kitchen necessities:part deux

Recently, I have rediscovered cooking and baking and have been enjoying myself. I have found there are a few more kitchen tools/gadgets that I really do enjoy and wanted to share.
- silicone pastry brush (no more nasty bristles)
- OXO citrus juicer
- kitchen tongs that I use for everything especially reaching stuff on the top shelf :
-Pampered Chef medium scooper for cookies and mini spatula for getting those tricky brownies out of the pan

meal planning 101

As I've mentioned before I am finding that planning my meals for the week ahead and grocery shopping Sunday nights by myself is really working for me. Better self esteem through organized living, sick but true. I have found this grocery list and day of the week planner very helpful from Becky Higgins blog. I like that the stores I use are listed at the top and you can have the list on the side of the fridge and add things as needed or sit down and fill in the meals adding ingredients you will need to pick up.meals.pdf

kitchen neccessities

Awhile ago I was thinking about what kitchen tools I really do use on a consistent basis. Last year I put all my unnecessary kitchen gadgets down in the basement pantry ( I think I have gone downstairs to retrieve one item once in the past year) That's probably a sign to let them go but I'm not quite ready. Here's a list of my favorites:
1) I love my OXO apple corer/slicer, it makes an apple snack super quick
2) the pampered chef pizza cutter and pizza stone ( we received this as a wedding gift and it's been used once a week ever since

3) the pampered chef microwave vegetable steamer, I love how quick steamed vegetables are to make and the lid has a built in strainer (kind of a 2 for 1 deal)

4) corning ware french white casserole dishes. I love their simple look and they can go from the freezer to the oven, microwave and dishwasher. I love versatility.
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5) I love my Wustof chef knife, it was also a wedding gift that has gotten daily use and I firmly believe life is better when you have a great knife.

6) my cheese slicer, I hate cutting cheese with a knife and this makes it so much easier.
What's your favorite kitchen gadget?

deceptively delicious part one

The other day at Costco I picked up the 2.5 pound bag of spinach. The bag is huge but my thinking is if I'm going to cook and puree food ahead of time it's going to be in big batches. This morning I steamed the spinach (without removing the stems like the book said) and pureed with my hand blender and it turned out just fine. Aiden was mildly curious to what I was doing and was a little grossed out by the green slime. I don't think he will be helping with these recipes if I want him to eat them. 2.5 pounds of spinach made 8- 1/2 cup freezer bags so I'm glad I went the Costco route. Otherwise too much work for a small amount of ingredient. It would be great if you had a group of " deceptively delicious" cooks that cooked and pureed one vegetable and then you swapped!
On the subject of Costco. The other day I felt mildly smug when my total came to $251 at the check out ( I have $250 goal). Then I remembered I had already made a Costco run this month. Our grocery bill seems to get higher each month. Everyone says Haggen's is expensive so I might try another grocery store and see if it makes a difference.