TOTW: Kitchen sponges & tea -towels

Tip Of The Week:

Sponges, cloths and tea-towels in the kitchen can be a party venue for bacteria.
I don't like scare mongering, and think that a bit of dirt and bacteria is good for us, but apparently one study found that some sponges contain more bacteria than a toilet seat. And a dirty or damp cloth is the perfect environment for bacteria to grow. So here's how to keep your sponges and tea towels from making you or your family ill:

Always rinse a sponge well after use with hot water, then squeeze as much of the water out of the sponge before leaving it to dry. Leaving a sponge to soak in water is a bacteria cocktail... yuk. You can also pop your sponges in the dishwasher if you have one because dishwashers use much hotter water to help sterilise. And then of course, never keep a sponge too long, give it a a good sniff every now and then to make sure it's still useable, and if you want a greener way that throwing your sponges in the bin often, read this article... there are some great tips.

Tea-towels are just as bad, and perhaps even worse because many of us wipe our hands on them as we go along (guilty over here!) spreading the bacteria. I keep a pile of seven tea-towels in the cupboard which I replenish every week with a batch of seven freshly laundered ones, giving me one tea towel to use for every day of the week. That way as soon as a towel has had enough use I can grab a clean one. Some people might think that replacing a tea towel everyday is a bit OTT, but it depends how much you use them, and what for. You can also have separate tea -towels for separate tasks, but that just confuses me, and I'd rather use them one a day... they are only a small item to add to the laundry load after all. And of course make sure that the tea towel you use to dry your plates or cutlery isn't the tea towel you just used to wipe your hands on after working with meat - eek!
Have a great week!
x

TOTW: Storing Boots

Hello! I'm back after having a wonderful time with my mum visiting us here in the UK. We went sightseeing in Oxford, relaxed at a spa, then had afternoon tea in the Cotswolds and finished the visit with a trip to Windsor Castle... all in 5 days! More on the Windsor Castle visit later.

For now, here is the TOTW - Tip of the Week: Storing Boots.

When not wearing boots, try not to let them flop over, it will make creases in the leather or suede and will generally distort the shape. You can of course buy boot shapers, but the easiest and cheapest way to store them upright is with a rolled up glossy magazine per boot.

Newspapers work too, but I find with magazines that the keep the shape better. And when you need to wear a pair of boots, just pop their magazines inside another rolled up magazine of one of the other pairs of boots - they can easily double up, like this...


How or where do you store your boots?

I'll be back at the weekend with a longer post!
x

Tip of the Week: cheese storage

Welcome to my new weekly posts that I'll be doing on top of my regular longer posts. As I have mentioned in a previous post, I no longer have the time to do a long post three times or even twice a week, so I thought a great way of making sure I post at least once a week is to have a quick weekly tip post. Suggestions of things you would like covered are welcome.

I'm starting off with storing cheese only because I recently got an email with household hints saying that cheese is best stored in aluminium foil. I wasn't so sure about this and went on a cheese and foil Google adventure. The tip was not quite right because storing cheese in foil can actually increase its chances of moulding. But boy oh boy, is there some controversy out there about storing cheese!? Everything from parchment paper to Tupperware. Here's what I could find out that seemed the best:

For hard cheeses, avoid plastic wraps, apparently the cheese starts tasting of the plastic. Instead wrap the cheese in wax paper, and then store in an airtight plastic container. This should be kept in the refrigerator drawers where it doesn't get too cold. Each time the cheese is unwrapped, re-wrap in fresh wrapping (seems a bit of a waste I know). Soft cheese is best kept in their original packaging but well sealed.

If cheese does become mouldy, cut away 1/2" around and below the mould. Soft cheeses however should be discarded when mould appears.

Let me know your thoughts on cheese storage. Ha ha, it's amazing what topics are useful for home keeping.