Kitchen Island Ideas for Great Custom Kitchen Islands

Use kitchen island ideas to better understand how to create a more functional and comfortable kitchen. Using custom kitchen islands means having the most appropriate island for your home and kitchen area based on your kitchen space and your needs. Kitchen island ideas take us back to the farmhouse kitchen, even back to medieval times when a large worktable was used to do most of the preparation work.

Besides meal preparation, the kitchen can become a gathering area for family and friends if there is enough space. Since so much happens in the kitchen on a regular basis, getting the layout right is important. The kitchen island can serve as an additional eating area, and food preparation can easily be done there. In a large kitchen, the kitchen island can shorten the distances within the working triangle (sink, refrigerator and range or cooktop) and make it more efficient.

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Here are kitchen island ideas to consider when planning your kitchen:

1. Kitchen islands work best in larger L, U or G-shape kitchens. If the kitchen is too small, the kitchen island will become an obstruction and hinder easy movement. The best custom kitchen islands for small to midsize kitchens are a portable butcher block or kitchen cart for food prep or extra storage.

2. Include a ventilation hood overhead to eliminate smoke, steam and cooking odors if your kitchen island is going to have a cooktop. The range hood should extend beyond the cooking area by 3 inches or more on the sides for proper ventilation. Using the correct fan size will ensure that removal happens as intended. Have a fan capacity of about 50 cubic feet per minute (cfm) for each square foot of cooktop area.

3. A second kitchen sink can be included on the kitchen island. Use a sink that is deep enough for washing large pots and pans, and consider equipping the kitchen island with a trash compactor, garbage disposal, recycle bin and even a dishwasher. Cleanup will be much easier when these appliances are close by the sink.

4. Allow adequate countertop space on both sides (left and right) of the kitchen island if a sink or cooktop will be used. Include at least 15 inches of countertop space on each side, and if your kitchen is large enough, allow even more space. You can never have too much countertop space in a kitchen. Also, rounded countertop corners help protect everyone from bad bruises -- this is true about all kitchen countertop corners.

5. Additional kitchen island ideas are to consider using shelf space on the sides of your kitchen island for cookbooks, collectibles or storage. A built-in TV works here, especially if it faces the family room. Or a microwave may work well for heating up after-school snacks and cooking foods quickly.

6. Countertop material for the island doesn't have to match the rest of your kitchen countertops as long as it is harmonious with the room's overall design. You may want to splurge on solid surfacing here, for example, and use laminate on the other countertops. A butcher-block countertop is ideal for chopping, while granite or marble works well for baking purposes and for rolling pastry dough.

7. Maximize natural light by having windows and skylights, and keep kitchen wall surfaces light in color to reflect daylight. Custom kitchen islands work great by using pendant or recessed fixtures to direct light onto the kitchen island and other work areas. Electrical codes will likely require that electrical outlets be located on the sides of fixed kitchen islands, not on the top, to prevent electrical shock.

Use custom kitchen islands ideas to help you know how to create an attractive area that will perform a variety of useful functions. Designed correctly, kitchen islands will make your work area more functional and efficient and will be enjoyed by everyone for many years. Read as many kitchen island ideas as you can on using an island to improve the functionality and comfort in your kitchen -- after all, your kitchen is most likely the most popular room in the house.

Copyright 2005 InfoSearch Publishing

Kitchen Island Ideas for Great Custom Kitchen Islands

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The Top Three Healthy Non Toxic Cookware Sets

With all of the bad publicity that Teflon and aluminum cookware has received, many of us are searching for healthy non toxic cookware. It doesn't make any sense to purchase healthy whole foods and then cook them in toxic pots and pans.

Although stainless steel cookware has been considered a safe alternative, it does have one drawback. Stainless steel cookware is made with a combination of stainless steel, chromium and nickel. None of these are harmful in small doses, but many people are allergic to nickel. If you are allergic to nickel, you should refrain from using stainless steel cookware.

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Another concern that many people are not aware of is that some glazes used on crock pots have small amount of lead. The recommendation is to use terra cotta crock pots without the lead glaze.

The best cookware which is healthy and non toxic is anodized aluminum cookware. The process used in making the hard anodized aluminum seals the aluminum with an extremely hard surface coating which is non-reactive and prevents any aluminum from leaching into the food we are cooking.

The following three companies have excellent hard anodized aluminum cookware sets that are healthy and non toxic:

Calphalon is the leading manufacturer but many other companies are now producing cookware sets made with the hard anodized aluminum. Calphalon cookware cooks evenly on lower heat and is stick-resistant. They have stainless steel handles which will stay cool during stovetop cooking. The pans and lids can be used in the oven and broiler.

Cuisinart has introduced a line of non-stick cookware called Cuisinart Green Gourmet Hard Anodized Cookware. They work just like the Teflon cookware, except they don't emit any of the toxic fumes that Teflon pans do. Just like the Teflon pans, they allow you to cook with less oil and they are also energy efficient and eco-friendly. This Green Gourmet cookware set is oven and broiler safe.

KitchenAid has their own set of non-stick anodized aluminum cookware called KitchenAid Gourmet Essentials. This cookware set features stainless steel handles coated with silicone grips. The lids are break resistant glass which makes it nice to see what you are cooking. These pots and pans are oven safe up to 400 degrees.

All three of these companies cookware sets are highly recommended healthy non toxic sets. I use the Kitchen Aid Gourmet Essentials cookware in my kitchen. It is the best value out of the three.

The Top Three Healthy Non Toxic Cookware Sets

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How to Make a Cardboard Box

Cardboard boxes can come in many shapes and sizes, you can have what I would call the most common box with flaps at the top and bottom to the more unusual die-cut boxes. A die cut box is a box which has been made using a cutting forme, basically you have a flat piece of cardboard and a cutting forme which has lots of blades mounted on a sheet of wood which presses out a shape in the cardboard and this shape folds to make a box. I suppose it is a bit like a cutting tool in the kitchen which is used to cut shapes in pastry to bake.

To make a Cardboard box, first you need the corrugated board to make into a box. Corrugated board is generally made of three pieces of paper bonded together with a starch adhesive. The two outer layers (liners) remain flat however the middle layer of paper is made wavy (known as fluting) this gives the product its strength and is now called corrugated board.

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The most common types of corrugated board are single wall, which uses three pieces of paper to make it with the middle layer being the fluting (wavy). There are also double wall boxes these are made up from two single walled layers, so you have 3 paper liners sandwiched with two sets of fluting.

Once you have your blank piece of corrugated cardboard you need to cut it to size, the size of the blank (this is the name for the uncut piece of cardboard) will obviously depend on the size of box you want to create. Say you want a box 305Lx229Wx229H mm (we always measure boxes by the length first then the width then the height) you would need to measure your box as: 305+229+305+229+50 = 1118mm wide against the fluting (the 50 measurement is left for the glue flap), by 229+229 =458mm height (with the fluting) The fluting always runs with the height of the box, to find out more on how we get those measurements see how to measure a box.

Once you have cut your bank to size you now need to cut your top and bottom flaps and then glue the box together using the glue flap.

You now have your cardboard box made to your exact size.

How to Make a Cardboard Box

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Pastry Appetizers - Savoury Mini Tartlets

A girlfriend of mine threw a party at the weekend so I made some appetizers in the form of savoury mini tartlets to go with the pre-dinner drinks. Tartlets are ideal 'blotting material' for soaking up alcohol and they look pretty too.

Tartlets are perfect for entertaining because both the filling and pastry can be made in advance and frozen if necessary (depending on the filling you use).

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As a rule of thumb, two-bites-per-appetizer is all you need. I use those little muffin tins for the pastry cases and find a little filling goes a long way - one teaspoonful is roughly enough. Keep stress to a minimum by using easy to find ingredients and fillings you can make in advance. These are the fillings I made for her party:

Prawns with dill, crème fraiche & caviar
Chili chicken with mango, lime & coriander
Asparagus with lemon hollandaise
Chicken liver parfait drizzled with Cumberland sauce

In the main, I used what was already in the fridge. For example, a cooked chicken, some leftover hollandaise - (surprisingly nice cold) and the parfait, I'd already made for a cooking class. So not as impressive or complicated as it sounds. If you've made my chicken liver parfait you'll know it's easy to make anyway. The point I'm trying to get at here, is use what's in your fridge and let your imagination run wild.

Pastry is just as important as filling. I use Cookeen because it produces a very light, crisp pastry. For perfect results, follow these simple steps and you won't go wrong:

1) Refrigerate the pastry for 30 minutes before rolling - it stops shrinkage.
2) Roll the pastry out thinly - no thicker than a £1 coin.
3) Generously grease the patty tins with butter before lining with pastry.
4) Stamp out the pastry using a cutter larger than the moulds.
5) Line the cases with little tin foil pouches filled with dried pulses.
6) Bake in a hot oven 200C/Gas 6 on the top shelf for10 minutes.
7) Remove the foil pouches and return to the oven for 3-4 minutes.
8) Cool and store in airtight container or freezer until needed.

When everything's prepped, just put it together. TOP TIP: Use a homemade piping bag when filling the cases. Just take a regular polythene sandwich bag, stuff it into a mug, for easy filling, squeeze the mixture down into the bag, snip off the corner and Voila!

Finish off by decorating the top with a little mock caviar or a sprig of fresh herbs and your tartlets are ready to go.

Pastry Appetizers - Savoury Mini Tartlets

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How to Remove Sour Milk Smell

The odor of spoiled milk is traditionally very difficult to remove. Fortunately, there are some relatively simple and inexpensive solutions. The sooner you clean the smelly spot, the greater your chances of restoring a fresh scent to your room, house, refrigerator and house-on-wheels.

Aside from that, the smell of spoiled milk can be quite hard to remove on your clothes, especially your baby's clothes, since babies have frequent access to milk and are most likely to spill milk on their clothes.

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Baby clothes can be expensive and the kids grow out of them before they can possibly wear them. Often these adorable little outfits are passed on to another child; however, even though they are in good shape, they still have that telltale odor of spoiled milk that is almost impossible to get rid of. As always, there are ways around this dilemma.

Sour Milk Smell Removal

Avoid spilling milk if you can. Also, do not cry over the spilled milk if you indeed spilled it anyway. Do something about it instead.

* To remove stale milk smells, you first need to remove all the spilled stale milk. Use warm soapy water and perhaps some washing up liquid and clean up the affected area thoroughly first.

* After the mess has been cleared up, soak the area in white vinegar and mop up with paper towels. Put up with vinegary smell for about a week and after that, not a sign of vinegar smell or that horrible milk odor will remain.

* You can use an air freshener in the affected car to ensure a pleasant smell. Just try to let it dry for as long as possible. Soon, the milk smell will have disappeared from your surroundings.

* Use a commercial leather cleaner and odor eliminator on the leather upholstery of your car. Your dealer may carry these products. Allow the area to dry completely: residual moisture can cause mildew. Use a hair dryer or fan if necessary, being careful not to scorch carpet fibers with the hair dryer.

* You can also pour baking soda over the area where milk is spilled. Sprinkle some cold water on top of the baking soda and let it stand overnight. You can vacuum it the next day to remove the residue. If the smell still remains, you can try treating it with an enzyme odor remover.

* Take a bottle of club soda, stick your finger inside and shake to get a fizz going. With your finger still in bottle, spray on the stinky milk stain. Get it wet but not soaking. The smell might be worse at first but that it will go away as the whole thing dries unlike the untreated milk odor, which will only worsen as time passes by.

* You can also use brake cleaner if you're particularly desperate, but use it moderately and only on carpets, rugs or hard surfaces. Just put a small dab on a clean cloth, blot the milk stain and rinse with soap and water.

If it's baby clothes that are affected by the milk stench, then you could do the following: Fill the washing machine with hot water. Fill it at least high enough for a medium load. Add a cup of laundry detergent with one cup of dish washing detergent. Run the machine for a few minutes to mix the combination well. Turn the washing machine off.

Put the smelly baby clothes in the solution in the machine and leave them there. Let them soak overnight in the solution. Then, In the morning turn the washing machine on and let the clothes run through a full cycle. Add a tablespoon of vinegar to the rinse cycle. Vinegar is the choice product for general bad odor removal.

Finally, add a second rinse cycle to make certain that all the detergent residue gets rinsed out of the clothes. The baby's clothes, as well as your clothes, if you've tried this method on those as well, will be smelling fresh and clean by the end of the process so be proud of your work.

How to Remove Sour Milk Smell

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The 20 Most Popular Bike Brands Sold in the US

Well, this is certainly a controversial, complicated and constantly evolving topic. There are so many bicycle manufacturers, bicycle types and popular brand names sold in the US, that it can be difficult to find a comprehensive summary and to sort it all out.

The top 20 most popular bike brand listing that I've compiled here is not based on the number of bikes sold alone or on the quality or perceived quality of the bicycles. Most of the bike manufacturers listed here also sell different bike types (road, mountain, hybrid, etc.) and the list below is not broken down by bike type or category.

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This listing is intended to be a guide as to what bike brands are currently the most popular in the USA, at the time of this writing (since bike brands come and go and the sales of various bike types rise and fall).

The Top 20 Most Popular Bike Brands and the bike types that they sell

Trek - Road, Triathlon , Mountain Hardtail , Mountain Full-Suspension , Urban , Bike Path, Cruiser , Women's , Kids Schwinn - Road, Commuter, Comfort, Cruisers, Electric, Mountain Bikes, BMX, Kids Giant - Road, Mountain, Giant for Women, Lifestyle, Hybrid (HCT), BMX, Kids Cannondale - Road, Mountain, Women's Recreation (many sub categories) Mongoose - BMX Bikes (Team Bikes, Freestyle Bikes, Dirt Street Bikes) Mountain / Pavement (Dual Suspension, Jumping, Hardtail XC, Comfort, Commuter, Road Alternative,  Raleigh - Road, Performance Hybrid, Hybrid, Comfort, Mountain, Cruiser, Women, Youth Specialized Road, Multi Street, Globe (commute, comfort), Dirt/Street/Vert (BMX), Kids ATB Diamondback - MTN Full Suspension , Mountain Hardtail , Devine Designs , Comfort ,Cruiser , Performance Hybrid , Hybrid , Youth , BMX Fuji - Road, Mountain, Specialty, Women's, Lifestyle, Kids Haro -All Mountain-Freeride, Dirt Jump/ Urban, XC Trail / XC Sport, 650B, 29er, Metro, Comfort, Cruiser Shimano - Road, Mountain, Comfort, BMX Huffy - since 1892 - Mountain, BMX, Kids, Road Gary Fisher - 29ers, Full Suspension,  Genesisters, Hardtails, Kids, Pavement, Road Ellsworth - High end Mountain Bikes Klein - High end Mountain and Road Bikes Jamis - High end Full Suspension, Hardtail, Road, Street, Sport Comfort, Youth Bianchi - Hors Categorie (HOC), Born for Performance (B4P), Coast to Coast (C2C), Dama Bianca, D2, Special, Classica, Road Steel, MTB Performance, MTB Leisure, Sport, Cross-Terrain GT - Mountain, BMX, Road, Womens Rocky Mountain - Mountain, Road, Urban & Path, Ladies Only Scott - Mountain, Road, Women's Junior's

Some of the popular bike brands listed here can only be purchased at specialty bike shops or independent dealers. Although this marketing technique makes these brands harder to find, in some cases this it improves the perceived quality of the bikes over brands that are distributed to the mass market or that can be easily found at sporting goods stores or even online.

I have included the bike types or bike categories that each manufacturer sells under the brand names listed. The bike type descriptions were, in most cases, taken directly from each bike manufacturers website in order to not only let you know what kind of bikes they make but also how the company perceives the bike types that they make and how they market them to you.

The 20 Most Popular Bike Brands Sold in the US

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How to Cook Salmon on a Grill Perfectly Every Time

Getting together with family or just want to make the perfect grilled salmon? Then read on...

Salmon on a grill is absolutely delicious. It can, however, be a bit tricky. If you are the kind of person who can burn water on the stove, here are some great tips.

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First of all, you want to leave the skin on the salmon. This will help the salmon cook all the way through without charring the meat. Heat your grill to medium high heat.

The next thing you want to do is rub or brush the skin of the salmon with a bit of olive oil. This is one of the greatest tips on how to cook salmon.

The olive oil on the skin helps bring out the flavor of the meat. The small layer of fat on the skin also helps with flavor.

You can also season the salmon with your own personal seasonings if you choose. Some good seasonings for Salmon are lemon and pepper seasoning, garlic, and cayenne pepper.

It's up to you on what kind of seasoning you want. You will place the salmon skin side down on the grill and cook for around five to seven minutes.

Check to make sure that no part of the salmon is cooking faster than another. If there are parts which are cooking faster, move the salmon to a cooler part of the grill.

Continue cooking for another five to seven minutes. It's not hard to learn how to cook salmon if you remember to leave the skin on, and keep the grill closed while it's cooking.

Also, you want to check and make sure the meat of the salmon is flaky and not heavy. Then, take the salmon from the grill and brush with butter and a bit of lemon juice. Yummy!

How to Cook Salmon on a Grill Perfectly Every Time

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