Two kitchen disasters in one morning! :(

[Steve Maskery]

I preserve my own ginger. It's dead easy to do, but you have to boil it for a long time. 6 or 8 hours, depending on how tough it is. So I did it for a few hours yesterday and put it on again this morning.

And forgot about it.

Came into the kitchen, smelling very gingery, to find it had boiled dry and I had a pan of dark brown toffee. I did manage to salvage most of the ginger and make some new syrup, but the pan is now burnt black with the odd bit of carbonised ginger attached. Anyone have any good cleaning tips, short of getting my ROS out? It's an old aluminium pressure cooker.

So I decided I needed a cup of coffee. Made the cafetiere, waited a minute and plunged. Coffee absolutely everywhere. Underside of the wall cupboards, over the toaster and kettle, worktop, down the drawer fronts, all over the floor and all down my clothes too. Not scalded, fortunately. How can one mug of coffee go so far?

I'd go back to bed but I'd probably bang my head on the headboard.

S

 

[Chems]

I burnt a morrisons bag onto a pan once. I also dish washed a cast iron mixing beater for a blender thingy, had to get the dremel out to polish it back up!

Happens to the best, and worst of us!

 

[monkeybiter]

I preserve my own ginger.

That's got to be one of the strangest opening lines I've ever read :lol:

I once cleaned a frying pan with a rotary wire brush in my power drill, foot on the handle. Of course I was single then.

 

[flounder]

Try pouring coca-cola (other cola drinks are available!) in the pan and leave it to soak for a day!

 

[Racers]

Hi, Steve

Dishwasher powder and time works after the wife has been cooking :wink:

Pete

P.s. where's my ginger! I love ginger.

 

[Dibs-h]

The wife just freezes ginger and garlic - having chopped it finely first. What's the advantage of preserving it - other than don't have to keep it in a freezer - i.e. from a cooking perspective.

Cheers

Dibs

 

[Steve Maskery]

What's the advantage of preserving it -

It's soft and sweet as opposed to fibrous and savoury. And you get all that nice syrup, too.

S

 

[Dibs-h]

What's the advantage of preserving it -

It's soft and sweet as opposed to fibrous and savoury. And you get all that nice syrup, too.

S

Ah - for eating as opposed to cooking with (on the whole).

 

[tekno.mage]

A good long soaking with a cleaning agent as suggested is the best starting point. If that doesn't dislodge it, you could try something more aggressive like cooker or BBQ cleaner - and then finally resort to abrasive methods like a brillo pad.

On the subject of ginger - I had a ginger root that started to grow! It produced a green shoot and some roots at one end. I cut off the growing part and planted it out in a pot and it seems to be surviving with more green growth appearing. I guess I'd need to protect it from frost to survive the winter. Anyone got any idea what a ginger plant looks like?

tekno.mage

 

[Steve Maskery]

Anyone got any idea what a ginger plant looks like?

Ginger (Koehler's Medicinal Plants, published by G. Pabst, 1898)

I've had a go at it with my Craft Supplies foam sanding disk thingy. Worked great until the foam parted from the stud. Still, it is probably 20 years old.
S

 

[Majorlarf]

Anyone have any good cleaning tips, short of getting my ROS out? It's an old aluminium pressure cooker.

I remember sometime ago being told that chopping onions up and frying/sweating them in a pan removes stubborn burnt items but not sure if this really works but it is cheap to try.

 

[xy mosian]

I have had some success boiling Rhubarb, oxalic acid, great for bleaching wood.

xy