As the Assistant Editor for The Kitchn, I cover groceries, news, trends, people, and culture. I have 5 years of experience in communications and an MA in Food Studies from NYU. I previously worked at Food Network, and for nonprofits advocating for food justice.
Alexandra Foster
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It’s probably sitting in your fridge right now.
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Rachel Perlmutter
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It’s ridiculously easy.
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Jan Valdez
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Very rarely will we ever tell you to skip the flowers. Not only do they look beautiful and help to perk up a space, they’ve also been scientifically proven to help alleviate daily stress. Yes, really! The key is in making them last as long as possible. We have a few tips for that — and the first (and most important!) one involves making homemade flower food.
Flower food typically comes in a small packet, which you can stir into your bouquet’s water to help the flowers stay fresh, last longer, and keep the water cleaner. Believe it or not, flower food typically only consists of three common ingredients: sugar, citric acid, and bleach. This combo keeps the flowers fed, decreases the risk of bacteria growing in the water, and makes plain tap water more habitable for plants.
Flowers need food, water, and a healthy environment, just like us. You’ll often get a little packet of flower food inside your bouquet, or if you’ve ordered your flowers to be delivered — but did you know you can easily make your own? Here’s our basic recipe:
All you need to do is combine the ingredients above to make the best DIY flower food before placing your flowers in the vase with the solution. The sugar is the actual food for the flowers, while the bleach helps to slow fungi and bacteria growth and the citric acid from the lemon acidifies the water to lower the pH level.
If you want to take it up a notch, you can adjust the sugar based on the type of flowers in your vase. For example, gerbera daisies can handle more sugar, while daffodils don’t like any sugar at all. Here’s a helpful chart with recommended sugar percentages from the University of Massachusetts for different varieties of cut flowers.
Researchers at Purdue University found a few other recipes for homemade flower food to work exceptionally well: lemon-lime soda with bleach and sugar; and white vinegar, sugar, and bleach.
Another common variation is to use citric acid instead of lemon juice in your homemade flower food if you have it on hand. It’s not only great for cooking and cleaning, but in its purest form is an easy way to add a touch of citrus if you don’t have any lemons lying around.
As soon as the water turns cloudy, it’s a good sign to change your cut flowers’ water and add more food. This is typically every 2 to 3 days, but sometimes more often depending on the type of flower and the temperature of the environment. The gunk in the water is microorganisms, and the flower food kills bacteria.
You want to open the stems up to the water, so cut off the dried bottoms at an angle to let them soak up as much water as possible. You should do this when you bring new flowers home, but they can also get gummy as they close up while they sit in a vase — so trim the ends every 3 or 4 days. Just an inch or so is good!
Leaves on the stems and below the water level will quickly deteriorate and promote mold. Remove all leaves from the stems below the waterline. Keep this up as you add water and trim the stems.
Get your flowers into water as soon as possible. But know this: If the water is too hot or too cold, it will shock the flowers — and that’s not good! Treat them like Goldilocks and give them water that’s juuuust right.
More Goldilocks-ing: Rooms that are too warm or areas with direct sunlight will cause your flowers to wilt more quickly. Try to keep them in a cool, shady place.
It’s ideal to change the water every one or two days — before it gets cloudy! When you do, scrub the vase’s interior, re-trim the stems and add your homemade flower food to the water at the same time. Pull out the duds that haven’t seemed to hold up as well as the others.
Faith Durand
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It’s potato season, people (although, let’s be honest, all seasons are potato seasons). Potatoes fit easily into lots of dishes, like salads, cozy soups, and big holiday meals. They’re also pretty easy to keep stocked. Unlike more fragile produce, potatoes can be stored for weeks without spoiling … if you do it correctly.
After a recent disappointing encounter with some prematurely rotten potatoes, I went looking for a longer-term storage solution than what I had been doing (leaving them in the bag on my kitchen island), and found a solution that required basically zero effort: the humble cardboard box.
Like onions and apples, potatoes lend themselves very well to long-term storage. Potatoes are ideally stored in a cool, dark place (much like myself — just kidding) where they can last for weeks or even months. Potatoes are best kept away from direct sunlight, so a pantry or cabinet with a closed door (read: the opposite of the top of the kitchen island, oops!) is a great place for them. It turns out, though, that you can extend their life even more by transferring them out of their original packaging and placing them in a cardboard box.
This simple storage swap can make a huge difference. In our storage showdown, we found that potatoes stored in a cardboard box fared better than those stored in a bowl, a basket, and a plastic or paper bag. They had the fewest sprouts and remained snappy, moist, and firm to the touch. When cooked, they retained their flavor the best as well. So if, like me, you’re planning to keep potatoes stocked constantly well into the colder months, then you should grab a box for them. I promise you’ll be glad you did when you’re craving your favorite potato recipe and those spuds you bought weeks ago are looking just as good as they did the day you brought them home.
Andrea Rivera Wawrzyn
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I lived in New York City for 12 years, during which I learned that city life means you’re always going to have some kind of kitchen pests. At one point, I started seeing more mice than normal — what had been one or two mice a year somehow turned into a four-mice-a-month situation. Not good. When I told a few of my friends about the issue, they all recommended I try peppermint oil for mice. So, that’s exactly what I did.
Instead of using traps, I wanted to try to stop the mice at the source. I’d heard all kinds of sneaky (and natural) ways to get rid of pests, like using lemon peels to deter ants or making a DIY fruit fly trap by punching holes in the lid of a jar. I was ready to determine whether or not peppermint oil spray would really work on mice. Here’s everything you need to know about how to use peppermint oil to get rid of mice.
Mice find the smell of peppermint overwhelming and confusing, so it can deter them from entering your home. The menthol in the peppermint oil bothers their noses and makes it difficult for them to identify pheromones, a.k.a. the smells they use to communicate with. It should be noted, however, that if mice are actually living in your house, the smell of peppermint isn’t going to make them abandon it. In that case, you want to call pest control.
In a spray bottle, combine two teaspoons of 100% peppermint oil for every one cup of water and spray the solution around where you’ve seen any mice. You can also dab the peppermint oil on cotton balls and place them in your home’s mice-prone areas.
To see if using peppermint oil to get rid of mice works, I had to put it to the test. I bought a plastic spray bottle and 100% peppermint oil and prepared for battle. Before using the peppermint spray, I wanted to figure out exactly where the mice were coming from. To my horror, the superintendent of my building pulled out our oven and revealed a rather large hole in the wall. (So that’s where they were coming from — eek!).
I was able to use foam to patch up the part of a hole that was behind the oven (where the mice were presumably coming in), but it also wrapped around to the sink area which we weren’t able to move. So, I sprayed the kitchen with the peppermint oil and, lucky for me, the mouse sightings stopped!
In my case, the peppermint oil spray was effective from day one. I’m assuming this is a combination of the hole patching and the peppermint spray, but with mice in New York City (and honestly everywhere!), you have to use everything you’ve got.
In other words, the best medicine for keeping mice away is a strong pest prevention strategy. Be sure to patch up any obvious holes in your home, pair it with a good repellent, and you should (hopefully) have a pest-free home. Worst case scenario, reach out to an exterminator or other pest professional.
Have you ever tried using peppermint oil to get rid of mice? Let us know how it went in the comments below!
Ariel Knutson
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I’ve always been delighted by magic shows (I love a good card trick!), but have never been able to master the mystery myself — that is, unless we’re talking about food. I can transform egg whites into clouds of pure white meringue, and granulated sugar into creamy caramel sauce. When I recently discovered a simple technique that turns a stick of butter into a light and airy brown butter spread, I knew I had to try it myself.
See the technique: Whipped Brown Butter
To make this spread, start by browning the butter. Melt butter in a light-colored skillet over medium heat, swirling the pan occasionally so that the heat is evenly distributed. Watch as the melted butter foams and the color begins to change from buttery yellow to tan to golden-brown. The butter’s aroma will also change as it browns from a fresh buttery scent to toasted and nutty.
Pour the browned butter into a bowl set inside a second bowl filled with an ice bath. Whisk the browned butter to cool and incorporate air. Once the butter begins to solidify around the edges of the bowl, remove the bowl from the ice bath and continue to whip until the browned butter has lightened in color and is a spreadable consistency.
I have used brown butter in its melted form for recipes like this brown butter and Parmesan pasta, or after it has cooled for baking, as in these brown butter blondies. Yet, when I first made this nutty whipped spread I felt like a dang magician! Just a minute or two of hand-whisking transforms brown butter into a spread that is smooth and creamy. The light-as-air texture opens up the flavor of the browned butter and lets more of the nutty, caramelized flavors come through.
Making the whipped brown butter is actually quite easy, and it’s something that even beginner cooks should try. My best advice is to take it slowly and not rush. Brown the butter over medium or medium-low heat so that the butter doesn’t splatter and there’s less chance that the butter solids will burn. It’s easier to gauge the color change in a light-colored skillet than a dark-colored pan, so make sure to set yourself up for success with the right equipment.
The fun starts once the butter has browned. The ice bath will help the melted browned butter cool down quickly, but if you keep the butter over the ice bath for too long, you may see some small lumps in the spread. It’s easy to gently melt the butter back on the stovetop, though, to try again.
You can make as much or as little whipped brown butter as you want with this technique. Just remember that the time it takes to brown and whip the butter will be shorter for smaller amounts and longer for larger quantities.
Patty Catalano
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Reason #2 is a big one.
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Ali Domrongchai
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I’ve worked in the food industry for 15 years as a chef, recipe developer, writer, and editor. Prior to joining the Kitchn team I was an associate editor at America’s Test Kitchen, a contributor to Serious Eats, and worked on cookbooks for Ten Speed Press, Rebel Girls, and Clarkson Potter.!
Andrea Rivera Wawrzyn
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My dad is a better cook than I think I realized while growing up. He didn’t cook dinner for us often — he was always working long days as a carpenter and came home exhausted — but he had a few signature recipes that he would flex from time to time: ham & cheese omelets, chicken enchiladas, and Tuna Royales.
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Lindsay Funston
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Regina is an architect who lives with her husband and children in Lawrence, KS. As a LEED Accredited Professional and longtime contributor to Apartment Therapy and The Kitchn, her focus is on healthy, sustainable living through design.
Regina Yunghans
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I use white vinegar to clean my cutting boards, bathroom sinks, and toilets, and to erase soap scum from my glass shower doors, among many other things. I love that I don’t have to worry about the kids getting into it and that it can be used in so many different ways all over the home.
Using it on everything, I always thought of vinegar as having disinfecting properties — then, I paused to ask myself: Does white vinegar really disinfect surfaces? And does it actually kill bacteria and viruses? I did some digging to find out exactly how vinegar can, and should, be used around the home. Here’s everything you need to know.
The National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) puts it this way: “While vinegar does work as a disinfectant to some degree, it is not as effective as bleach or commercial cleansers when it comes to killing germs. If you are going to use vinegar as a cleanser, it’s important to decide whether your goal is to clean, or to disinfect.”
Cleaners physically remove dirt, debris, particles, and some germs from surfaces. They may kill some germs, but not all. Disinfectants kill germs on contact, including harmful pathogens, viruses, and bacteria that could make you and your family sick.
You should be disinfecting frequently touched surfaces on a regular basis such as door knobs, light switches, desktops, remote controls, and smart phones.
However, you don’t want to use vinegar on surfaces like granite, marble, cast iron, or wood as its acidic properties can actually damage them. You should also never mix vinegar with bleach because it can create harmful, toxic fumes. (Your home should always be well-ventilated when cleaning regardless of what you’re using.)
Good news! Yes, vinegar can kill salmonella, E. coli, and listeria, which is great for the kitchen as these bacteria are the cause for many food borne illnesses. However, it can’t kill viruses like COVID, so it’s always best to clean and then disinfect with another product or solution to make sure your surfaces are shiny and bacteria-free.
Next, make sure you use the disinfectant properly. Finally, read and follow usage instructions for the specific cleaning product you’re using, which you can find on the label or online.
If you’re looking to disinfect, vinegar should not be your go-to, but you can mix it with something that is. Mix vinegar with equal parts rubbing alcohol, since rubbing alcohol is a disinfectant, and you can even add a few drops of essential oil to make it smell a little nicer. While this is an easy mix, it’s typically best to clean with your vinegar solution first and then disinfect afterwards.
Shifrah Combiths
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There are a lot of opinions and “rules” when it comes to cleaning cast iron skillets. Don’t ever use soap! Just a little bit of hot water is all you’ll ever need! Use a potato! Of course, everyone has their own method they swear by, so I decided to settle this once and for all.
I researched to determine five of the most commonly recommended cleaning methods on the internet, then tried them all out in a side-by-side test. There was a clear winner, and it’s the one everyone should adopt at home. According to my tests, here’s exactly how to clean a cast iron skillet with minimal effort (using ingredients you likely already have!).
To start, we looked into how most people clean their cast iron skillets via other websites, reader letters, comments, chat rooms, and more. Once we picked our five methods (a few of them are iterations of themselves, but boy, do they have different results!), I dirtied up five cast iron skillets and got to work.
We cooked up lots of chicken and made sure each cast iron pan had stuck-on bits of food and oil and were as equally dirty as possible. In addition to judging effectiveness and time spent, for this test, we also wanted to be sensitive to any changes we saw happening to the pan that might affect the perfectly seasoned surface.
The ratings: Each method received a rating of 1 to 5; a 1 was given to the least effective method, and a 5 went to the most effective. Along with the rating, you’ll find notes on how easy or difficult the method was, how much we liked or disliked it in general, and how much time it took to do its thing.
The method: Pour 1 cup coarse kosher salt into a still-warm skillet. Use a folded paper towel or kitchen towel to scour. Discard the salt and rinse the skillet with hot water.
How it went: Although salt can be extremely effective, this method was a complete mess. A whole cup of coarse kosher salt is a lot of salt — too much salt, it appears. There was so much that we couldn’t see the bottom of the pan well enough to know where to scour.
It did a good job of soaking up any oil left behind from cooking, but the folded-up paper towel didn’t allow for a lot of control and salt ended up spilling over the sides of the pan before finishing the job, making even more of a mess than we had to start with. In the end, the pan didn’t come clean enough. Even if we had used less salt, this step wouldn’t be effective enough on its own.
The method: Cut a potato in half, lengthwise, and dip the cut side into a dish of baking soda. Then rub it around the pan to clean.
How it went: This sounded wacky, so I had to look into it. The reason for using a potato is because it contains oxalic acid, which breaks down rust — and if it can break down rust, a little food should be no problem, right? Ehh… sorta.
I had very low expectations, so I was impressed when it kinda-sorta did a little bit of something. The baking soda soaked up all grease and oil quite nicely, but even though it’s a mild abrasive, it wasn’t abrasive enough to clean bits of food that were stuck on to the bottom of the pan. Overall, it just seemed like a waste of a potato.
The method: Fill the pan with a few inches of water and boil over medium heat. Use a wooden spoon to scrape off the burnt-on bits.
How it went: This method worked well for removing cooked-on food bits, however, it only really worked on the bottom of the pan. It was difficult to scrape the sides of the pan in the boiling water with a wooden spoon.
Additionally, this method didn’t seem to remove the oil and grease as well as when another component like salt or baking soda was added. The bottom of the pan was really clean, but the sides were still a bit dirty. This is a nice bonus step, but when used on its own, it didn’t cut it.
The method: Add a dime-sized dot of dish soap (I used ECOS dish soap) to the bottom of the pan and clean with hot water and a stiff bristled brush.
People passionately debate whether or not it’s okay to use dish soap on a cast iron skillet. Most nay-sayers say nay because dish soap obliterates grease, which means it also cuts through that hard-earned seasoning you’ve built up, making the cast iron more susceptible to rust and taking away its nonstick qualities.
The Kitchn’s stance is that it’s totally fine every now and then! Additionally, eco-friendly dish soap isn’t as harsh as other dish soaps, and therefore is best for this purpose.
How it went: The cast iron skillet I tested had a decent seasoning job and a dime-sized drop of dish soap visibly changed the surface. The pan came clean, but it definitely looked dried out — much more so than after any other wash. Depleted is the word we’re looking for.
With that in mind, I wouldn’t make this your everyday cleaning method. Instead, use this method sparingly, and only on a pan that really needs a lot of help. Then season it really, really well.
The method: While the pan is still warm, get to cleaning. Wash the skillet by hand using hot water and a stiff brush. To remove stuck-on food, scrub the pan with a paste of coarse kosher salt and water.
How it went: Once the pan had a chance to cool a little, I took it to the sink and ran it under a steady stream of hot water, scrubbing the bottom and sides of the pan with a stiff bristle brush. Next, I drained the water from the pan and sprinkled in roughly 2 tablespoons of coarse kosher salt and scrubbed away at any leftover bits.
It took about a minute or two, but the pan came perfectly clean without much effort. Once the hot water hit the pan, most of the grease and any loose bits came right up. The salt acted as an abrasive and removed anything else that was stuck to the bottom or sides of the pan.
Do you use one of these methods? Let us know in the comments below!
Ashley Poskin
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Pot roast is one of those classic cold-weather dishes that never goes out of style, like beef stew or chicken noodle soup. Even though it’s a fall mainstay, pot roast can also get a bad rap, with a reputation for being bland, boring, and consisting of dried-out beef with overcooked vegetables.
I happen to disagree. A good pot roast can truly be great with a balance of slow-cooked flavor, melt-in-your-mouth tender beef, and perfectly cooked vegetables. All you need is the right recipe. I’ve personally tried a few different pot roast recipes over the years, but was never really able to settle on my ultimate go-to. That is, until I tried one from the legendary Ina Garten that includes a surprising addition that I’ve incorporated time and time again: cognac.
Most pot roast recipes ask you to deglaze the pot after searing the meat with either beef broth or red wine. In her recipe, Ina deglazes with a combination of red wine and cognac. The addition of cognac adds a fruity, spicy flavor to the sauce that makes this recipe stand apart from others I’ve tried.
Plus, this addition is subtle enough (but still impactful) to allow you to be creative without clashing with other ingredients. Because pot roast itself is a combination of pretty basic flavors and techniques, there’s a lot of room to riff and build something with deep flavor tailored to your specific tastes and preferences. You could swap out carrots for parsnips, you could add some spice, you could add a dash of fish sauce to bump up the umami — the possibilities are endless.
Andrea Rivera Wawrzyn
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It’s the biggest time-saver.
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Kristina Razon
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The sensible part of me knows that cleaning is morally neutral. But somehow nothing can trigger a flood of self-judgment quite as quickly as my fridge slipping into a state of chaos. It’s ridiculous but human, and I have always yearned to master fridge organization and achieve perpetually perfect shelves.
In my small kitchen, I have petite countertops and a roomy refrigerator. Unpacking groceries and washing shelves and drawers means that my counter space becomes completely monopolized for a few hours, and combined with a busy schedule, this creates a bad procrastination dynamic.
The shelves would get messier, more disorganized, and stickier as I yanked leftovers, sauces, and fresh produce in and out. Breaking point would arrive, at which juncture I would take a morning to empty everything from the fridge; declutter expired items; haul things to the compost heap; clean and dry the interior and all shelves, drawers, and containers; and then put it all back.
I felt stuck in this toxic cycle until I stumbled onto a simple hack. I had been dabbling in “cleaning as you go” as a regular practice, jumping on tasks that would take me less effort to do right away than compiling a to-do list for later. One day, I opened the fridge door and decided to clean and organize a single shelf. Exultant, I realized I could easily repeat this over the following few days, without sabotaging my schedule, until the fridge was spotless.
I realized that if this fridge-centric version of “cleaning as you go” worked, I would never have to wait for a miraculously free weekend to clean my entire fridge — and let the shelves and food fall into an ever more questionable state of decay.
It’s been a year since I’ve implemented this hack and I can confidently say it works. I now almost exclusively follow what I think of as the one-shelf-per-day approach. Here’s how it goes down.
As soon as the fridge starts looking a little rowdy, I shift everything from the top shelf onto the others, disposing of any spoiled items as I run into them. If you have more food than space, you may need to place some items on your countertop, but this could also be a sign that you need a ritual to reduce fridge clutter.
With the shelf clear, I slip it out and wash the glass with hot water and soap, together with my dishes, and let it dry. After wiping the interior around the shelf, I slide it back and re-pack. The next day, I tackle the shelf below it in the same way, then the next, and so on, until I’m down to the produce drawers. If I’m feeling particularly pumped, I might do two shelves in a day, but as a recovering overachiever, I’m pretty careful not to bite off more than can easily be added to my daily kitchen cleaning tasks.
There are two other rules. Always work downwards, so you’re not showering crumbs and fridge crud over freshly cleaned shelves, and use a non-toxic, food-safe cleaning solution, such as a DIY-infused vinegar spray or some dish soap diluted in water.
As you can tell, dreams do come true. I have the refrigerator of my dreams (minus French doors) and never have to block out the bulk of a beautiful Sunday morning to grapple with fridge grime ever again.
This post originally appeared on Apartment Therapy. See it there: I Finally Found a Fridge Cleaning Hack That Works, and Now I’ll Use It Forever
Daniela Klein
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I’m a fussy snacker. Unlike those with simple snacking tastes, I am unsatisfied by eating an apple or munching a handful of nuts. I crave something more substantial. The problem with this is that I also want a snack-size portion of my “substantial” snack, which is a tall order (if anyone has a line on three-bite burritos, hit me up). Sometimes I’ll find myself eating two bites of leftovers as a snack, which is both strange and not really what I wanted in the first place.
One of my all-time favorite MVP snacks is classic French onion dip with plain potato chips. The problem is, to have a snackable amount of dip, you have to make the whole batch, which requires a full pound of sour cream for one packet of French onion soup seasoning. That’s simply too much dip outside of a party setting. Recently however, in the throes of a real craving, I stumbled upon a life-changing snack time hack that has upped my game forever: leftover ramen packets.
I regularly buy dried instant ramen noodles at the supermarket to use in recipes that don’t require the seasoning packet. I feel wasteful just throwing the little packet away, however, which has led to me housing an increasingly overflowing container full of them on a high shelf in my kitchen. I never quite knew what to do with them, so they just sat there. That is, until I found myself really craving French onion dip and super frustrated that I had the sour cream and the chips, but no Lipton packets.
Years ago I spent a lot of time developing a recipe for homemade French onion dip, so I have a deep knowledge of what it takes to re-create it, and the truth is I couldn’t get that round MSG umami from anything other than beef bouillon. Do you know what’s close to bouillon and comes in a convenient, single-serving packet? Ramen seasoning, and I had a ton.
Andrea Rivera Wawrzyn
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If you’re a fan of blueberries, whether you enjoy a handful as a snack, mixing them into your yogurt parfait, or topping your peanut butter oatmeal, then you’re already aware that blueberries can vary greatly in taste. Some are sweeter and denser, while others can be watery or very tart. However, because blueberries all look the same, it can be hard to decipher which ones are the best tasting for your morning breakfast bowl. But don’t fear, there’s a trick on the internet that will solve your blueberry woes.
Posted by Roice Bethel of @noflakysalt on TikTok, this blueberry trick is rather simple. Dump your clamshell of fresh blueberries into a bowl of water, either cold or room temperature. Some of the blueberries will sink to the bottom, while others will float at the top. This is how you’ll decipher which blueberries you’ll want to eat.
If blueberries sink to the bottom, that means they are more dense and have a higher sugar content, meaning they will taste the best eaten fresh. These blueberries likely had more adequate sunlight compared to the others, and a proper amount of moisture and soil nutrition to help them to get that perfectly ripe sweet taste.
So next time you buy a clamshell of fresh blueberries at the store, wash the blueberries, then toss them into a bowl of water and separate the sweet ones at the bottom with the floating berries on top. Be sure to store the blueberries properly so they last as long as possible!
Kiersten Hickman
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It all comes down to the order of ingredients.
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Lauren Miyashiro
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Plus four more insider tips.
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Sara Haas
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