Hi all,

I wanted to share some things that have made my life in the kitchen much easier :)

  1. Garlic press to peel garlic: I love using my garlic press, but I was still finding peeling garlic to be a challenge. But I discovered that if you put the clove into the presser and crunch it a little bit, the papers come right off! Anytime I can use a one-use tool for more than one use, I'm happy! We also eat a lot of garlic, so it's really helped.

  2. Are the dishes in the dishwasher clean?? My baby is 5 months old, and the first few months were a hazy blur most of the time, and I was so tired and my mind couldn't remember things as I used to. The dishwasher was also loud, so I couldn't always start it when I wanted because it would wake the baby. I've even put away a small load of dirty dishes because they had been rinsed in the sink and appeared clean (oops!). What I started doing is the second I empty the dishwasher, I put soap into it right away. That way, I can easily see that the soap holder is closed - dishes are still dirty! If it's open, I'm good to put the dishes away with no problems!

  3. Baking soda for cleaning stubborn food dishes. If soap and a sponge aren't quite getting the baked-on stuff off, throw some baking soda and let it soak in some water for a little while; it will come right off. This has saved a lot of my pans!

  4. In an effort to use less paper towels, I turned to using flour sack towels. I feel like they work better than your typical kitchen towel, and I can also use them as a fine strainer if I'm making almond milk, or that time our French press broke and we needed some coffee to drink!

I hope these tips were helpful to you! I haven't seen the garlic press trick, or the dishwasher trick anywhere, so I hope these don't seem too obvious :)

Please share any tricks you might have to make your life easier. I'd really like some tips on making my home smell nice. I don't like the artificial smells of Glade plugins or things like that, and I find that when I light candles, blowing them out just creates a nasty smoke smell that defeats the purpose of lighting the candle in the first place! And room sprays don't really help.