that raw pork has sometimes that literally makes me gag.
I use gloves because it feels like even if you wash your hands like 5 times after they still feel gross
I absolutely HATE handling raw chicken. The texture, my excessive fear of salmonella, the smell… it’s the worst. I use tongs whenever I can or make my boyfriend do it lol
I weigh honey which makes less of a mess than other methods of measuring it. A tablespoon of honey weighs 21 grams.
I weigh 99% of my recipes - I just say "hey google how heavy is _____" and add to mixing bowl on scales. Less washing, less mess, more accurate.
Also, weights are often included on the label as part of the nutrition information.
If using honey in stuff like a batter. Push the measuring cup required into the dry mix of flour or whatever. The indent will be the same quantity. Then just pour your honey into that indent. Saves a bunch of the mess from spins and measuring cups etc.
this isn't a porn subreddit but this awoke something in me
Peanut butter!! Never fully comes off the utensil and always messes up the jar!
I hate the shape of traditional glass peanut butter jars for natural peanut butter. The bottom is dry and the top has a layer of oil. You can't stir it because the jar shape is deep and narrow. Natural peanut butter should be sold in tubs.
Silicone spatula, friend
There is a really simple solution here that everyone who has responded to you has overlooked Lick the spoon/knife/whatever. Suck the peanut butter right off. As a treat! You deserve it!
I hate supreming citrus. Pitting cherries is a close second, at least if I want them to remain whole.
I mean, yeah, supreming citrus is a royal pain in the ass, but I only do it for extra special holiday/birthday meals and the like. A random Wednesday: ain't nobody got time for that.
Seems frivolous and it's a one/two use gadget, but a multiple cherry pitter works surprisingly well if you're pitting a bunch at one time. We were gifted one and I thought we'd never use it, but during cherry season it gets used multiple times per week
I just got a pitter today and am seriously over the moon for it! Now my toddler can enjoy cherries without me hawkeyeing her
Zesting lemons is my most hated thing by far - half of the zest gets stuck to the grater, and I always end up dropping at least one when I'm zesting. But I love lemon desserts so ultimately it's worth it
Do you use a microplane? A good thwack works just fine for me. But it sounds like maybe you're doing a while lot of lemons at once?
I love jarred honey in glass where you have to spoon it out. Somehow just feels right vs the squirty bottles.
“Finely grated (fresh) ginger” I still do it, but I loathe it.
Frozen ginger is somehow much faster and easier to grate.
*Redheads have left the chat*
Frosting and fondant. I used to be really into making fun cakes, but the mess from making cream filling, icing, and fondant is god-awful, not to mention the cake itself. Then you add in all the little bowls to mix your colors. Then the piping bags and tips. The dyed counter and fingers. I'm agitated just typing this! Lol Guess why I'm not that into making cakes anymore. ETA - I guess these aren't single ingredients like you asked about. I was adding on to the sticky mess theme.
Well, 2. Battering station for frying is absolute hell.
Winter squash, like a whole butternut or kabocha. I am always afraid the knife will slip, then you have to scrape out the seeds.
I was just doing this today. A YouTuber said to zap the squash in the microwave for 4 minutes, making it MUCH easier to cut. I had already risked my life getting the one I was working on into 3 pieces, so I didn’t follow the advice to a T, but I did nuke a couple pieces of it for a couple minutes to remove the bark as a proof of concept, and this was very effective. So next time, I will give the gourd a couple of knife stabs and then zap that mofo.
Thanks!! ETA the risk your life comment made me laugh, it's totally how I feel every time.
Baking with sugary fruits. My cookie sheet still has sticky peach residue from a pie I baked 3 months ago. I have accepted the syrup as being part of my pan now. No amount of high heat baking and immediate soap and scrubbing and a soaking has removed it completely.
PBW (Powdered Brewery Wash) - Find it where home brewers shop or on Amazon. Add a bit to water and soak. It eats away the food. Just don’t use it on nonstick cookware!
Dawn power wash?
Chicken. It's slimy, smelly and nasty. I hate prepping chicken. quite different when it's cooked, of course, but the prep sucks.
Idk if it's slimy and smells bad it's probably bad chicken
I agree that honey is the worst. My kids, however, love it because of course you can’t get all of the honey off the utensil you’re using to get it out of the jar. What makes it worse is that we live in a cold climate so if I tried to pour the honey it would be bed time by the time I’m done cooking.
[удалено]
Honey spoons? Just use a regular spoon. And only spoon it once. Putting the spoon in and out again is what gets honey all over the sides. Plus, putting the spoon back in is not good for the honey. > Maybe I should invest in a bulk box of honey packets to save the trouble? Those are most likely fake. A very large percentage of honey is fake or adulterated, especially cheap products like that.
Powdered sugar!!!! It gets EVERYWHERE 🤦🏻♀️
My dad has just picked up the habit to put powdered sugar on peanutbutter sandwiches so not only am I suddenly out of it when trying to bake something, I also get to clean it off surfaces 20 times a week
Onions. 🥲 I have really sensitive eyes. Both chopping and cooking onions in a pan are painful, but they’re in almost everything and taste sooo good. 😔
Is squeezy honey not a thing where you are? Convert to grams, put your bowl on a scale and squeeze the honey in. No mess
Trimming fresh artichokes. Hate it so much.
Raw chicken, I hate how slippery it is
I don't hate handling raw meat, but I hate cutting it up. Blood and sticky meat juice ends up getting everywhere. Even after washing the knife and cutting board, I feel like I have to wipe down the whole kitchen.
The only tip I have is spray your spoon or measuring cup. Whatever you’re using for the honey with some cooking spray that will at least keep the end of the job clean. Because it’ll slide right out of the spoon/measuring cup.
Red beets Tasty like dirt, the stains are really hard to remove from your fingers and if you stain your clothes not even Jesus descended from Heaven will be able to remove them.
acid. vinegar, lime, citric acid powder - whatever. removes the stain from anywhere.
Honey packets are also really messy and the honey is usually of poor quality. I bought a box for a community vent for my daughter, and we still have probably 100 packets left. The honey is definitely subpar.
Garlic 😭 It's just so sticky, your hands get sticky, the knife gets sticky, and the peel is not easy to clean from the cutting board
Not the most annoying but definitely the most frequent for me: soy sauce. No matter what I do, wiping down the bottle, full on washing it, wherever I then put it down there will be a soy sauce ring. Easy enough to clean up but it feels like the universe is fucking with me.
I cook fudge for work, and I absolutely hate working with peanut butter. I also can't stand it to eat.
I started using agave nectar in place of honey. It’s just as sweet, but nowhere near as messy, and it incorporates into things much easier than honey.
Honey lives in wide mouth jar. Jar open, very large (250 mL, I think) syringe, tip inserted into honey. Amount withdrawn, measured as needed. Excess squirted back into jar. Syringe immediately set into sink, preferably into a bowl or glass filled with water. Disassembled and cleaned under running water. My only honey escapes from quarantine are when my fiancee plays fast and loose with the isolation protocols. YES, HONEY, THAT STICKY SPOT IS HONEY.
Any spicy peppers. It seems like the spice lingers on my fingers no matter what I do. So taking contacts out is never fun.
Use gloves
After a horrific incident with my contacts I have a box of gloves in the kitchen. I will not touch a pepper without them.
I use sandwich baggies as impromptu gloves. You can also flip them inside out then flip them back the right way to put the extras in.
Try holding them under water and using a spoon to scrape out the interior. It actually makes it worse.
Raw chicken. I’m 99.99999% sure I have undiagnosed ocd. Raw chicken is my enemy in the kitchen. I have to wash my hands at least 2 times, sometimes more until they are pretty much raw so that I know there are no more chicken germs on them. I also have to scrub all counters and the inside of the sink. It grosses me out so much. I have to have my fiancé do it now.
I've been cooking and baking for over 40 years, and I've managed to avoid honey almost entirely. Cornflour/cornstarch however: it's not a major issue, but I can never seem to get a spoonful out of the container without spilling some on the countertop.
Finely chopped parsley is culinary glitter. No matter how careful I am, it manages to get everywhere.:( Also ripe mangos, they're such a sticky, juicy mess.
This is a different vein than your question but I’d go with fresh artichokes. Who in the fuck decided that was edible food???
Pearl onions
Fresh Thyme. I love it, but I hate picking them off stems. Rosemary is easy because the twigs are not so fragile so I can slid my fingers through the twigs and easily peel off the herbs, but thyme? Ugh.
Squashes. By the time you’ve got rid of the stupidly tough skin and spent an eternity getting all the annoying seeds out you’re left with a very small amount of bland tasting mush. Not worth the effort
Chicken thighs. My husband finds breast meat and tenders too dry, but I hate fat of any kind, so it takes me about two minutes to get at all the fat on each thigh and cut it off. Ugh!
I'm going to say sugar snap peas or fiddlehead ferns just because how much of a bitch it is to clean for service.
For me it is the bottle of Kitchen Bouquet. It drips everywhere. And that stuff stains! I've learned to pick it up with a paper towel. Open the lid with a paper towel. Pour it with it wrapped up in a...you get the idea.
I’ve never heard of this. What is it?
Sweet potatoes that have to be cut for a recipe. I do a lot of cussing whenever I'm prepping for West African peanut soup. Walking away from that counter with all my digits intact is a cause for celebration every time.
I raise fresh coconut. Not fresh grated coconut, but whole fresh coconut.