8. Keep Your Pantry Clean. Toss out old ingredients such as hard brown sugar, stale flour, expired baking powder, soda, and spices. If you accidentally use old ingredients in your recipes, you will have wasted your time and effort in preparing the recipe because the recipe won't taste as good, your guests may not eat it, and it may make you ill. …show more content…
Keep Your Kitchen Clean and Follow Good Food Safety Rules. In a clean kitchen, you'll find the cooking process to be less stressful when you can move around freely without tripping over things and in pulling items out of the pantry you'll be less likely to accidentally knock things over and get hit in the face or head. Don't leave hot food out on the tabletops to cool off. Refrigerate any food that requires refrigeration if no one is going to eat it. Be sure to wash your hands thoroughly before cooking and after handling raw meat, poultry, and eggs to avoid food contamination. After using dirty utensils such as knives used with raw meat products, be sure to place them in the washing area so you won't use the same knives on other food products such as fruit and