Healthy Kitchen Hacks #38

*Easy Way to Neutralize Kitchen Odors* *How to Use Cardamom* *The Best Way to Save Water in the Kitchen* *Quick Homemade Velvety Cheese Sauce* *Quickly Declutter Your Kitchen*

It’s Wednesday and time for another round of #HealthyKitchenHacks. Here are the latest shortcuts that have worked great in my kitchen.

1) How to Remove Fishy Odors from the Kitchen
Suzi @SheKnows

There are about a dozen reasons why feeding my family fish is a good thing: Brain-boosting benefits, extra-lean protein source, omega-3 fats, etc.

The one reason it’s not a good thing is: The lingering fishy odor in my kitchen.

So I was excited to read about the odor neutralizing qualities of my favorite household cleaner: vinegar. My fishy smells were gone in about 2 hours after putting small bowls of vinegar near my stove.

2) Easy Ways to Declutter the Kitchen
April @My Real Food Family

I KNOW my kitchen needs a decluttering – especially since I’m planning a “little” DIY kitchen remodel. (Stay tuned!)

But where to start? April’s 11 Items You Need To Throw Out of Your Kitchen Now was a simple, painless place to start. I found lots of stuff to donate from my drawers and cupboards.

3) The Best Way to Save Water in the Kitchen
WomansDay.com

Without being a trained environmentalist, I would venture an educated guess that the biggest water user in my kitchen is: My dishwasher. When I got it 3 years ago, I read (most of) the instruction manual; it recommended the ‘Normal’ wash cycle. But according to last month’s Woman’s Day magazine, I can shave up to 30 minutes off my dishwasher running time by using another cycle which saves water.

And I have. For a month now, I’ve been using the ‘light’ cycle. The result: My dishes are just as clean and my run time is about 35 minutes shorter.  Note:  This won’t work if you throw baked-on-caked-on dishes in your dishwasher, but for light food remnants (is that a term?) it works great – and saves energy too. Here’s the scoop dishwasher cycles and shortcuts.Easy ways to declutter your kitchen + 4 more #HealthyKitchenHacks via @tspcurry Click To Tweet

4) How to Use the Spice Cardamom
Maria @HÄLSA Nutrition

Is your spice jar of cardamom getting dusty? From Indian cooking to Middle Eastern food to Scandanavian cuisine, cardamom is extremely popular. But for some reason, it’s not here in the States.

Cardamom tastes warm, sweet, yet savory too – it deepens any spice added to a dish and to me, makes it seem more spicy and exotic. Like most spices, it contains small amounts of antioxidants. For the scoop on cardamom and several delicious recipes, including these Cardamom Oat Muffins, check out Maria’s blog. She grew up in cardamom-loving Sweden and is now a dietitian in Boston.

5) Easy Homemade Velvety Cheese Sauce

There’s a certain process Kraft cheese that comes in silver foil that makes the most velvety cheese sauce. And I grew up on Velveeta. In the spring, nothing makes me think of my dad more than a big place of cooked asparagus with velvety cheese sauce. But I don’t buy Velveeta as often as Mom did. So here’s my killer homemade velvety cheese sauce that my kids think makes any veggie better.

Would you try any of these hacks? Do you have healthy kitchen or healthy living shortcuts to share? Shoot us an email ([email protected] or [email protected]) or share below in comments and we’ll try them out.