Kitchen Tips

[Froggie]

Hello All-

I am new here, but not to MS. Since we are now in the throws of summer weather, I have a kitchen tip you might find useful. Like most of us, heat is our nemesis. I love to cook, but find standing over a hot stove just makes me wilt. I try to spend as little time as possible in a hot kitchen. When I do, I wear my cooling vest which seems to help a lot. I even wear it in the winter, as our kitchen gets very warm. The vest and my kitchen stool make the heat a little more tolerable.

[ActiveMSers]

Thanks for starting this thread, Froggie! I cook dinners for Laura and have learned, from therapists and from trial-and-error, a bunch of clever tricks for the kitchen. Here are two:

-Pull out a kitchen drawer and put your cutting board on top of it. That way you can slide your chair (or walker or wheelchair) underneath the open drawer and do your chopping much more comfortably.

-If help is available, ask for assistance with boiling water. Always. The governor of Texas Greg Abbott, who uses a wheelchair after a freak jogging accident (a tree fell on him), suffered sever burns on his legs and feet from boiling water earlier this month. My guess? He wanted to drain pasta water and didn't ask for help.

Do others have tricks they'd like to share?

[Sparky10]

Hi Froggie, and welcome!

I have used a drafting chair in the kitchen, and it was quite helpful. Here's the chair I bought many years ago:http://www.officedepot.com/a/product...l-BlackChrome/.

Haven't used it in a long time, as I get around better now than I did. A couple reasons for that: A)I was living in hot, humid Mississippi back when I used the chair, after being diagnosed, and B)Natural disease progression, or lack thereof.

It doesn't work for everyone, and not in every kitchen. It was perfect in that kitchen, which had linoleum floor and was built in a circle around a central island. I could pull myself all the way around that huge kitchen!

Because it raises and lowers, I could reach the overhead cabinets and the bottom drawers in the fridge without getting off the chair. Of course, one needs leg strength to do those moves.

Dave, what a great idea about using a drawer to hold a cutting board!

Another tip, but not necessarily for the kitchen: I put a high velocity fan at the base of the basement stairs, set on medium speed. It sucks a good deal of cool basement air up almost directly into what happens to be my kitchen area.

[celia]

You might consider a pasta cooker (or "stock pot with strainer") where you put the pasta in the strainer, which sits within the pot. When it's done, pull the strainer out. The boiling water can stay in the pot until it cools off. Amazon has some for ~$30 with good ratings from users.

[Suebee]

I follow Rachel Ray's advice when cutting fruits and vegetables - she says "Give it legs!" meaning -- cut it in half and put cut side down to slice it. The cut flat side stabilizes it on the cutting board and your knife won't slip and cut your finger.

I use timers to remind me that something is on stove.

Also, not a bad idea to have a kitchen fire extinguisher.

[Marinadca]

I just got an Instant Pot and it's awesome. Doesn't heat the kitchen up, and I have been trying some very easy but tasty recipes. I am also doing some things I cook in the slower cooker in this thing way faster. I have not used a pressure cooker before, but this one is great. Salmon turned out so tasty today, and it was so easy.

[Lmh]

Kitchen

Wonderful tips!! Especially love the drAwer/ cutting board idea. I love cooking and this solutions will keep in in the kitchen doing what I like longer! Thanks😊

[Guitar_grrrl]

Hey, Sparky! Love the drafting stool trick. I have a wooden stool handy when I need it.

Suebee, love the veggie cutting trick, and do the same myself. I'm teaching my grandson knife skills (he's 6), and have used this trick with him.

Lately, my green beans have been going nuts in the garden. I pick them every day, steam them briefly (3 minutes), and then freeze them. Cutting the stem ends with a knife is sheer drudgery, if you ask me. I use my kitchen shears (old Fiskars from my sewing days), and go through dozens of beans in very little time, and my hands don't seem so cramped from gripping the knife. I know scissors have their own set of muscle groups in use, but I find them easier. YMMV.

[girl1dir]

Do others have tricks they'd like to share?

Have someone else cook.

[girl1dir]

Toaster oven

We use a Breville brand toaster oven for reheating food we want to remain crispy. It is most handy for cooking pizza. I have yet to try it for baking, but I hear it is possible. We bake tater tots, too.