We store our saucepans in a cupboard that is just above head height. Whenever I try to get one out or put one back I can guarantee that the lids coming flying out at me and create an almighty crash as I fail to catch them or they elude my grasp. We have stored them different ways – on their sides in between the stored saucepans or upside down in the saucepan so that we can store other saucepans on top. It does’t stop the damn things having a life of their own.
And another thing – baked beans. My wife only likes a few, I like more but not three quarters of a tin. When making saturday brunch i emptied just half of the tine into a saucepan. Now here is the problem – when you empty half the contents into the saucepan ALL of the sauce goes in.
I put the remainder of the can into the fridge for the next day but when the next day comes the beans are as dry as a Nuns chuff because all of the sauce went on the first serving. Drives me nuts.
Why do cooking and baking implements have to be so LOUD? Getting a simple baking tray out of a cupboard generates so much banging and clanging that the people next door think I’m playing a Tom Waits record.
We store our saucepan lids together – inside the largest pan (cauldron?) and the biggest lid on top.
I don’t think I have ever reached in a retrieved the correct lid at first attempt.
Annoying, but not as annoying as trying to find lids for tupperware containers. I’m sure Chines and Indian Takeaways change the size of these tubes ever so slightly on each visit.
A solution to the Bean issue if just to eat them all in one sitting (maybe with a bit of butter and Worcester Sauce)
I can’t give guidance on your saucepan problem because it’s the same crashing, banging, rattling problem here and I only own two saucepans.
As for the beans, give the tin a really good shake before opening it and decant the amount you’re not going to use into a plastic container before you cook the rest. I find if you leave the excess beans in the tin, the flavour is tainted by the next day.
Just buy the microwavable pots. Recyclable pots and no washing up. A winner all round.
1 minute to bean heaven…not for me as I can’t stand them.
Buy small tins of beans. Store pans in lower cupboards. Problems sorted. No need to thank me.
Lids – you can get racks for them which hang on the outside of cupboard doors.
Beans – a) keep the tins on their sides to even distribution of sauce, b) a good stir with a fork before pouring out what you need.
We have this cupboard that’s low down and you store your pans on racks that swing out independently so you don’t have to grope in the dark depths of the shelves. Yes I do feel quite superior.
We have one one those, but of course it’s overloaded, so you* swing the shelf out and everything flies everywhere, poltergeist-stylee. Yes I do feel quite stupid.
(*ie me)
Yeah we used to have lower level saucepan storage but getting up off the floor after getting down on my knees was more of a chore than it should. Plus the clatter wasnt any less.
We have deep kitchen drawers designed for saucepans. My wife still makes an unholy racket with the pans though.
So do we, at about knee height. Lids don’t really matter because you can instantly see what’s what. The bottom drawer is for big bowls, food processor and juicer bits, etc.
I sing Little Old Noisemaker Me when Mrs thep is putting the pans away.
Well if you will keep playing this song…
Dry as a nun’s chuff? I will not ask for the source of that simile.
Not sure how accurate it is anyway – have you seen Black Narcissus?
My wife insists that a half can of baked beans must be decanted ( ? ) into another container and covered before being placed in the fridge. My preference is to simply put the can in the fridge. Who’s right? Her, probably- based on previous form generally but also her food science degree-level academic qualification.
However, my approach is more efficient in terms of kitchen logistics and better for the planet.
I’m with you @black-celebration
And me
Aw thanks guys! It’s good to have the support. But on this one, I know my place.
Mrs Wells has a thing about expiry dates or even somethings in the fridge “for a bit”. I will get something out and she will say “oooh I wouldn’t eat that!” Obvious response is “well why is it in the fridge then?” Rejoinder well go right ahead but I wouldn’t , creating an uneasy doubt. Usually I do and I am still here.
Mrs Thep same. What’s this? Cooked beetroot. How long has it been here? Dunno, couple of days. Well I’m not eating it, you can if you like.
…
Jars of pickled things with Best Before dates on routinely get a raised eyebrow from Mrs F. I say “It says Best Before, not Eat By.”
They’re pickled, so what the point of the BB date?
My other half too. I put it down to her working in a hospital pharmacy where date checking is obviously pretty important.
I got worse after I left a goat curry sitting on the stove a few days longer than prudent. That didn’t end well for either of us.
You’re kidding, right?
Nope. I had this, clearly mistaken, view about the robustness of curries. After all that’s how the subcontinent helps extend the life of stuff without refrigeration …right ???
Look it can’t have been a day, 2 days tops and ok the weather was getting warmer…
So, anyway, after a severe gastro Mrs Wells is right off goat – stew, curry, BBQ etc. She thought buying the reissue of Goats Head Soup was a provocation!
*Whoosh!* 😏
If you have no refrigeration, stews curries etc. have to be heated up to boiling temperature at least once a day or, even better, kept at a constant low simmer.
We’re into the 30th year of this debate in our house. I grew up in an environment where open cans went in the fridge. Mrs C will not countenance this. I find the best way to avoid unpleasantness is to eat all the beans in one go.
Even now I struggle with the rules for vegetables (carrots go in, butternut squash doesn’t) sauces (brown sauce in, soy sauce out) and spreads (marmalade yes, butter yes, peanut butter no). Relishes – no until opened, then yes.
Red and Brown sauce have no place in a fridge. That was an ongoing standoff in our house. One of the very few battles where I was triumphant
See that’s what I say too. They are not frozen in the supply chain or in the shops. As they are entirely fabricated from chemicals, there’s no more reason to refrigerate them than, say, paint or antifreeze
I think there is a vacuum in the jar/bottle until it is opened so they last a long time. Once opened, they start to deteriorate. The move to more stuff going in the fridge than when we were kids is because there are a bunch of chemical type things that used to preserve things that have been removed (salt being one) and so keeping them in the fridge does slow the deterioration down to a more acceptable level.
Why would you put this in a fridge.
Bizarre. Bit like putting mustard in the fridge.
Mustard is in the fridge chez Escher. Is this not necessary? I could probably fit three lagers in the new space this would free up.
Peanut butter in the fridge?
WHAT??
My wife grew up in the USA where peanut butter is apparently piped into houses from a refrigerated silo under the floorboards, or stored in industrial vats in a fridge the size of a double bed, but on this one I have scored a rare and fragile victory.
US peanut butter is a different thing from what we’re used to. Specifically, it’s disgusting. Maybe when it’s cold you can’t taste it so much.
Butter categorically doesnt go into the fridge. How the fuck do you spread it after it has been languishing in arctic temperatures for hours
How are you not dead? Do you keep milk, yoghurt, cheese and cream in the fridge?
Agree with Steve, butter should be kept in the fridge until opened and then placed in a butter dish (either ceramic or metal)
(a bit of pre-planning needed here to ensure usable butter overlap).
All other dairy produce * to be stored in the fridge
* are eggs dairy produce? Eggs definitely have no place in the fridge. There is the argument that storing eggs in a fridge actually shortens their life (only by a day or so, but still shortens it)
Personal bugbear – Bread should NEVER be in the fridge
Bread in a fridge??? I’ve never met anyone who does that.
I’ve never seen a cow lay an egg.
Butter doesn’t go off, or at last not quickly. Even in the hot summer of 2018 I kept butter out in a butter dish for a fortnight (as long as a block lasts me) without it spoiling. This knowledge may be just about to transform your life immeasurably for the better.
In the depths of winter (December to March) My butter, once it’s in the dish, resides on top of the right-hand speaker of the stereo in the living room (next to the storage heater) except when being spread on bread or toast. Too cold in my kitchen for it to live on the worktop.
I’ve found that eggs kept in the fridge will generally keep a month beyond the best-before date, although they are tastier if eaten earlier. Kept out of the fridge they don’t seem to last more than about a week beyond best-before. The shells on hard-boiled eggs are less likely to stick if the eggs are at room temperature when you put them in the pan.
The sell-by date on hard cheeses is pretty much redundant. Even if there’s surface mould on cheddar, for example, it’s fine once you’ve scraped the mould off. Sometimes it seems to improve. Cheese always tastes better at room temperature, though I always keep it in the fridge until I want to use it.
Milk and Yoghurt are liquifiedand are supposed to be thus.
Cheese is hard but in most instances in our house it is melted onto toast.
Refrigerated butter even the spreadable kind comes out in hard clumps unless you bring it out of the fridge about half an hour before you intend to use it. We rarely have sufficient foresight in our house to do that.
This is my big First World Problem – why is ‘spreadable’ butter so difficult to spread?
Life’s different in Queensland – everything goes into the fridge. I’ve learned to cope with boiling eggs straight out of the fridge, spreading butter etc, although you can usually get away with taking butter out of the fridge an hour or so before you need it. Sometimes milk goes off before its use-by date even in the fridge.
The only exception is tomatoes, which must never go in the fridge. I am considering not keeping Marmite in the fridge however – it goes solid and therefore unspreadable.
You have gone from living in a fridge to living in an oven.
Don’t store opened cans in the fridge. You can get sick, especially with tomato based products.
https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2020/08/why-you-shouldnt-store-open-tins-in-the-fridge/?
I find tomatoes lose all their flavour when they’re either kept in the fridge or grown in Britain.
Does your chewing gum lose it’s flavour on the bedpost overnight?
@Gary Dutch tomatoes have less flavour.
@Gary Dutch tomatoes are even more tasteless. Italian tomatoes are head and shoulders above all others.
I suspect the varieties grown and what the plants are fed on has a lot to do with taste. English and Dutch tomatoes are grown intensively in massive glasshouses. The varieties used are chosen for amount of fruit per plant and keeping qualities afterward rather than how they taste.
Drat. This means my wife is correct. Well, she’s always correct, amirite, but this time in reality too.
Pans – reorganise and rehouse lower down.
Beans – stir with a dessert spoon and use it to decant what you need. Fold tin foil over the tin and store in fridge.
I cannot understand this beans thing. Eat the bastards. It’s not hard. Get it down yer*, yer big woofters.
I fear there’s a certain middle-class sense of, “I know I shouldn’t really be eating baked beans, because pez food. So will treat them as a kind of garnish, can I get away with it that way?”
Real men eat beans.
(* I don’t mean on your shirt, though it’s too easily done)
Lockdown Baked Bean research:
Heinz remains the Bean of choice, but Co-Op and Morrisons own brand aren’t far behind.
Tesco and Asda though are very thin and watery
Waitrose Essentials beans are excellent. Heinz have way too much sauce.
Waitrose Essentials products are very good.
(Oh … that sounds very middle class)
They’re Fish Fingers are as good, if not better, than Birds Eye
(redemption?)
The jumbo fish fingers from the Waitrose Deli counter are the best ever
See also Lemon Curd Knotted Yum Yums – bestest
At last! Fish fingers that are the same shape as my real fingers.
True that. The beans/sauce ratio has changed a lot in recent years.
Just the line-up, or have they gone in a more determinedly fusion direction? I haven’t been following them.
Crosse & Blackwell Reduced Sugar & Salt are our favoured ones. Nice thick source and much better than the Heinz reduced sugar ones especially cold.
Baked potato, beans and cheese. Not Pes food, food of the Gods.
Not Pes food? Peasants have the best food, perhaps because they aren’t arsed about whether what they’re eating is ethical/fashionable/recommended by gary or the Guardian.
Peasant food is only the best if it’s made by artisan peasants.
Pez food can be dangerous.
Plus. Baked beans need to be overcooked. Ignore instructions on tin.
Hear hear!
Google Sugru and saucepan lids for a neat hack. And buy the snack pots or fridge jar of baked beans.
The Heinz Fridge Pack has a lot of non recyclable plastic and is expensive.
Sugru is the answer to almost any problem. Fantastic stuff and I keep a constant supply to hand. Spookily, given the subject matter, kept in the fridge as it lasts longer, apparently.
Sugru is the mutts nuts.
I’ve just had beans and sausages on toast. And I ate the whole tin. And they were nice.
Followed by a big slice of the best parkin. I bought some third class parkin last week, cos it was all I could get locally, and it was rubbish, like sponge cake. So I ordered some of the good stuff online and it came this morning. Heaven!
And I washed it down with a mug of chocolate ovaltine, in a mug with a big handle. Yesterday the handle on the mug was quite small, so I’m sporting a blister on the back of my forefinger, as it was clearly resting on the hot bit of the mug without me knowing (spinal cord tumour, removed by cutting into spinal cord, mucho nerve damage, can’t feel much below my neck, especially my hands).
Today was a good tea.
Baked beans are, of course, best eaten cold straight from the tin. A minority view, possibly.
Parkin is dead serious though. I’ve made it, and like malt
loaf (ditto) it gets better over time.
Yes, I was a bit annoyed to see the sell by date on the parkin was the end of February. The nearer it is to the sell by date the better it is. I bought three blocks and couldn’t resist opening one tonight. Remains to be seen whether I can resist the urge to eat the other two until after Christmas. I suspect not.
To keep the noise of clattering cans to a minimum would anyone like to subscribe to help me develop my range of cardboard saucepans?
I have a PHd* in Baked Bean Technology.
I assume you are having problems with the Heinz variety, the ones with the easy-to-open rip-out can?
Here’s your solution to the excess sauce distribution issue: store them upside down. When you invert and open the tin using the rip-out lid, the excess sauce will now be at the bottom, but the ones that come out first – use a big spoon to spoon ’em out – will also be amply sauced for immediate consumption.
Thank you. My research continues to be funded solely by HMRC’s furlough scheme.
*this is a ‘Prefers Heinz disposition’, as opposed to a PhD, which is a real thing involving study.
That is an eminently sensible solution – perhaps the best in response to my dilemma @vulpes-vulpes. However there is an apparently insurmountable issue. My wife has mild OCD that becomes a serious OCD when it comes to kitchen cupboards. I kid you not all tins in the cupboard have to be stored with the labels facing outwards and in perfect synchronicity. She wouldnt sanction upside down tins.
Easy- take the label off and glue it back on upside down. She’ll never need to know.
Ye Gods, is there no end to your torment @SteveT? I’d divorce her, she’s clearly a witch.
Storing cans upside-down or on it’s side? Nonsense. Just give the beans a gentle shake before opening.
Obviously you don’t store your Heinz beans for as long as we aficionados are inclined to do. You can’t have too large a bean stash old bean; inevitably it means some cans are most reluctant to rearrange their contents upon receiving a mild shake.
I don’t hold with this Mild shaking of tins. Vigorous shaking works much better and you can claim it as exercise too.
Don’t break the sacred beans though.
You could take then down to your local store that mixes paint.
Put on their paint mixing shaking machine, clamped down and shaken (if a little stirred) problem solved.
Amply sauced – hurrrr
I’ve found the beans:juice ratio can be controlled by a simple hardware device known as the sPoon. The sPoon uses manual technology to access below the ‘wet zone’ at the top of the can and draw up content from the denser ‘pulse zone’ in the deep storage element of the BTU (Bean Transportation Unit).
The ratio can be further refined using the sPoon’s proprietary Tilt™ and Waggle™ functions before interfacing with the saucepan, or if eating direct from the can, before interfacing.
Excellent @chiz
Thanks! Although I should point out that if used incorrectly the Tilt™ and Waggle™ functions can lead to a massive irretrievable data leak requiring urgent application of software such as Disccloth 1.0 or Kitsch NT Owl
Our pans hang on hooks above the hob, but the lids are in a pan lid rack thing that is designed to hang up, but ours isn’t – it stands in a cupboard leaning against the side. This does NOT work – there is an ever present danger of the whole shebang falling or sliding over, with the attendant clatter sounding like the end of the world….I also ALWAYS select the wrong one for the pan on the hob, resulting in more jeopardy as I replace and re-select. I have concluded that there is no answer to this (to be clear, there is nowhere on the wall to hang the contraption).
I don’t understand the bean issue…I spoon half a tin’s worth into the pan and have never noticed a lack of sauce remaining in the second half. We use Tesco low sugar and low salt ones…cheap and perfectly fine. When elsewhere, typically a hotel or B&B, the beans now taste amazingly sweet and nasty though.
Low sugar baked beans. Yeuch. I accidentally bought a four pack of those blighters once, and the missus was the first to break open the placcy wrapper for brekky one Saturday. “God, these beans are disgusting” says she. Ten seconds later, after a sampling, I heartily concurred. Thenceforth, two heaped teaspoons of granulated in every saucepan allowed us to avoid global ecological meltdown, reader, and we made it to the end of the last of the four cans without any unecessary food wastage. Oxfam would have been proud. We pledged never again to submit ourselves to such culinary recklessness.
Actually I discussed this very subject with my brother in law a retired chef. He reckons that if you add a teaspoon of sugar to the baked beans it solidifies the sauce slightly and reduces the flow. It might solve the problem but spoil the taste.
Like giving up anything, there is a cold turkey phase! I can’t go back now…
It’s clear from various comments on here that my handling of beans is suspect and needs to be altered. I have never used a spoon and it is clear that would aid the even distribution of sauce. It may also eradicate another problem. Currently I take the lid off the beans and shake the can rigorously into the saucepan until the contents are emptied from the can. Except that they never are – not matter how hard you shake the tin there are residue beans that refuse to leave the can. Judicious use of a spoon would solve that issue
Ah, those, yes. They are known as Trump beans – they just won’t let go.
I remember the supermarkets had Baked Bean wars in the early 90s. They were undercutting each other to such an extent that cans were being sold for literally tuppence.
I don’t recall that and thus that is fake news
Ha! That bloke Trump used to say that kind of thing all the time.
Fake news is now fake olds.
@SteveT is 14 short of a hamper, err 13 now.
Should he put it in the fridge or keep it at room temp?
This far down and still no advice on the best way to consume Corsair tinned chicken. Cold out of the can in one gulp is my gut instinct. Best not to shake first – don’t want to upset that balanced blend of coagulations. Leftovers (unlikely!) should be relocated to a local council incinerator.
This far down and still this hasn’t been posted.
We were posh in our house. We had Cross & Blackwell. I wasn’t so keen on theirs though. You’d find detached bean skins that were not really digestible, they could get stuck in your teeth as well. Once I left home I switched to Heinz. How liberating that was.
Did you leave home because of the unsatisfactory bean situation? We need to know…
Hamper for Mr T!
When he’s emptied it he’ll have somewhere new to store his saucepan lids.