Top Tips for Housework and Kitchen Inventions...Fight!

I adore cooking, spend a great time in the kitchen, I class it as a hobby, my favourite books hold recipes and talk of food.
I love trying new foods, clever ways to prepare the ingredients and exciting appliances that help me obtain a great meal. I hate all the clearing up after, but thankfully my Home Economics teacher drilled it in to me, to clean as I go. It certainly helps when photographing food prep for these blog posts and its nice to sit and dine in a clean space. But it does not fill me with passion.

I saw a post on becoming a  Morphy Richards Innovator through Foodies 100 UK  there is a prompt to write on one of three subjects.


A: Top Tips for Housework…
B: Domestic Disasters…
C: Kitchen Inventions…


 Being a rebellious soul I decided to write some of my Top Five Kitchen Inventions and rather like Harry Hills "Fight" I put it up against my Top Five Tips for Housework. Then a little mention of a Domestic Disaster  cooking the dish below which relies on my last invention.  More so you can see a silly person at work in a kitchen, making more of the dreaded housework!

Housework and I are not best friends, we have a uneasy relationship, I view it with dread, disdain and disinterest.  I do it and well, but I drag my feet, I pout and sulk and the odd curse does occasionally break free! Housework possibly sees me as more a slummy mummy than a yummy mummy!

If it comes to Kitchen Inventions we are soul mates, I see them as my saviour when I am tired, my port in a storm (thinking kettle here) when I need a break.

 I have tried a good few gadgets as a blogger, way before I started to distract you with this blog, my cupboards have always bulged with a plethora of 'must have' latest inventions; butter maker, hotplate and Cotton Candy Maker (this latter 'must have' screams.."Why di you buy this?")

 New appliances to try I'm there, I love the thrill of cooking up a storm putting a gadget through its paces and eating the results...nom, nom!!!

So which will win lets see.

My top five tips for Housework

1. If a visitor should call round unexpectedly, no need for them to see the stray sock on the sofa, the crumbs on the floor, the empty mug you swore you would take out along with the others next time you went to the kitchen.

A quick dive behind the sofa works wonders! They will never know you are there.

2. Ok seriously now if you are rushed for time, my granny passed on this great tip, polish all the chrome taps and sink in kitchen and bathrooms, even if you have not had time to do a thorough clean, shiny taps make a bathroom look clean and fresh.

3. Use foil for all cooking, in the grill pan, when roasting meat and veggies. Then you have saved lots of soaking and scrubbing of pans, just throw away the mucky foil.

4. If you have a stainless steel kettle or draining board, a dab of oil any will do, olive, vegetable, baby oil etc on a piece of kitchen towel gets rid of watermarks and creates a lovely shine.

5. Throw your kitchen sponges and cloths in the cutlery tray or top rack. The heat of the washer really keeps your sponges hygenic,  smell fresher and last longer.

My top five Kitchen Inventions

1. Has to be the dishwasher first, which helps with alot of the tips for housework, cleans the dishes and sponges, saves my porcelain skin (yeah who am I kidding!) and hides a multitude of dirty pots and pans. I poo poohed a dishwasher as an expensive appliance I would never buy until I holidayed in a villa with one, the joy of letting a machine do the dirty work and hide the mess until it was full beats a sink of dirty crockery every day! I have a lovely stainless steel Maytag machine, hence the oil tip for cleaning.

2. My breadmaker is my joy. Yes its a Morphy Richards, (Brownie points here please) albeit an older model possibly. I was told countless times I would use it once or twice and then stow it away and never use again. I can honestly say it gets used a lot. I love bread Not just bread, I also make piadine ( a tortilla like flatbread) which costs a quarter of what shop bought tortillas cost and make great wraps for chilli and packed lunches.

I did stop using it to make bread for breakfast, a great idea to wake up to fresh bread, but the aroma wakes me about 4am and drove me senseless, my tummy was rumbling long before the birds started the dawn chorus and I now do my baking in the day.

I love it and need a new one soon as the dough paddle is now wedged and difficult to clean.

3. The kettle, its a vital appliance, from old whistling ones to state of the art boil a cup of water filtered in seconds, its a mainstay of any kitchen. Tears may flow, good times come, all consoled or celebrated with a cuppa.

Mine gets used from sun up to sun down and I am grateful to the inventor of this amazing, often taken for granted gadget!

The Actifry

4. Another 'must have' appliance  I've heard  amongst owners that gets relegated to the cupboard after a short time. Mine is in constant use, not just for chips, but for wedges, curries and my latest meal Zesty Chilli Chicken.

Its helped with my recent weight loss as it cuts down the need for fried food, cooking chips in less fat than even stated by the Actifry recipes.

It makes a meal with less fuss and cleaning up, easy to use, all pops into the dishwasher, so buying one could be a household tip.

5. Finally an invention which has saved my sanity many times, the corkscrew, it opens a bottle for me when I'm frazzled, pours a glass for a friend so we can catch up and giggle. Its the liquid of choice, when tea just won't do.


It opens up a bottle for a myriad of recipe improvements, I add it to sauces, casseroles. it alsso opens up to the odd domestic disaster referred to earlier  One Pot Roast Chicken AKA Saddened Chicken was due to a corkscrew being used.
Its a glass for the pot and a glass for the chef. I know many bottles come with screw tops but you cannot beat the satisfying pop of a cork at the weekend!

Do you have a top tip, a household appliance or gadget you cannot live without, all disasters will be viewed with hilarity too.