Category: Kitchen Tips

How to Clean Burned Milk From a Pan

Argh! I burned the milk again! I know, I know, it’s my own fault–I have the attention span of a caffeinated fruit fly, and milk burns very easily. It’s a bad combination.

Lucky for my pots, I know how to get that stuck-on mess off the bottom of my pans.

And soon you will, too.

How to Clean Burned Milk Out of a Pan

 



How to Remove Burned Milk From a Pan

What you need:

  • salt
  • a wooden spoon or similarly non-offensive scraping implement
  • water
  • dish soap
  • a heating surface, like a stove

What you do:

  1. Sprinkle the bottom of the pot with a layer of salt.
  2. Add warm water to saturate the salt.
  3. Let it rest for 20 minutes or until you remember it.
  4. Scrape the bottom of the pan with a spoon, scrubby, spatula–whatever is scrapy but won’t damage your pot.
  5. Rinse out the pot.
  6. If it’s clean. You’re finished. Have a cookie.
  7. If it’s not clean, put a couple inches of water and several drops of dish soap in the bottom of the pan.
  8. Heat it to boiling on the stove and then simmer on low heat for about an hour. This reeks to high heaven in my opinion (maybe not quite that high), so open the windows and pass out the barf bags.
  9. If this doesn’t work, repeat ad infinitum.

Next time you heat milk on the stove, turn off the television, the radio, the the doorbell, the computers, your phone, your dog, your children, and your brain, and just focus. I know. I can’t either.

Print this up and keep it in your cookbook right by your favorite hot cocoa recipe. Ha ha! Only I’m not joking.

Here’s the printable version:

How to Remove Burned Milk From a Pan
Author: Christy, The Simple Homemaker
Since I have the attention span of a caffeinated fruit fly, and because milk burns easily, I have had to frequently use the following trick to get that burned-on gunk off my pots and pans.
Ingredients
  • salt
  • a wooden spoon or similarly non-offensive scraping implement
  • water
  • dish soap
  • a heating surface, like a stove
Instructions
    1. Sprinkle the bottom of the pot with a layer of salt.
    2. Add warm water to saturate the salt.
    3. Let it rest for 20 minutes or until you remember it.
    4. Scrape the bottom of the pan with a spoon, scrubby, spatula–whatever is scrapy but won’t damage your pot.
    5. Rinse out the pot.
    6. If it’s clean. You’re finished. Have a cookie.
    7. If it’s not clean, put a couple inches of water and several drops of dish soap in the bottom of the pan.
    8. Heat it to boiling on the stove and then simmer on low heat for about an hour. This reeks to high heaven in my opinion (maybe not quite that high), so open the windows and pass out the barf bags.
    9. If this doesn’t work, repeat ad infinitum.

How do you get the burned-on milk out?

Christy’s Simple Tips: The Easy Way to Shred Cheese With No Mush

Christy's Simple Tips: Freeze cheese for 10-15 minutes for easy, mess-free grating. Click through for details.

One of the reasons I had seven children is so they can do the menial tasks I dislike, such as shredding cheese. I don’t like to shred cheese. I don’t like how it gets melty and mushy and sort of oozes into the grater after a few minutes instead of slicing off cleanly. Do you know what I mean?

The solution is simple. Pop the entire block of cheese into the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes. (Any longer and the cheese might thaw oddly.) It will harden enough to make the cheese grating process a thing of beauty. A thing of beauty, I tell ya!

Pop the grater in the freezer, too, and the process will be even slicker.

I know you’re wondering why I don’t recommend buying the already grated cheese to totally simplify the process. Oh, I have my reasons.

First, usually the shredded cheese is more expensive, but lately I’ve been noticing some shredded cheeses are cheaper than their block counterparts. Shocking, I know!

Another reason is that shredded cheeses do the whole melty mushy thing unless the manufacturer adds an anti-caking agent. That’s no big deal to most of you, but I have a daughter with Crohn’s Disease who can’t currently eat the potato starch and powdered cellulose (usually a wood byproduct) that are often used as the agents in question.

Finally, if you’re low-carbing it, that’s a little extra carb intake that isn’t as fun as, say, eating a cookie. I totally made that last one up—anything to promote cookies!

Reasons one and two are enough for us to force our kids to shred our own cheese.

Are you freaking out over wood in your cheese? Don’t freak out. The government says it’s just fine.

You can stop laughing now.

Seriously, the government says it’s fine, and even some organic companies say it’s fine. Others say it’s the spawn of Satan.

Do I know the answer? No. Do I care? I care enough to buy block cheese and make my children shred it at home. I don’t care enough to not eat Archway Windmill Cookies and Lorna Doones from Grandma’s cookie jar. (Those cookie links are affiliate links…and my favorite store cookies.)

I know. I have issues.

Christy’s Simple Tips–How to Clean a Coffee Pot

How to Clean Burned Coffee From a Coffee Pot | TheSimpleHomemaker.com

You know the smell. Someone forgot to turn off the coffee maker and now you’ve got burned-on coffee stuck to the coffee pot until the end of time if not longer. Relax. I’ve got the inside trade secret on how to get that ooey gooey stinky stuff out.

How to Clean a Coffee Pot

  1. Allow the coffee pot to cool completely. This is important, so you skimmers and shortcutters better not skip this step. You’ve been warned.
  2. Toss in two or three spoonfuls of salt, a handful or two of ice, and a couple splashes of lemon juice.
  3. Swish it around—you know, hold the coffee pot and swish; don’t bother getting a spoon and stirring or anything as complex as that. That only results in more dishes needing washing.
  4. Watch in amazement and awe as the goo loosens.
  5. When finished, rinse with cool water.
  6. Repeat if necessary, depending on how long your coffee pot was neglected.

No lemon juice, no problem. Any acidic kitchen liquid will do just fine, like plain ol’ cheap ol’ white vinegar. In the restaurant biz we used lemons because we always had them on hand and already sliced at the end of a shift, so it was easy to grab, squeeze, and toss the whole shebang into the pot…almost every night…because we were so-not-good at remembering the coffee.

I knew my restaurant experience would come in handy. Now if I could only find a use for my college degree.

Contact me to submit your favorite simple tips for publication and a link to your blog or website from Christy’s Simple Tips.