These are all the exact products that I use in my kitchen.
One. Mr. Charming loves crock pot meals. He says that if I ever want to make him eat lots of vegetables then I should put them in the crock pot with some meat and he would gladly eat them. So, now I always add a little extra vegetables anytime I make something in the crock pot. This baby is also handy when I work night shifts. I get it all ready in the morning, he leaves for work, I go to bed. By the time I wake up, the meal is ready for me to take to the hospital for my lunch and for him to eat for dinner whenever he’s ready. Talk about a two-for!
Tips: chicken breasts don’t do so well in crock pots, they are more likely to dry out than chicken thighs. // Make sure you have a liquid base, I almost always use some sort of broth that I’ve put in to ice trays in the freezer as a quick go-to liquid base for my meals. Something else I love doing is putting in the onion soup mix powders (I buy generic) and then it creates a liquid as it’s cooking and it adds some great flavor!
Two. I had a baby food processor before we registered for this bad boy for our wedding. I loved the small one, but definitely needed a bigger capacity one. I was making lasagna the other day (one for dinner and one to put in the freezer for when we get back from our vacation and don’t feel like cooking), and I put two packages of italian sausage in there to ground. It saved so much time and did work! I was not looking forward to extra pieces to clean, but this isn’t really that bad for clean up. It’s four pieces in which three are plastic, but you can put them in the top shelf of the dishwasher and you’re good to go!
Tips: the less foodstuff that you put it the better it works — which could be a problem if you don’t want it to work so well! For example, I had twelve Italian sausages to ground, and when I put in 5-6 at a time, it grounded them perfectly; but when I put in 3 it made like a pureed spread… it wasn’t a big deal for lasagna layers, but I swear I could make me some baby food one day with it!
Three. My family got my brother a Soda Stream for Christmas 2011. One year later, we got my husband one. It’s amazing. It really does cut down on grocery expenses. It does more than just Soda, and sometimes we don’t even carbonate, we just pour the syrup in with straight water (lemonade). Husband loves the cola and cream soda. We love the cranberry-raspberry, orange soda, ginger ale (mild carbonation to make it a little flat if you’re nauseated!) and energy (it’s like a red bull but a little bit more subtle). I love the lemonade sans carbonation.
Another bonus? This is fabulous for entertaining. No need to stock up on lots of room-killing liters of soda/juice! Just a cabinet to store the syrups. We even took this baby to the mountains for our family cabin trip in March this year. The SodaStream machine doesn’t plug in so it’s nice — and a lightweight design helpful when traveling.
Tips: don’t pour in the syrups quickly in to the carbonated water, it will explode like a volcano. The syrups make it a sticky mess to clean up. Trust us, we still find ourselves doing this almost a year later.
Four. I’ve blogged about my love of the Rocket Blender before, and I even gave it away about a year ago. I use this almost everyday for months at a time. This is great for a quick shake: protein, fruit, green smoothie, etc. I mainly use this with my Forever Living shake. It just blends up the powder with my desired milk (I prefer sweetened coconut, but I’ve used different cow’s milk and almond milk). I get creative with almond butter and other additions and almost always add a banana to make it a more thicker (and therefore filling) consistency. But, of course, I’ve made fruit smoothies and green smoothies with this. In fact, I got this from my mother-in-law and immediately took a regular blender off my wedding registry. Over a year later and I still don’t own a regular blender. My husband loves milkshakes, too, so we’ll get creative and use the rocket blender.
I guess this product is a personal choice thing. I despise the big bulky blenders and often hated cleaning them (not to mention storing them!). The Rocket Blender doesn’t make as large of a quantity at first, it’s more for single portion, but I just pour what it made it to a cup and make another right behind it. Another thing I’ve noticed is that you do have to learn how to use it, don’t screw the lids on too tight or not even your husband can undo the lid. I also don’t think the Rocket Blender does a great job with ice, so I have recommended a friend register for the Bullet instead. I never crush ice in my Rocket Blender because I never need ice — and if I do, I use the crushed ice feature on my fridge.
Five. I purchased the Rival Rice cooker from Walmart for less than $15. I adore it! I once knew how to make rice… and now I have no idea. With any rice cooker, all you do is put in the rice, pour in the right amount of water, press “cook” and walk away. It will cook until it’s done and then automatically turn to a “warm” setting (much like a crock pot). So I let it cook while I’m doing something else instead of being a slave to the stove watching it. Awesome. I love rice and it will often be the little something that just completes a meal: eg when it’s a busy day and you’re just going to whip up some vegetables and meal but need just something a little more to make sure your husband doesn’t say ten minutes after dinner “what else do we have to eat” — win for the wife when he doesn’t say that!
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