Removing Build Up From The Inside Of Your Dishwasher

I was at Child #4's flag football practice a couple of weeks ago, lamenting that my dishwasher was causing me grief. The main problem being that the dishes were coming out dirtier than when they went in. I am not new to this dilemma. I am lucky to live in an area that is surrounded by mountains, trees, and rivers. It is a beautiful place, but it has some of the hardest stinking water in the U.S. (seriously, it does!). Hard water can wreak great havoc on washing machines, dishwashers (I am on #3), faucets, pipes, siding, basically anything it touches. I do own a water softener, but that does not keep things totally in check (it just slows the process down). Anyway, the combination of lime scale, hard water, and dishwasher detergent build up had trashed the inside of the dishwasher, so when I ran a load, little bits of build up were being deposited on my dishes. One of the mom's that was chatting with me mentioned that a plumber had told her to use The Works toilet bowl cleaner to remove the build up. Being a gal who is always up for a cheap answer to a problem, I thought I would give it a try.

You can buy The Works toilet bowl cleaner at the Dollar Tree and Walmart.


Basically this is what I did:

• Turn off heated drying cycle on your dishwasher.
• Place newspaper under dishwasher to catch any drips. This is VERY important if you have laminate or hard wood floors. If the cleaner sits on your floor for very long it will eat the finish off of your floor! Wipe up spill and change wet newspaper IMMEDIATELY!
  
• Squirt toilet bowl cleaner on the sides and around the entire bottom of the dishwasher.
• I squirted some into the holes of my sprayer arms because they were filled up with crud,too.
• Let cleaner sit for 5 to 15 minutes, depending on how bad the build up is. I let mine sit for 10 minutes.
• Fill the detergent cup up with toilet bowl cleaner.
• Run the dishwasher on the Light Wash cycle (that way the dishwasher doesn't drain out your cleaner before it is done working).
• When dishwasher hits the drying cycle, open the door and let the steam escape.
• Use a wet sponge to wipe out any remaining grunge.
• Run your dishwasher without anything in it through a second cycle to remove any remaining cleaner.
  
• Admire your beautifully clean dishwasher!

I had to repeat the process a second time, because my dishwasher was so funky gross, but it was worth it. Here is the dishwasher before:


Here it is after a thorough detox:



Almost like new! The best part is the dishes actually came out clean and sparkly! The troops are happy, too. They were getting tired of doing multiple loads of dishes by hand everyday to keep up. The big babies! I remember when I was growing up I had to do dishes by hand...uphill... in a snow storm....

Liquifying Honey

I brought a jar of honey up from the store room yesterday, and was sad to see it had started to solidify.


Honey has the habit of crystalizing if it sits unused for to long. Throwing it away was not an option (the Waste Not Want Not Challenge has cured me off that!) Luckily, I remembered my mom restoring honey when this same thing happened in my youth. After dragging the memory to the forefront of my little brain, I put my plan int action.

Bring enough water to a simmer in a sauce pan to cover the honey jar. You don't want the water to boil. It will melt your container if it is plastic. You could also dump the solid honey into a clean glass container if you are worried. Place the honey on a couple of can jar ring so it doesn't touch the bottom of the pan.


Keep the burner on a low setting so the water will continue to simmer.


This take a little while (it took about an hour and a half start to finish). Keep checking the honey occasionally to see how your project is progressing.

When the honey is liquid again, carefully remove it from the warm water. Salad tongs work great for this!


Set the honey jar on the back of the stove or on a hot pad to cool. The honey is also very runny at this stage, but it thickens up as it cools.

Ta Dah!!! The honey is as good as new. Now I can enjoy my peanut butter and honey toast for breakfast, again! Hooray!!!

Handy Tip For Blanching Fruit and Veggies

For those of you in the throws of canning and freezing your garden bounty, or just taking advantage of the cheap produces available through Farmer's Markets, Bountiful Baskets, or friends and neighbors generosity, I stumbled across a handy idea to use when you are blanching your produce.

If you are freezing or canning tomatoes or peaches you need to peel them before preserving them. The easiest way is to submerge them in boiling water for a minute to loosen the skins.


Then plunge them into icy cold water, causing the loosened skins to split. This makes peeling a breeze. This is great in theory, but the water warms up way to fast if you are continually dumping hot fruit into it. I would dump ice into the water to cool it down, but it melts quickly and requires a lot of ice if you have a big project going. The other day I went to grab my bag of ice because I had a some peaches to take care of. Well, somebody (actually several somebodies, who shall remain nameless) had used my bag of crushed ice to cool their beverages! Hitting panic mode I started digging through the freezer looking for an alternative. I noticed my frozen water filled juice jugs! The light bulb went on over my little head! I plopped one of those into the sink before I started adding the hot peaches.


It worked like a charm! It kept the water cold, and when I was done I just popped back in the freezer for next time! I keep several in the freezer for this purpose now. This little tip has worked great when I have been blanching veggies to put in the freezer, too. I guess desperation is the Mother of invention!

Keeping Food Cold In A Cooler

I got to thinking yesterday after I posted my (not so famous) Potato Salad recipe, that Memorial Day is just around the corner. At our house that is the official start of summer. So, I thought, it would be fun to post a few more ideas and hints to get the summer started.

If your lifestyle is like mine, summer means an endless entourage of church picnics, family get togethers, family trips, camp outs, and block parties (maybe I am a party animal and I just don't know it). It seems like I am constantly dragging around a cooler full of perishables and beverages. I hate, hate, hate filling my cooler with crushed or blocked ice (especially if things have to sit for awhile). It's no fun so stick your hand in icy water to retrieve an item (not a fan of soggy paper and plastic packages, either).

I have an endless supply of half gallon and gallon plastic juice containers (filled with water for an emergency.....like when Dear Hubby turns the water off to fix the dripping shower problem, and breaks the faucet cartridge off in the wall. A fifteen minute repair job that took six and a half hours. Of, course everyone has to potty, and is dying of thirst five minutes after the water is shut off.). Every spring I take a few of the jugs, wash them out, and fill them 3/4 full of water (remember water expands as it freezes. If you fill your jug to full the ice will split it open.). I put them in the freezer in the garage (this is a double bonus, because by now my freezer is starting to empty out. The jugs fill it back up making the freezer much more energy efficient). When they are frozen they make the best ( and least messiest way) to keep food and drinks cold in your cooler. Plus, as the ice melts you have ice water to drink, and/ or wash sticky faces and hands (because you forgot the baby wipes.....again). After you have used them; simply rinse them out, refill, and freeze for next time.

Help! It's Snowing .... Popcorn?

Last night the kids wanted popcorn. I stopped buying microwave popcorn awhile ago because:
1. Our new microwave burns microwave popcorn (even if you hover over the microwave and push the stop button the second the popping slows down).
2. Child #3 delights in licking the butter of the inside of the bag when it is empty (which is disgusting all by itself), and leaving the licked remnants all over the kitchen and/ or family room. (House rule #2 - no eating in any area besides the kitchen/dining room. House rule #3 - Throw your garbage away when you are done eating. Yep! That's working out well)!
3. It is cheaper to buy popcorn in bulk and pop your own.
4. I am trying to serve healthier options to replace junk food (which, by the way, is not being well received here in Barrettpotamia), and I can monitor the butter to salt to popcorn ratio better with air popped corn.
Imagine my chagrin, when I pulled the air popper out of the lazy Susan to discover that someone had lost the the little butter cup (see picture above) that plugs the large hole in the top of the lid! I knew that if I popped corn with it in this condition, we would have quite a snow(popcorn) storm in our kitchen. At this point there was much wailing from the troops, thinking of something to cover the hole that wouldn't melt or explode from the heat; I grabbed a ceramic mug that one of the kids received for Christmas ( child #4 is very attached to his Santa Claus mug, and keeps digging it out of the thrift store box! Drat, foiled again!). The mug actually fit just right in the hole, and the heat from the popper melted the butter I had placed in the mug just before I started popping popcorn (a little experiment). Success, the troops were placated (for now)! Quick thinking has bought me some time! Now I can scour the thrift stores to find a replacement for the missing portion of the popcorn popper. I guess, desperation truly is the mother of invention!
P.S. AT WHAT POINT DID MY LIFE BECOME A COMEDY ACT?

Save Your Containers!

I was washing out a peanut butter jar just a little while ago, and I was inspired to remind everybody to save those 18 oz. peanut butter jars. If you were like me, and bought peanut butter on Smith's case lot sale awhile ago, or when it was 10 for $10 I know you have a lot in your storage. Right now we are in the dead of winter, but before you know it, it will spring and summer. If you make freezer jam(which is very easy and a great way to start learning how to preserve your own food) with all the yummy raspberries and strawberries that go on sale throughout the summer it's sometimes hard to find enough containers to hold it all! I discovered a couple years ago when I was in that exact predicament that empty peanut butter jars make the perfect jam containers. They stack beautifully in the freezer.What I love about them is that the containers are clear so I can see what kind of jam it is and the screw top makes it somewhat spill proof. When they are empty wash them out and save for next year. Empty frosting tubs work well, too.

Here's some food for thought: You know you are a tightwad when you are more excited about getting the container an item comes in, than in the actual item!