Mimi Goodies – Cooking healthy

Does your kitchen stress you out? No, this is not just another article about getting the clutter out of your kitchen to live a stress-free life. There are so many different ways that you can face stress in the kitchen. Let’s take a look at some stressful kitchen situations and the various kitchen gadgets and accessories that can erase that kitchen stress.

Mom, I need a cake for the bake sale tomorrow!

Who hasn’t been there? It’s 9 p.m. you’re looking forward to relaxing for the evening and your fifth grader suddenly remembers that the bake sale is tomorrow! Skip the layer cake and break out a fancy cake pan that makes it easy to turn out a showpiece beehive or heart cake, the kind of cake that will earn heaps of praise – and top dollar at the bake sale.

Honey, did you take the chicken out of the freezer like I asked this morning?

Oops! It is dinner time and someone forgot to take the meat out to thaw. You can pop it in the microwave and lose half the flavor, you can try to thaw it under running water, or you can put some stress on your wallet by ordering a pizza. Or you can do none of the above if you own a Nu Wave oven, which cooks a full meal in under an hour, even if the meat is frozen. The Nu Wave combines convection, regular heat and infrared heat to cook three ways at once, even if you forgot to take the meat out for dinner.

There’s no more room in the oven for the rolls!

You know how it goes, you’ve got the roast on the top rack, the potatoes on the bottom rack and there’s no room for the green bean casserole. What’s a busy cook to do? How about a Three Tier Oven Rack that better than doubles the room in your oven by adding three racks, and still leaving room for the roast on the side? Even better, it folds flat when you’re not using it so it takes up almost no room at all in your cupboard.

What did you do with the lid to the Dutch oven, honey?

How much time do you spend rummaging through the kitchen cabinet to find the right lid for the right pot? Never lose your lid again when you’ve got a Lid Organizer that slides in and out of your cabinet on casters. You can store up to six pot lids in almost no space at all. It also holds storage lids so you can find them easily, eliminating yet another kitchen stress.

Ouch! Those oven racks are hot!

It happens to the most careful chefs and cooks, while reaching for the cookie sheet a hand or forearm (or both) brushes against the edge of the oven rack. Pot holders and oven gloves only go so far in protecting you from burns. What’s the answer? Put the guard on the oven rack instead of on your hands. DuPont Nomex Rack Guards slip onto the front of most standard oven racks, protecting you from accidental burns.

I hate cleaning the oven and those drippy icky messes on the burners!

Don’t we all? Stop spills from baking on by protecting your oven floor with a silicone oven liner. When it gets dirty, just pull it out, pop it in the dishwasher and voila! The result is a sparkling clean surface. Do the same thing with your stovetop by investing in a set of fiberglass burner bibs that collect up all those boil-overs and splatters, and a spoon rest to hold your spoon and pot lid without dribbling on the stove.

When I lift the bird, you slide the plate underneath it and… oh, no!!

It’s the most fun moment of the entire day, getting the roast or the turkey from the roasting pan to the serving platter. If the transfer juggle stresses you out, there are a few great options to erase the stress from your life. One of the best is a Silicone Roast Lifter. Just put your bird on it before you put it into the oven. When it’s finished roasting, grab the handles and lift. That’s all there is to it.

What stresses you out in the kitchen? Whether it is getting dinner on the table in a hurry or remembering to take the rolls out of the oven before they burn, there are ways to get rid of it. Take a few minutes to think about what makes you feel hurried and rushed, then figure out which gadget or trick will help you overcome it so that you can truly enjoy cooking again.

Cooking is an art as well as a necessity of our lives. It can bring great joy to both the cook, as well as those who partake of the well-prepared meal and it can also be a valuable and nutritious addition to our overall health and well being. One might think that cooking and science have little in common, yet that is simply not true, as cooking offers a wide variety of opportunities to teach science to our young. By sharing quality time cooking with our children, they can learn valuable lessons not only in the ethic of work and responsibility but also in the area of science.

Experimenting In The Kitchen

Simple scientific experiments can be conducted within the comfortable confines of ones own kitchen and the end results can be edible! What an approach to science! Yet because the students are learning in a comforting and enjoyable atmosphere, it is not like the stifled book-learning approach to science. Cooking offers the child a hands on and tangible experience, while at the same time teaching them a life skill they can use daily. Children from kindergarten to college can gain practical applications and life-long knowledge by using this approach. Some example of fun experiments parents can incorporate include making candyfloss and ice cream. Making ice cream, for example, allows the exploration of the freezing point of matter. One can also talk about the role of temperature, whipping and foaming during the process. Children can learn a wide range of science concepts while they enjoy the learning process. What is more is that they get to enjoy a tasty treat at the end of the process.

Difficult chemistry concepts such as radiation, convection, conduction, energy and carbohydrate chemistry may seem overwhelming to many students, yet exploring and appreciating these science concepts during our food preparation can makes it a fun and exciting adventure. For a start, one can study the various forms of heat transfer and their different roles it play in the cooking process. With regard to specific foods, milk and dairy products can be discussed as you use them in your cooking, such as how the cows produce milk, what milk is made of, the nutrients within the milk and the difference between fermented and non-fermented products.

Plants can also be easily incorporated into our discussions. Cooking vegetables is a science itself. Even preseving them, such as kimchi, is an excellent introduction to food nutrition and preservation. By the way, talking about kimchi, in it lives a host of live organisms which one can conduct experiments on. Moreover, it also gives you an excellent opportunity to talk about Korean culture and food. Concepts such as osmosis, pH value, density of the food, as well as dissecting the vegetables to identify plant tissue and structure can be explored too.

With the wide variety of creative ideas for experimentation, the kitchen is a wonderful learning laboratory for people of all ages.

Award-Winning Jenn-Air(R) Wall Oven Embraces Technology for Unequalled Cooking Performance
CHICAGO, April 18 /PRNewswire/ — Jenn-Air, the brand that introduced the first self-ventilated cooktop and downdraft ventilated range in the 1960’s, has developed a unique wall oven offering the industry’s most powerful convection system, together with an exclusive touch screen that incorporates an image-enabled cooking guide.

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