Heart of the Home

Sous Vide, a French cooking technique which translates to "under vacuum" has become quite popular. This French technique involves cooking food that has been vacuum sealed in a water bath at a precise temperature. The advantage of cooking the food at a precise temperature in a water bath is that the food cooks evenly throughout while retaining moisture.

If you're wondering what the difference is between cooking sous vide vs boiling in water, you're not alone. When cooking sous vide, the vacuumed food sits in a stable bath water using a temperature that does not exceed boiling point. In addition, the temperature remains steady throughout the cooking process. 

To cook Sous Vide you need an immersion circulator, a pot (experts often recommend a pot that you make pasta in, such as the Range Kleen CW7102 12 Quart Multi Cooker with Steamer and Pasta Insert ), a vacuum bag (or Ziploc bag) and depending on your immersion circulator device you'll likely need a smartphone app to control the device. Instructions vary between manufacturers but the general concept is to bag the food, fill a pot with enough water to cover the items you're cooking (leaving a little water above the food).

You'll want to protect the space your cooking on from the heat during the cooking process, so we recommend placing the pot on a Range Kleen Counter Mat on top of a stable surface. Place the immersion circulator into the pan and begin cooking using the app. Typically after food is cooked using the sous vide method, it is finished off on a grill or on the stove top to add a little browning to the meat or vegetables. Do you think you'll be cooking Sous Vide anytime soon? We'd love to hear about on our Facebook Page!

Your oven probably worked as hard as you did this holiday season. From roasting the Thanksgiving turkey to the holiday ham, baking cookies and pies and all sorts of goodies in between. Give your oven a well-deserved kleening without harsh chemicals to remove any grime from the holidays! You'll need baking soda, vinegar in a spray bottle, a wet rag and a sponge. That's it!

Before cleaning the oven should be completely cooled. Remove the oven racks and soak in the kitchen sink in hot water with a 1/2 cup of vinegar. (If your oven racks don't fit in the kitchen sink you can soak them in the bathtub, be sure to place a towel underneath to avoid scratching your tub). If possible, allow soaking overnight. 

While the oven racks are soaking, make a baking soda paste. Mix a few tablespoons of baking soda with water to form a paste. Spread the paste inside the oven on the base and along the walls,  avoiding the heating elements. (Hint: It's normal for the paste to turn brown). Leave the paste to sit overnight.

Use a wet rag to wipe up as much of the paste as possible. This is a great time to use your Range Kleen Scrape and Kleen to scrape paste residue. Spritz remaining paste with vinegar. 

Wipeout remaining vinegar and baking soda residue. Give the oven racks a light scrub with a scrubbing sponge, rinse with water and return to them to the oven.

Check out the Range Kleen reusable, trimmable Oven Liner to make kleening your oven even easier next time!              

Butter is in just about everything and there are many different kinds of butter available. Regular salted butter. Unsalted butter. Organic salted and unsalted butter. Butter from grass-fed cows. Butter from goats or sheep. Clarified butter. With so many butter varieties to choose from, it comes as no surprise that you might be a little confused on what kind of butter to buy and what purpose it serves.

We'll start with discussing the basics. Regular salted and unsalted butter is made from cream skimmed off of cows milk - that is churned until it begins to form into butter. Unsalted butter is often used in baking recipes to allow users to control the salt content. Organic butter is made from organic cream. Livestock that produces organic cream are not given antibiotics, growth hormones, or parasiticides and are fed an organic diet. These cows are required to graze in a pasture a certain portion of the year, so many argue that organic butter has a better taste and is more animal-friendly. Just as it sounds, grass-fed butter made from grass-fed cows. Grass-fed butter tends to be more golden than regular butter as the cow's consumer higher rates of beta-carotene. 

With a low melting temperature, goat's butter (yes, made from goats milk) is ideal at room temperature and is recommending for baking. It provides a rich flavor to butter cookies and other baked goods. Sheep's milk is reported to be the creamiest of all milk and is often said to have a sweeter taste than cows milk. Due to the creaminess of the milk, sheep's butter is luxuriously creamy and delicious. 

Ghee is clarified butter and it is delicious (probably because it is 100% butterfat), without the milk proteins or water that regular butter contains.  Ghee has gained popularity among the food allergy community as it is free of lactose and casein. In addition, it's a heat-stable cooking fat which makes it great for baking and sauteing. The higher smoke point of ghee also makes it suitable for frying. 

There are plenty of other kinds of butter on the market, so stay tuned for another quick read on this enticing spread.

You have your grocery list. Hopefully, you've secured the turkey. What can you do in the meantime to prepare for Thankgiving? As it turns out, there are plenty of tasks to complete ahead of time. 

We love these Make-Ahead Tips from Kitchn which detail food items that can be prepped ahead of time. 

Monday is a popular day to begin thawing depending on the total weight of the turkey. Various sources state it takes about 24 hours to thaw a turkey in the fridge for every 4 to 5 pounds. Butterball has a great guide on how to thaw your turkey here.

On Tuesday, cranberry sauce and green beans can also be prepped, refer to the Kitchn article above for tips. Wednesday is an excellent day to bake your desserts, chop any vegetables and prepare centerpieces.

We'll be sharing quick dinners on facebook through Wednesday night to help you keep the stress to a minimum!

Grease. Grime. Gunk. Burnt bits. Caked on filth. Blackened crud. There are many different ways to describe the filth that cooking can leave behind in your drip bowls and only two ways to remedy the situation.

If your dirt is light, you can clean your drip bowls and pans by wiping with a damp cloth. Chances are the dirt and grime more than you can wipe away, which is a sign it's time to change your drip bowls (or pans) out. Did you know that you can save up to $30 annually on your electric bill by changing out drip bowls and pans annually?

There's still time to save a little face and present a clean cooktop to your holiday guests if you order in the next few days

 Free ground shipping offered for any order over $39.00! 

MAKE YOUR KITCHEN FRESH!

Have you rolled up your sleeves? Because we're about to get down and dirty with cleaning. Fall is the perfect time of year to deep clean your kitchen before your holiday guests arrive!

Save yourself last-minute stress by deep cleaning now, so you can enjoy your time with loved ones in just a few weeks! Overwhelmed by what to do and where to start? Have no fear, Range Kleen is here. 

• Remove any clutter that doesn't belong in the kitchen. Recycle dated papers. Clean off the countertops. 
• Empty contents of the fridge. Toss any expired foods, leftovers on their last leg and wipe all surfaces down with a non-toxic cleaner. 
• Load and run the dishwasher.
• Clean upper cabinets with a damp cloth and range hood (if applicable) with a damp cloth (always adhere to manufacturers instructions). 
• Wipe down any counter appliances (microwave, coffee maker, etc) from top to bottom. Clean out the microwave.
• Wipe down cooktop, and
• If your oven has a self-cleaning cycle, this would be a great time to start it. If you're cleaning your oven the old fashioned way, stay tuned for an upcoming blog post. Be sure to clean the gap between range and countertop, with the Reach and Sweep Brush. This brush is also great for cleaning under the stove, refrigerator coils, and tight crevices.
• You may want to add a Kleen Seam to bridge the gap between range and countertop for a seamless look in your kitchen.
• Then wipe down lower cabinets and baseboards (adhering to manufacturers instructions). 

With Halloween just days away, the holidays will be here before you know it. Pretty soon you'll be sitting around the table with your loved ones enjoying juicy, roast turkey and grandma's delicious homemade pumpkin pie that no one else can quite replicate. It's probably the magical touch of love she folds into the pie that makes it taste so good. Before we can enjoy the magic and warmth of loved ones gathering and good things to eat, there's prep work, right? 

Now is the perfect time to start prepping your kitchen for all of the cooking and baking on the horizon. A quick and easy way to update your kitchen is to change our your drip bowls (or pans). It's such an easy chore to take care of and can upgrade your range from unsightly to holiday ready in just a few minutes.

To start you'll want to select the correct drip bowls (or pans) for your range. If you visit our website here, you'll be able to select your range on the left-hand side to narrow down the selection, then find your match.

Once you've found your match and have ordered the replacements, check to see that the range is turned off and elements have cooled completely.

We'll use a Hot Point Range with plug-in style elements for this quick tutorial. Remove each element by lifting up slightly toward you, then pull away from the plug-in. You'll be able to quickly pull the elements out. Then remove the drip bowls by lifting them up and out. Wipe away any grease that may have collected below.             

Align drip bowl element hole with element plug in and drop into place. Replace element by plugging back in, and continue until all drip bowls have been replaced. Stay tuned for more tips to whip your kitchen into shape as the holidays approach!