Best Kitchen Gadget

Find a selection of household tips and recipes for Egyptian Foods.

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LovelyLadyLux
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Gee RS - you did what I've done too. TWO vacuums (one for each floor) and an attachment to do the stairs.


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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

@Jayway - you asked a few posts ago to SEE my bamboo utensils and cutting board. These are them. The large cutting board here is really quite thick & was about $20 while the small cutting board was $1.25CDN (and they're wet right now)

7290

These are the bamboo spoons and utensils I found at the local dollar store too. $1 each. I love them cause of the wide handles which work better with my hands than the wood spoons that have the long skinny pencil thin handle. They're also all sporting a yellow/orange tinge at the bowl part as I tend to always be stirring turmeric.

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The short handled spoon is probably closest to the original colour. I don't use it as much as the longer handled spoons but if memory serves it came as a 2 for 1 when I got it.
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by Grandad »

LovelyLadyLux wrote:Gee RS - you did what I've done too. TWO vacuums (one for each floor) and an attachment to do the stairs.
We had the same LLL but trailing leads around the place? And it is an age thing .....you will get there one day :lol: :lol:
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by Jayway »

Grandad, I cant see how LLLs bamboo cutting board is made. I have bamboo here, can you see how to make it ? You are clever with wood - - -
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by Horus »

Jay, those boards are usually made in strips compressed together side by side, it is often necessary to use an oil of some kind on the edges before use to stop them from swelling.
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by Grandad »

Jay, the boards are made up of dozens of square strips glued together to form the board. If you know what Tunbridge Ware is, the boards are made up in the same way. If you look at the colour swatches at the right of the 'Quick Reply' on this forum, that is what the end of a board looks like. You can't see it on LLL's because there is a lighter colour end strip covering the grain ends.

If you were thinking of trying to make one, forget it. You would need to cut very accurate strips and you would need a clamping device to hold the strips while the glue sets. They are very cheap to buy coming from China.

Mrs G has a large thick (about 50mm) board made from Canadian Maple (I think) that I can sand back if it gets a bit cut up on the surface. As it is thick and heavy it is more like a chopping block but very stable in use.

Edit: Whoops! Sorry H, posted simultaneously. ;)
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

I had the biggest board already sanded back once by a gf husband who was doing theirs. My board came back really well. The smaller board is thinner but it is so cheap to buy I wouldn't bother having it sanded.

I never knew these were made by compressed strips though. Bamboo cutting boards are really popular here now. They look nice and seem pretty durable too. My other cutting board was a white plastic one but after a bit where I cut got kinda yucky looking. I'd bleach it but it still never stayed white white.
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by Horus »

They make them from Bamboo because it is a very hard material when dry, I wont say 'wood' because Bamboo is actually a grass. Those white boards LLL are actually more sterile than they may appear providing they are cleaned properly after use as they contain a germ inhibiting substance when manufactured.
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by Grandad »

Solid wood block cutting and chopping boards have a built in germicide in the form of Phenol which is present in many tree species. Although extremely toxic, the small concentration in wood does act as a germicide but it is still necessary to keep woodblock boards clean as with all cutting boards. To the best of my knowledge, bamboo does not contain phenol but I may be wrong.
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by Horus »

And as Phenol is used in the manufacture of plastics, bakerlite and Polycarbonates plus in Carbolic soap that is why those plastic boards are fairly antiseptic as phenol is itself ;) a weak acid
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

I used to put the plastic board in bleach more to try and keep it white than to kill of germs although I do daily seem to scrub off the board in hot soapy dish water.

Never realized that wood cutting boards had phenol whilst bamboo doesn't. The bamboo holds up well to the scrubbing it off with a dishcloth + hot soapy water and a nightly wash in the sink. Wonder if in the long term a bamboo board is then the least sterile of all?

There is a home grown industry here of men using all the different kinds of woods and laying them together in patterns and making bread boards. They're also making wooden spoons with all the different woods inlaid and then these are sold at all the different festivals and fairs that happen here. I've never bought a spoon as although I think some of them are beautiful I always figured that over time they'd start to crack and fall apart and the glued seams would start to let go.

My breadboard is actually a shallow wooden tray with another wide slatted wooden rack on top. My baked bread goes onto that and is also cut on it. This way bread is never really sliced on bamboo board.
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by Ruby Slippers »

Talking of breadboards, mine fell down the back of the cooker the other day and DH had a real job on trying to recover it. Unfortunately, the melamine cover got chipped so I'm now on the hunt for a new one. I'd only had that one for 40-odd years! :lol: With this new breadmaker, I think I need one sooner rather than later.
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by Horus »

People worry too much about germs, providing things are cleaned with a good surface cleaner or washed in hot soapy water there should be no problem, it is cross contamination that is the biggest problem with food.
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by Grandad »

Horus wrote:People worry too much about germs, providing things are cleaned with a good surface cleaner or washed in hot soapy water there should be no problem, it is cross contamination that is the biggest problem with food.
I DO agree H. :up
Although I have had many ailments and treatments in my medical history, none is related to food hygiene or lack of it. Being a child of the thirties and forties may have helped. With no fridge, our meat and perishables were kept in a mesh meat safe hung on the wall OUTSIDE the kitchen door. I think we built up good resistence. :lol:
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by Ruby Slippers »

I have to agree with you, Grandad! Let's face it, with rationing still in force until the early 50's, if you dropped your weeks meat allowance on the floor, you washed it, cooked it and ate it! :eat
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

I drank goat's milk, hand milked and strained with cheesecloth 'til I was about 12. Bathed once a week in a tub whether I needed it or not (I probably REALLY needed scrubbing after spending hours per day in barns with livestock!) and water came hand pumped from a well.

I really don't recall having ANY type of disinfectant in use in the kitchen as a kid other than dish soap.

Now in our grocery stores here and in the States they have available anti-whatever is the germ(s) of the day cloth wipes for your hands and for wiping down the shopping buggies. Seems "sanitation" is everywhere to the point I'm sure there is not ONE bug anywhere. And if anybody thinks there is they'll be jumping on it and obliterating it. God forbid little Johnnie touches a germ.

I think we're producing a new generation of weaker kids.
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by Horus »

The biggest cause of Asthma is the non exposure to dust mites at an early age ;)
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by Ruby Slippers »

Funny thing about Asthma - when I was a kid, hardly any other child had asthma, and if one did, they were singled out in some way. And yet today, every other person has it, it seems. I've often wondered if central heating could be causing a fair proportion of so many cases.
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

The twins don't have asthma but they definitely have all sorts of allergies one is which is dust mites. UGH.

I think the population explosions in the past 50 years is partly a contributing factor. There just were not as many people around, chemicals were not as prevalent, gardens were grown - life was simpler and less crowded. Now a germ can buzz about the world in less then a day!
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Re: Best Kitchen Gadget

Post by Horus »

Ruby Slippers wrote:Funny thing about Asthma - when I was a kid, hardly any other child had asthma, and if one did, they were singled out in some way. And yet today, every other person has it, it seems. I've often wondered if central heating could be causing a fair proportion of so many cases.
It is modern living RS, we kill off just about any and every harmless bacteria that actually give us our immunity.
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