3 Kitchen Tips You Can’t Easily Find on Page 1 Google
I grew up watching my parents cook amazing food at home. I naturally know my way around the kitchen I grew up watching mum in the kitchen, and cooking was way more interesting than TV for me.
Despite years of mundane experience (like, how high-level can home cooked dinner be right?), I still continue to learn new things about cooking everyday. I’m pretty certain these are things not often shared.
Check the condiments you’re using everyday
I never took the time to read the ‘tiny words’, ever. I often bought what I liked based on the ‘big words’, and I know many of us are the same. I go to the supermarket often enough to know.
This year, I started to take health and nutrition seriously. Being in good health is not something I take for granted and eating well is my way of honouring my body for being so good to me. I don’t strive for perfection, but to me, knowing is better than unknowing so I have a better picture when making my own choices when it comes to food.
Check the basic sauces you have at home for flavour enhancers, flavourings, fillers and/or colourings.
The popular household brands add some or all of the above! I was low-key shocked to know that I’ve been consuming them blindly everyday. While I know not all of such ingredients are detrimental and I’m not going to drop dead, I personally don’t wish for these artificial enhancers in my homemade food. I also prefer to have a condiment that is purely what it’s supposed to be as opposed to having non-nutritious fillers just to add to the bulk of the product.
For example, light soy sauce are basically fermented soy beans (+ sometimes wheat) with salt & water. Stabilisers and preservatives are sometimes included, I think they are reasonable ingredients. You can definitely find preservative-free ones. But some products have flavourings* and colourings!
*manufacturers do not have to disclose what makes up “flavourings”
There are good options which we have found, and if you’re interested, here’s the list!
Feel free to find them in the supermarket or order them online:
Purest oyster sauce we have found. I’ll be most careful about other brands, they don’t seem to have much oyster extract to be called oyster sauce!
Do note that this is not exhaustive, there are certainly other options out there with great ingredient lists but we cannot list them all. I’ve consciously shared the ones which we are using at home, together with some easy to find options in the supermarkets.
Kitchen hood filters are not made the same
In 2023, our kitchen hood was one of the things we changed out of our kitchen. Not because the previous one stopped working, but because we absolutely fell in love with the new hood and other appliances!
When I saw how different the filters are, I knew we had to have it.
Most kitchen hoods in our usual stores have aluminium mesh filters. When you press or touch the filters, it feels soft like fabric. If you cook a lot, you may also notice dark stains overtime despite washing it (regularly). It happened to us with our previous kitchen hood.
It’s been a year with our kitchen hood with stainless steel filters and there is not a single stain! It looks as good as new, and honestly, I have not taken down the filter for deep cleaning as much as I should.
Our chimney hood (stainless steel filter)
We hide it behind the cabinet (with a gap for ventilation) so it looks like a telescopic hood
Glass air fryers are superior
I talked about this endlessly since getting it. I will stop one day, but not until this post is out haha.
The usual air fryer baskets are nonstick, and many do not disclose the type of coating used. We should all know by now that some coatings are made with forever chemicals that are live forever in our bodies. With constant usage, the amount of such chemicals will accumulate and affect our healths.
With glass, we know that it’s safe for our usage. And I know I said that glass air fryers are superior, but they do come with one downside. They are heavier than ordinary air fryer baskets. But we all pick our poison, and I much rather carry a weighty air fryer basket than have to worry if the nonstick coating is safe or not for my family.
Affordable & safe to use
It’s the cheapest air fryer we’ve had so I had my reservations, but its working just as well as our previous 2!
