How To Avoid Disasters In The Kitchen
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Disasters in the kitchen are commonplace, from the very small – such as leaving the freezer open overnight – to the big and scary such as a chip pan fire. This post takes a look at everything you can do to avoid disasters in the kitchen which could save lives as well as save your time and money.
I’ve written before on this blog about how to rescue overcooked food, which mainly covered what to do when you burn something or add too much salt to a dish.
In today’s piece, I wanted to take a look at how to prevent some of the most common kitchen disasters, which could be anything from gone wrong, inedible bakes, to food going off far too frequently despite being kept in the fridge as well as minor burns and spillages.
Things going wrong in the kitchen often means money and time wasted and in cases of more severe incidents such as a fire, could have serious implications for your home too and insurance premiums too.
1. Check Your Fridge and Freezer Temperatures regularly
This is something I’ve always been in the habit of doing regularly as when I worked as a chef it was something that I was expected to do each day at work.
If your fridge or freezer is too warm, it will mean that food goes bad much more quickly and could be unsafe to eat even if it looks and smells okay. Wasted food means wasted money.
Your fridge should be between 3°C – 5°C
Your freezer temperature should be at least -18°C
While adjusting the thermostat should improve these temperatures when they are too high or too low, if they continue to remain higher than they should be, it could be a sign your fridge or freezer needs replacing.
Accidentally leaving your freezer open overnight is quite a common occurrence and is definitely something I’ve done myself. Depending on how long the freezer was open, some food might be okay to refreeze. For example, I’d usually refreeze vegetables such as frozen peas if they aren’t fully defrosted but bin dairy such as ice cream.
If food is defrosted but still cold then you could cook, defrost and then refreeze to help prevent food waste.
2. Always Use A Timer
If you’re anything like me, then often your time in the kitchen will be spent multi-tasking between a myriad of jobs, as well as trying to cook dinner!
One of my worst habits is thinking ‘I’ll just take this upstairs’, getting distracted and all of sudden there is something burning on the hob.
Getting an Alexa absolutely changed this for me. I use her daily for cooking times and I’m sure she’s prevented many dinners from ending up in the bin!
Of course, you don’t need something as fancy as a smart device, a simple kitchen timer will do the job just as well (although I must admit I like being able to set multiple timers at once!)
3. Convert Correctly
While I like to think I am a fairly good cook, I am not such a good baker. Baking requires precision when typically I am much more of a ‘chuck-it-in and hope-for-the-best kind’ of person!
In fact, it’s probably my husband that does more baking in our house because he loves American food, especially biscuits (as in the scone-like ones, not cookies) and pancakes.
When it comes to baking, you may find the recipes need parts of them converting. For example, US teaspoons are different to U.K. teaspoons and often you’ll see temperatures in Fahrenheit rather than degrees C.
Rather than guessing and hoping for the best (and possibly adding too much salt or not enough raising agent), you can use a site like www.coolstuffshub.com which has lots of easy-to-use conversion calculators and tables.
4. Keep Appliances Clean and Well Maintained
One of the biggest fire risks in the kitchen is not keeping your appliances clean and well-maintained, especially the oven.
Deep cleaning the oven is possibly one of my least favourite jobs but if you’ve left it for ages and there is a big build-up of grime, you could consider getting in a professional oven cleaning team to help. I guarantee you they will have seen worse and they will have all the tools needed to get your oven clean in a jiffy.
Plus, it means you have a clean slate to keep things maintained going forwards.
5. Never Leave Cooking Food Unattended (With One Exception!)
This might seem like an obvious one but it’s something that I am 100% guilty of doing, as I already mentioned above. And it is so easily done, especially if you’re household is a busy one with children or pets running around!
One type of cooking appliance that you can leave though, is your slow cooker. Research shows that as long as it’s away from the wall, on a stable surface and well filled with food and liquid (to prevent it from becoming dry) it can be switched on and left all day, even if you’re not going to be around.
Final Tips: How To Avoid Disasters In The Kitchen
Here are a few final tips for how to avoid disasters in the kitchen:
- Always ensure you have a working smoke alarm so you are alerted to any smoke or fire-related issues quickly.
- Invest in a fire blanket and mini fire extinguisher and learn how to use them – especially if you use a chip pan as this can be a very high fire risk.
- When it comes to baking, always measure your ingredients – guessing could lead to inedible bakes!
- Double-check that appliances are switched off at the end of the day and before leaving the house.
- Scalds and Burns are common in the kitchen. Make sure you run the wound under cold water for several minutes before treating it with burn spray or hydrogel plasters.
- Always clean up spillages straight away. Tripping or falling in the kitchen can have serious consequences, especially when there are pans full of hot food everywhere.
I hope these tips help you to maintain a safe, tasty and healthy kitchen!
