For those who have gotten rid of paper towels - Page 2

[Prensa]

Originally Posted by HappiLeigh

I was wondering about this. What do the rest of you use for draining grease off foods to be served or for drying off raw chicken or fish before dredging or cooking, etc? My concern would be that my clean rags wouldn't be so clean that I'd want to use them to actually touch my food. But I use too many paper towels.

I cool my bacon on newspaper, and I don't dry off chicken or fish, maybe airdry a bit...

[marnie]

i cook bacon on the george foreman grill, no need to drain.

[Dar]

I haven't used paper powels in at least 15 years... I'm too cheap! I did use paper napkins (saved from takeout food) to drain bacon when I used to cook bacon, but we rarely do because Rain is veg and I don't eat much meat. For really gross stuff, I just use old rags and toss them. I always have a ton of rags - any old clothing that isn't fit to be donated (stained, torn, etc. - thrift shops don't want that stuff) becomes rags. Some rags are better than others, but or cat vomit, anything will do.

dar

[tamagotchi]

We replaced paper towels and kitchen sponges with white kitchen towels. We have about 3 dozen plain white ones dedicated to this purpose. We use them for everything like wiping counters, mopping up floor messes, cleaning the stovetop, washing windows etc. We use them for the yucky stuff too. We wash them on hot just like diapers.

We have a different stack of colored kitchen towels that we use for drying clean hands and clean dishes, and we have also a stack of colorful soft washcloths we keep in the kitchen for DS's eternally messy face and hands So we aren't wiping hands and faces with the utility towels that we wipe the floor with.

[NocturnalDaze]

We use toilet paper for the gross stuff. We just use our cloth napkins for bacon grease and chicken. The towels all get washed on hot.

[formerluddite]

well, i was going to make the toilet paper comment, but nocturnal beat me to it!

for solid gross stuff, like animal poop in the yard, we use the plastic bag the newspaper comes in. turn it inside out over your hand/arm like loose glove, pick up the ick, then turn the bag right side out around the ick. then chuck it into the garbage can. then hose vigorously...

[Twocoolboys]

My rags are old handtowels, dishrags and washclothes that are no longer good enough for their original purpose. I 've got a few old cloth diapers too, which make the best rags (these are the cheapie cloth diapers from Walmart).

When my rags are still wet, I hang them on the side of the tub to dry, then just toss them right in with the laundry. If I'm putting a load in right then, they will go directly in the machine.

Yeah, drying off food is an issue. We don't eat much food that needs to be dried - I generally don't fry things anyway. But, bacon is an issue. We've been eating it with grease, when we eat it (which isn't often) - lol. I read on another thread to blot it with a paper grocery bag. I'm going to do that. I've got to get some the next time I go to the store.

[cuttiebearmom]

We've managed to completely eliminate them too. We started with any old rag and now have quite a collection. We keep them in a basket under the sink and when they are dirty have a old pillow case on hooks on the wall beside the steps to the basement. I can just throw the whole thing in the wash when it gets full, bag and all! Easy....and I just use soap and water, not even hot water (oh my!)

[eco_mama]

well we dont have animals but for spit up and things of that nature, we use old prefolds. theyre our cleaning rags.

[Squrrl]

This is something I've been thinking about a fair bit lately, because we are JUST making the transition to cloth from paper around here, and the draining-oily-foods problem has been on my mind. What I've been thinking, and this is tentative, is that we'll use linen napkins when something's supposed to come directly into contact with food. If you're not using linen around the house, you're missing out--strong, durable, absorbent (yes, really, you just have to beat it around for a while first) and non-linty, which last property is particularly relevant here. However, as has been pointed out elsewhere on the boards, clothes dryers and oil/grease don't really mix safely, so I'd probably give the napkin a quick hand-sudsing in the kitchen sink before I threw it in the laundry to get off the worst of the oil.

Also, it's only tangentially connected, but I'm too excited, so I'll tell anyway--I LOVE bacon, and it's always been such a pain to cook, but recently we've just started cooking it in the oven! SOOO much easier. I've found that 400 or so is a good temperature range. Next time I do this, I'm going to see if cooking it on the broiler pan allows it to drain while cooking, and if it does, then I will be in heaven (other than cleaning the broiler pan...though I do save bacon fat, so it's not too bad.) If that works, that should eliminate one of the few things we still regularly use paper towels for.

[Slabobbin]

A trick for the broiler pan...if you will put some water in the bottom of the pan before you cook, when the grease drips into the pan it will mix to the water instead of cooking onto the pan. You have nothing to scrub, you just pour the watery/greasy mixture off and give a quick wash and you're done.

[ErikaLeigh]

Newspaper is a great idea!

But I usually clean it up with a rag and then rinse in the sink and throw into the washer.

[MelanieMC]

Originally Posted by moondiapers

I keep a rag bag for that. Any old clothing that's not nice enough to get donated or worn anymore goes in the rag bag.

: I keep a bag full of old cut up towels and t-shirts for this purpose. Newspaper is also good for nasty stuff. I haven't had to buy paper towels in a long time and I've been fine.

[cupofjojo]

Rag bag for most things.

I also have a box of bar rags from a restaurant supply store, like a handi-wipe. There were 200 in there & I've had the box for 4 years and its only 1/3 of the way used.
I use them for greasy clean ups and really muddy stuff.
My rule of thumb for this is if I don't want it going down my drain or in my washer I use the bar rags.

[stacey0402]

I usually keep one roll of paper towels in the house, but I keep it out of veiw. I hide it from dh

[UmmBnB]

I keep a roll around for gross things and for soaking up grease when we fry food. A roll lasts for months and months. I have a rag-bag that I use for most dirty work. I wash them separately from our clothes and linens.

We did just get a puppy last week so I bought an extra roll. I figure I'll be using more while we housetrain.

[jennnk]

I clean up cat puke with TP & flush it.