I recently conducted a workshop for the ladies of our church called “Household Tips for Busy Women” which incorporated tips and ideas for making household chores less time consuming and included nutritional and shopping tips. I hope my readers glean a few tips from this writing; I learned a number of tips while preparing and presenting this presentation. For the next few minutes, pretend you are in your kitchen ready to start a meal.
Step 1:
> Fill sink or dishpan with hot soapy water. If you will practice washing each pan or dish as you finish using it in your meal preparation, the only thing you will need to do following the meal is load the dishwasher and wipe the counter.
Step 2: Customize your Kitchen:
> Customize your workspace so that items you frequently use are within easy reach. For instance, put your most frequently used containers, bowls, etc at a convenient height, first shelf or even under the cupboard. Stretching is good for you, but if you don’t need to antagonize a bad back, sore knees, etc, maybe you want to rethink where you stash your most used items. Locate as much as possible between the hip and shoulder levels for the most stress free workplace.
>If you are left handed, personalize your kitchen so that items you use are within convenient reach; set up your workspace to suit yourself.
> Utilize space in cupboards. When we bought our new home, I had my husband install narrow shelves in back of each cupboard to store small items such as boxes of Jell-O, pudding, shakers, small dishes, cups, etc. This almost doubled the shelf space in the entire kitchen, pantry and bathrooms. We never seem to have enough cupboards, right?
Using one gadget for many purposes:
The Pastry Blender:
> Cut an egg into neat slices for a garnish (must be hard boiled and cold to slice clean).
> Easy to make egg salad for sandwiches – chop the eggs and any other ingredients you would normally use; add the dressing of your choice (I make my own and vary the ingredients).
> Cut pre-cooked potatoes into chunks; add the eggs and dressing and mash. Presto; you have potato salad. Make the dressing ahead of time; I use salad dressing, sweet pickle relish, pimento, chopped onions, and olives and vary it depending on what I have on hand. Use spices such as rosemary, instead of salt. Blend and you have a finished product in couple of minutes. I use NO salt in the dressing (there’s lots of salt in the relish). Salt is overused, causing hypertension, it takes time to learn to savor the natural flavor of foods or enhance with spices.
> Sweet potatoes – peel raw and cook like regular potatoes (takes about 6-minutes in microwave). Then mash, garnish with pineapple, apple filling, raisins, brown sugar, etc. Make a big batch and heat just what you need for one meal. Did you know sweet potatoes are an excellent source of fiber and are excellent re-heated?
> Use the pastry blender when mixing other ingredients with ground turkey or ground chicken. I use turkey as example since I don’t use ground beef. Turkey and chicken are much lower in cholesterol and less expensive. It tastes almost the same as ground beef in your finished dish, and can be used in any dish calling for ground beef. Try to buy organic.
Because ground turkey contains much less fat, you will need to cook it a little differently than hamburger. For patties: put Cold Pressed Olive oil in your skillet and let it heat to a moderate temp – olive oil will burn if too hot. After meat is browned, add a couple tablespoons water rather than more oil. Water will help keep meat from sticking. The final product is very low fat, very flavorful.
> Of Course, you can also use your pastry blender to make pie crust. I never make pies, but know it works!
Food Strainer:
> Drain and rinse cooked rice for immediate use or freezing. Rice freezes very well for up to a week – It can be used in salads as one of the daily grains; and a good source of complex carbohydrate. Rinsing get the sticky residue off.
> Cooked beans – I use various kinds of cooked beans in salads for added protein. Cooked beans keep well for couple weeks when frozen. Beans are handy and nutritious to make a roll up for a snack or quick meal. Add to tossed salads for variety and flavor.
> After sautéing meat, especially hamburger if you use it, put the meat into the strainer and run hot water over it to remove the excess fat. True, the flavor is in the fat, but so are the cholesterol and “bad” fats, which so love the inside of your blood veins. Compensate for the fat by using seasonings. If you accidentally get too much seasoning in your preparation, put the food into strainer, rinse and start over with the seasoning process.
> Wash Vegetables – When making salads (I make huge salads for a couple of days). Chop all the veggies and then rinse under running water, then in a fruit wash to remove all the chemicals. One of the handiest investments is my salad spinner. Did you know that much of our fruit, especially apples, are coated with a wax to make them shiny and last longer in cold storage? Did you also know that the wax seals in any remaining spray or chemicals used to control insects which do not come off during commercial washing?
Seal the unused veggies in a plastic bag. They will stay fresh very nicely for couple of days. Did you know that if you wrap a stalk of celery in foil it will stay fresh for several weeks? I’ve kept a stalk for five weeks just to prove this. The inside stalks were still good when I tossed the rest away!
> If you forgot that half bag of peas in the back of the freezer, woops - and they have ice crystals, you can rinse those ice crystals off with running water and unless the veggies are too old, they are very usable. Don’t toss them out without checking that they are beyond rescue.
> Eliminate freezer taste from bagged ice. Rinsing with water eliminates the “freezer taste” and your ice is as good as new – there’s a little less of it, but no need to throw away a half bag of perfectly good ice.
When you shop:
Shop the outside aisles first – learn the layout of the store. The outside aisles are where the nutritional foods are – the inside aisles are designed for impulse buying, non nutritious prepared foods, etc. The money grabbers are on the inside aisles. In today’s economy, try to cook from scratch as much as possible.
Remember, the darker the vegetable or fruit the more nutritious. The lowly bean is packed with protein, so you can cut down on meat.
About Sweeteners:
AVOID ASPARTAME:
This is known as the artificial sweetener Equal or NutraSweet and is made up of three chemicals, Aspartic Acid, Phenylalanine, Methanol (wood alcohol), which is poison and a genetically engineered enzyme*. It has been implicated in many diseases. Aspartame breaks down into formaldehyde in the body at 86 degrees. Sugar free Jell-O contains aspartame in some form. Check the box. I personally believe it’s safer to use regular
Jell-O than sugar-free.
What is Genetic engineering?
*Genetic engineering is an artificial manipulation of genes. In genetic engineering, one gene or most commonly, a set of a few genes is taken out of the DNA of one organism and inserted into the DNA of another organism. This we call the "insertion package”. Think of it this way: DNA of a female mouse is inserted into a female rat. The outcome is neither nether rat nor mouse, and no one knows where the continuum ends.
Note: More and more genetic food is being developed and manufacturers are not required to indicate that foods are genetically engineered – read labels; you won’t find any mention there; which is another strong reason for using fresh. I don’t know about you, but the thought of eating a combination of two different animals (genetically engineered) turns my stomach~ A good resource for public awareness in this field can be found at: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/03/04/animal_cloning/ Title: “Should biotech piggy go to market?” “Consumer advocates worry that the FDA is throwing open the barn door to genetically engineered animals too quickly.” By Rebecca Clarren
NOTE: From the New York Times, June 2, 2007 – “Toxic Toothpaste Made in China Is Found In U.S”. The article states “Consumers were advised yesterday to discard all toothpaste made in China after federal health officials said they found Chinese=made toothpaste containing a poison used in some antifreeze in three locations: Miami, The Port of Lost Angeles and Puerto Rico.” Buyer beware.
Until next time, remember, God gave us all the fruits and vegetables, nuts, berries and seeds and grains to sustain these bodies. We just need to be sure we are taking care of the body he gave us. Genesis 1:27 to 31
