Kitchen tips for newly married and settled abroad

In this thread I am going to give tips to plan to get grocery, maintaining veg. and fruits, Maximize use of Fridge, Uses of MW, Uses of left over foods etc.,

In every action we should practice planning, from Office to Kitchen. In olden days because of Joint family there were more members in the family and always elders were available to give quick advice for managing cooking for sudden/unexpected guests/friends. The Staple food grains were available all the time to manage the situation. Cooking for 12 members instead of 10 members was not a problem. But now a days in Nuclear family of 3 or 4 members, managing cooking for 2 additional members requires proper planning of kitchen items. The following points will enable you to maintain your kitchen for TENSION FREE COOKING.

• Budget your monthly requirements and see that you Plan and Spend only with in the budget. Every month end you should aim at saving 10% of your budget.
• First maintain month wise record for all house hold items including 'Groceries' indicating Quantity, Unite price and Place of purchase. This will help you to know about the Fluctuationsin prices, with respect to different shops and seasons.
• Generally all of us will not use all the items fully which we purchase for a month.
  For example, Hair oil, Shampoo, Napkins, Detergent Powder, Tooth Paste etc., In rotation you buy any of the two or three items in one month and other 2 or 3 items in next month, and by doing this, certain items we will purchase once in two or three months gap. And in due course, it will come in a routine manner. So that the total bill for Grocery will not go high suddenly in one month and less in another month. You can avoid the fluctuation by adopting this type of purchase.
• Buy in Bulk or in Big Quantities: When you buy items like Shampoo or Detergent don't buy 'Sashays' or small quantities. During traveling you can buy them, but for house purpose and regular use better you buy big ones even for nuclear family. Because we will pay more, for the packing charges instead of the product. By buying big bottle of Shampoo or 4.5 Kgs. Detergent we can save more. More than this at least we will not buy the same items for the next 5 - 6 months. ( Now a days the rates are increasing daily!!!)
• Better you prepare a list of grocery before your shopping. According to last month's consumption, this month's functions you prepare a list. Generally I will prepare my monthly list from 20 th of each month and whenever I want to buy a particular thing for the next month immediately I will note down the item in my grocery note book. You can also follow the same. So that when you prepare a final list, you will not miss any item which you need for the month. Write a slip to note down all the items from the note book before proceeding with shopping. Don't believe on your memory. After buying as per your list, note down about the purchase in your grocery note book with out fail. You may feel bore to fill up all the details in a note book but after 2-3 months you will feel good about the habit. And whenever you want, you can check the note book for a particular item's rate or quantity, or in which shop you can get cheap items. And definitely I can tell that there will be no deficit in your commodities throughout the month because of proper planning.
• As far as possible plan purchase once a month only to avoid unwanted items which are bought just for enjoying visit like ice creams, chocolates etc.,.

Even for fruits and vegetables, go to whole-sale markets and get them all at a time. Like groceries, we have to store the fruits and vegetables in the fridge to keep them fresh and use them before they spoil.

• When ever you buy the fruits and vegetables from bazaar, wash them thoroughly. Make sure that all are washed well and wipe the water with a clean and dry cloth. Put them in a plastic cover or a cloth bag and keep them in the fridge.
• Buying from the market in bulk quantities will save your money. You can also plan your menu well before cooking. Otherwise, the vegetable may not be available in the market and will surely upset you and your family members.
• After storing the fruits in the fridge, you must take them out daily, wipe them, bring them to room temperature, and then keep them in the fridge.. If you do this way, you can keep them fresh for many days! I am doing like this for a long time. You can also do this for vegetables also. Even after 15 days, they will be fresh!
• If you find any fruit or vegetable spoiling, use them first. Because, if it is kept with others, it might spoil them also.

In this plan I want to tell the role of deep freezer. You can keep Cauliflower, Beans, Green Chilly, Green Pepper (also Red and Yellow), Cabbage, Radish, Peas, Cooked Potatoes, Turnip, Carrots, Bitter Gourd, Ladies finger and many more vegetables inside the deep freezer.

• You can keep carrots as full size (by peeling the skin) and use them to prepare kootu.
• While keeping green chilies keep them without cutting them.
• For radish peel off the skin and keep as it is or cut them as per your wish.
• Regarding greens, weed out the stem and collect the leaves, wash them. After draining the water keep them in a polyethylene cover / zip locker / food covers and keep them in the freezer.
• You can also buy frozen vegetables for cooking.
• We can even store lemons in the freezer for a long time. Buy lemons when they are very cheap in rate and wash them. Then cut them in small pieces and keep them in plastic covers, keep them in the freezer. When ever you want to prepare pickles, you remove the lemon pockets from the freezer and keep them 1 to 2 hours our side the fridge and let it come to the room temperature. Then you can use as per your wish.
• You can Squeeze lemon with out adding water, pour them in the ice tray. When you want to prepare lemon juice or lemon rice you can prepare them easily by using the lemon cubes.
• To prepare lemon juice i.e. nimbu pani add 2 cubes for one glass of water. Add sugar or salt as per your taste.

U r giving very useful tips to us. I know some but i will try to follow rest of the tips. thank a lot

Dear Krishnaamma,

You have started a very useful thread with so much info.
thank you for all the efforts.
Keep them coming.

Love & regards,

Dear Krishnaamma,

Your tips are very useful. Thanks for posting.

regards,
kodi.

Hi Meena, Mangala and Surya, Thank you very much for your Feed Back.

Bye for now,
Krishna amma

After buying the items in big quantities we must store them properly other wise all our efforts will become waste.

So please identify a separate rack or shelf for keeping the wholesale items. Before storing clean the shelf nicely and put an out line with Turmeric Powder or Laxman reka ( in India we will get this Laxman-Reka to protect our kitchen items like Sugar etc., from cockroaches and ants by putting a line on the shelf floor.) to protect your food items from ants and Cockroaches. Now put a newspaper or a plastic sheet to the shelf.

Otherwise I will give you a very good item called COCKROACH REPELLENT, to control cockroach, which you will not get in the shops but you can prepare by your self in your house itself. But while using this REPELLENT, you have to keep 2 things in your mind. One, this contains a chemical and so you must keep the 'REPELLENT BALLS' away from the reach of children and the second is when you are putting this balls in your kitchen at the same time you must put them throughout your house. Otherwise all the cockroaches will migrate to other rooms from kitchen. So please keep these two thing in mind before using the cockroach repellent in your house. At the same time I don't know whether the cockroach repellent will protect your food items from ants. Because I have never seen a single ant herein Saudi Arabia.

But for the past 10 years I am living in Saudi and till this time we never called any Pest controler to control small cockroach. I am using that cockroach repellent here in India also. It is very much useful. Yearly once you can prepare and put.

Now the storing place is ready and you can store your grocery items in that. Weekly once you have to take the grocery items from the bulk. By doing this you will have a control of spending the grocery as well as weekly once you will check the items in the bulk section. You can easily check the quantity of the item and quality of the item, which will help to put a grocery list for the coming month.

Note: While preparing this please wear a glove since it is toxic.

Already we discussed about the use of cockroach repellent. Now let us see how to prepare the repellent.

Take 100 Gms. of Boric Powder, 2 table spoons of Wheat Flour or Patient flour and 2 table spoons of sugar.

Put them all in a bowl. Mix well and sprinkle water occasionally. Prepare it like a tough dough and make small balls out of it.

Put the balls in all rooms at a time. And keep out of the reach of children .