Keeping your cool in the Kitchen

[coriolis]

Cooking can create a lot of heat in your kitchen. Here's some things that I do to help keep my cool in the kitchen when cooking. It's a little bit of extra work, but it makes a difference. We need all the help we can get during this heat wave.

If cooking on the stove top, turn off the stove burner immediately after the food is cooked. Immediately transfer the food to a serving dish. fill the pot or pan with cold water and put it back on the stove burner. Add a bit of detergent so it can start soaking. In a few minutes the pot or pan and the water in it will be warm, just from the residual heat in the burner. Dump the warm water down the sink and wash it down with plenty of cold water from the tap. The cold water absorbs the heat that would have ended up in the air in your kitchen. You might repeat the procedure until the pot or pan stops warming.

A hot oven can take a half hour or longer to cool down. All that heat ends up in the air in your kitchen. If cooking in the oven, cook only as long as really necessary. Turn the oven off immediately, and again, transfer the food and fill the pan with cold water. Fill several stew pots with cold water and put them in the oven to aborb the heat. You will be surprised how fast these pans heat up. Dump the hot water down the drain and wash it down with cold water. Repeat the procedure until the pans stop getting warm.

A lot of heat is given off from the oven by the top of the stove.. Even if you didn't cook on the stove top, put pans of cold water on top of the stove to absorb that heat.

The meteorologists among us can attest that a gallon of water as it cools 50 or even 100 degrees will give off enough heat to raise the air temperature in a room by probably several degrees or more. (someone do the math.)

Wash dishes by hand using cool water. It will help cool you off, and for most items, the cool water works fine. You might let those crusty pots and pans just soak a while. Or you could wash of most of the crud with cold water and then use some warm water from the oven for a final grease-busting washing.

[O Town]

Intresting. Our kitchen is the hottest room in the house late afternoon because it is on the west side of the house where the sun beats on the windows and also it is cooking time. I usually put a fan blowing from the cooler rooms in the house toward the kitchen and it seems to help alot by blowing cooler air my way. Some of those ideas seem worth a try. Thanks.

[Brent]

Interesting.

Our kitchen is the hottest room too, and it's where the primary computer is, so it sucks.

It runs near 80 in here during the afternoons...

[coriolis]

You might try opening the refrigerator door and leaving it open. That should cool off the kitchen in a jiffy.

[CajunMama]

Eat out! Problem solved!

[HurriCat]

You might try opening the refrigerator door and leaving it open. That should cool off the kitchen in a jiffy.

Hmmm, cooler kitchen, but warmer electricity meter! Through some miracle, our house has an a/c vent right in the kitchen - does a good job along with the ventilated hood fan (ducted up through the roof).

[MSRobi911]

Just think of all that previous water that you are pouring down the drain............water is in short supply, we are gonna run out one day!

Mary


ROFLMAO

[Miss Mary]

As a general rule, we eat home cooked meals too. At least 6 days a week, if not 7. We made that hard and fast rule about 8 years ago (young family member had a sudden heart attack and shook everyone up in my husband's family). You have to make your grocery list out in such a way that you know you have everything you need for upcoming meals. Is that easy in the summer? No! But we're managing. That said, it is hard to keep your kitchen cool when you're preparing so much food in there. I'm using our toaster oven instead of the big oven now and my husband would love your theory on using cool water to wash dishes Ed. He hates when I use hot water to soak dirty pans. Our DW runs at least once a day, sometimes twice.

I'm into baking most of the time but right now, I'm skipping that. No homemade cookies, caramel popcorn, etc. We're eating a lot of salads, watermelon, cantelope, fruit salads - with our dinner. That's another way to keep down on heat generated from simmering water in pans on the stove. You just don't serve hot side dishes right now!

We have a burner on our gas grill and my husband is always encouraging me to use it more often (corn on the cob). But it takes forever to boil the water! At least double the time than with my electric stove. Go figure, there's even a flame under that burner......but that is another way to keep the heat outside, on the patio or deck. I'm just so used to my stove. You should see it - nearly every knob's plastic is long gone or split. It still works but has seen better days (17 years old).

I have an ex SIL who rarely cooked at home. She's 33 and didn't even know how to roast a chicken or turkey. I kept telling her I'd show her how. She just kept ordering out. To the point where they had credit card debt into the thousands. Some of it from eating out 7 days a week. So there's the flip side!

Mary

[TexasStooge]

Interesting problem-solving tips.

Eat out! Problem solved!

[azsnowman]

During the hot summer days and nights (unlike this morning when the current temp is 48°) we do ALL the cooking outside. We bought a new BBQ a few months back, it has ALL the bells and whistles on it, 2 side burners etc. I've only used the stove in the kitchen 2x's this summer and that's IT!

[Miss Mary]

So I take it, no caramel popcorn at your house either huh Dennis?

I promised my dentist's office "treats" last week, for getting me in quick to fix a tooth and for the hefty discount they gave me (former root canal and crown needed repair/replacing). They have a total of 21 staff members. That's at least a double batch of popcorn. I haven't had the energy to do all that since! First off, like you said we're not cooking either much (heated foods) and I need to clean the kitchen well, before I start all that popcorn. I wonder how it would turn out in this heat anyway?

[angelwing]

Hmmm, I only cook now on Sundays when I do my meals on wheels for the week and last Sunday the temperature in my kitchen was 180! If we were allowed to have a barbeque on our deck in our apartment you know darn right well we'd be out there cooking, nothing beats a great steak grilled angelwing style

[x-y-no]

You might try opening the refrigerator door and leaving it open. That should cool off the kitchen in a jiffy.

I know this was a joke, but just for information that will actually heat the kitchen. The heat exchanger coils are on the back of the fridge, so whenever the fridge is running they're heating the room. And with the doors open, it'll be running nonstop.

The only way this would work is if you have a setup that vents the air behind the fridge outdoors.

[coriolis]

I'm talking about heat transfer, hinting about specific heat, and staying away from latent heat. So yes, I was joking.

I'd hope that no one here would actually do that.

[furluvcats]

Our house stays very cooled off...but when we were seeing around 118 everyday for a while...we ate out, went to movies and shopped until the sun went down...just had a 400.00 power bill...which is nothing to our friends 900.00 electric bill!!!! Can you imagine???

[angelwing]

900.00!!!!!! And I freaked when I got my electric bill last month for $140 for a one bedroom apartment!!!!!!!

[furluvcats]

Well, we are in a moderatly large house, but our power bill runs around 70.00 usually...so we are spoiled...the 400.00 bill was not every welcomed...the folks with the 900.00 have an even larger home...but not even with a pool running....poor folks!

[coriolis]

Somehow I don't think that they're "poor" and they probably manage to pay it without sacrificing too much.

[furluvcats]

No, no one is "poor" in Temecula, but it still catches you off guard when your power bill is that high!

[coriolis]

No doubt, Furry. I'm sure it would be a revolting development regardless of one's circumstances. If I got a bill like that, the wastes would impact the ventilating device.