Store It Foods

I’ve been on a health kick of late and wanted to pass along a delicious recipe I’ve been putting into heavy rotation – no pun intended. It combines two of my favorite things: fennel and the food processor. I adore fennel for its rich, aromatic nature and the way it spices up even the blandest of dishes. And there’s no disputing its health benefits, either – the herb contains 20 percent of your recommended daily Vitamin C intake.

Ingredients:
4 fennel bulbs
1 russet potato
2 cloves garlic
2 cups skim milk
4 cups chicken broth
3 Tsp. parmesan cheese
1 Tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper
2 Tsp. chopped mint leaves

Directions:
1. Cut the fennel in half, then slice it into thin strips. Peel potato and slice thinly. Plop the fennel, potatoes, broth, garlic and milk in a pot over heat. Simmer and cook until fennel and potatoes have softened. Should take 30 minutes or more.
2. Drain and place fennel mix in food processor and set to puree. Add the cheese, salt and pepper and mix some more. Next, put the mint and process some more. Add salt and pepper to taste, then serve.

Salads are very healthy for you, but they can be boring if they only consist of lettuce. You can make your salad more interesting and filling by adding cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, carrots, artichoke hearts and more – whatever you like! But it takes time to chop all those vegetables, and that may discourage you from adding them. If you’re not comfortable using a knife, the idea can even be scary.

A Presto salad shooter really comes in handy for slicing and shredding vegetables for salads. It’s motorized, so once you insert a vegetable, all the slicing or shredding is done automatically. You can also shred cheese and other ingredients for pizzas, tacos, desserts and more. The salad shooter shoots your ingredients right where you want them. You can shoot cheese right onto a pizza or radishes right onto a salad; no mess from a cutting board or an extra bowl. What more could you want?

You do not need to limit your meat grinder’s use to the grinding of raw cuts of meat.  Consider this very easy to make recipe for shepherds’ pie.

Ma Palmer’s Simple Shepherds’ Pie

Ingredients:

• Leftover roast beef
• Leftover gravy
• one onion
• approx. 2 1/2 cups mashed potatoes

Take leftover roast beef and one onion.  Grind together.  Mix with gravy and fill a standard pie plate.  Spread potatoes over the top.

Bake in 350^o F. oven for 30 minutes.

There are many good reasons to have an extra supply of food in your house. Maybe you’re just trying to keep up with feeding your kids as well as all their hungry, teenage friends. Or maybe you’re ensuring that your family has a cache of food in case something unexpected and tragic happens. And then again, you could simply be preparing a lot of food ahead of time in order to save yourself the time and trouble later.

Whatever reason you’re storing an extra supply of food, it’s important that you have the food storage supplies ahead of time. After all, if you start canning food and realize that you don’t have the proper cans, it’s going to be a big pain. Also make sure you have the space to store all this food. If it can be left out, make sure there’s enough space on your shelves to accommodate all this food. If it needs to be frozen, make sure you have an extra freezer that can hold all those dishes.

Food dehydrators are simple kitchen appliances that are designed to drastically lessen the amount of water contained in any given food. The water is most often removed by placing the food within the dehydrator where it is exposed to heat over long periods of time. People typically use these food dehydrators in order to keep food that would otherwise rot or go bad in a short amount of time.

For that reason, the most common food items to be placed in a dehydrator are various kinds of fruit. The resulting dried fruit is perfect for storing for long periods of time and placing on oatmeal or cereal in the morning. Dried fruits and nuts also make an easy and convenient mix of snacks to take on hikes or other high energy activities. Dried fruit is a healthy, high energy snack, and this makes it ideal for building up energy before a run or replenishing your energy after some intense trekking.

There are some kitchen gadgets that make life harder for you. These are better off left untouched in the shelves for the next couple of years. However, once in awhile you discover an amazing kitchen gadget that leaves you in awe. You marvel at it and can’t stop talking about it. You purchase it and couldn’t wait to try it at home.

This is what happened to me when I saw the Victorio food strainer. It was love at first sight. My turf is in the kitchen and I spend most of my waking hours preparing food for my family. I love making sauces and salsas, which are actually my specialty. Just recently I decided to get out of my comfort zone and venture into selling bottled sauces. The strainer has been the perfect kitchen assistant. Not once did it fail me. Doing something I love and earning from it, what more can I ask for?

If your cholesterol and triglyceride levels are high and your physician has told you to change your lifestyle, then it’s about time you do something about it. First off, it is never too late to start a healthy diet. Ditch the greasy steaks and burgers. Aim for the greens. Green leafy vegetables and fruits in season are high in fiber. They can effectively lower your bad cholesterol. If you find it such a hassle to chop all the veggies for a salad, then get a salad shooter. This amazing kitchen gadget will do the slicing and shredding for you. Choose a dressing that is light such as a vinaigrette dressing.

Aside from eating healthier, make exercise a part of your life. Consult with a fitness trainer or your physician on what exercise regimen would work for you. You’ll see positive results in just a few weeks of keeping fit.

When you come home at the end of the day, you want to be able to enjoy a great meal.  But sometimes, you don’t have the time to prepare anything and will just pop a frozen meal in the microwave.  But you can enjoy real meals in just a few minutes with pressure cookers.It is very easy and convenient to use a pressure cooker.  And you can preserve the flavors and nutrients in pressure cooking.  You can also save on your electricity bills since they cook the food very quickly.  There are different sizes of pressure cookers so you can get the right one for your family size.  Coming home for dinner will now be an easy task.

Here’s a quick and easy recipe for Cream of Mushroom Soup made right in your own kitchen from your own fresh ingredients. 

Easy Mushroom Soup

Serve 2-3
Preparation and cooking time: less than 1/2 hour

Ingredients:

2 tbp Butter
2 cloves Chopped garlic (optional)
3 3/4 cup Chopped/sliced mushroom
2 tbp Plain flour
1 c Water
1/2 c Milk
1/2 c Evaporated milk
Dash of white pepper (optional)
Salt
Parsley/ Marjoram for garnish (optional)

* Change water with chicken stock and milk with cream for better flavour.

Directions:

1. Melt butter in a sauce pan over a medium heat and saute garlic and mushroom until soft. Add plain flour and mix it in until no lumps can be seen.
2. Add water/ stock slowly and stir it into the mushroom mixture. Keep stiring to ensure the mixture is lump free and heat it until it thickens and starts bubbling.
3. Add milk and evaporate milk/ cream and stir it in. Heat it until it is just about to boil. Add pepper and salt to taste.
4. Garnish with herbs just before serving.

The recipe shown above is reproduced from a Wordpress blog, butlerwoman.wordpress.com, that contains this and many other delicious recipes.

If you wished to use food storage items, you could, of course, substitute reconstituted dehydrated mushrooms for the fresh mushrooms, and garlic powder for the garlic cloves. You might even want to introduce your own variants.  In any case, you control what goes into it.

Having said that, though, it must be admitted that there is more time and work involved here than would be needed in plucking a can of mushroom soup from your cupboard, adding water and quickly heating it on your stovetop.  The can of soup probably makes for a relatively nutritious meal, but you would likely lose some of the heartiness of homemade.

An often ignored fact is that you would also lose control of the ingredients that go into the making of that soup.

Here’s a sampling of what you will likely find in that canned soup of yours:

Ingredients: Water, Mushrooms, Enriched Wheat flour, Cream, Corn Starch, Canola Oil, Salt, Modified Milk Product (Modified Milk Ingredients, Modified Palm Oil, Cream, Soy Protein Isolate), Modified Corn Starch, Sugar, Momosodium Glutamate, Coloring, Yeast Extract, Spice, Spice Extract, Garlic Powder.

So there you have it — a little “food” for thought.  Whether or not you are using fresh mushrooms or your own, home dehydrated mushrooms, or some other type of soup altogether, there is often a lot to be said for home made, even though it might take a litte more time and trouble.