Kitchen Gadgets to Make Cooking Healthy Quick and Easy

13 Jan Kitchen Gadgets to Make Cooking Healthy Quick and Easy

I’m picky about what I buy for my daily kitchen use; The items NEED to have multiple uses [+ not be too expensive or difficult to store].

I had a great time discussing two of my FAVORITE kitchen gadgets @q13fox with @alibradleytv.👇

⭐️BONUS: I’ve included my top two Sunday food-prep recipes [that I happen to have on repeat this month].⭐️

⓵ INSTANT POT: What’s not to love? It’s a crock pot, pressure cooker and you can even use it to make yogurt! I use my IP for soups, stews and beans. I’m not using all of the bells and whistles but I know they are there for me when I decide to branch out someday-meanwhile, I will admit there’s learning curve on the pressure cooker setting so I’ve included my recipe for black bean chili. It took me three attempts to get the recipe down and now I have to say it’s one of my most requested recipes. 🎉

⓶ SOUPER CUBES: This is a new product for me and they’re a terrific way to store cooked soup, stew or sauces in your freezer. You can easily pop the frozen cubes into a @pyrexhome container or @ziploc bag and really max out your freezer storage space, win-win!

MY FAV SUNDAY RECIPES:

🥣 Black Bean Chili 🥣

• Soak black beans for a few hours. Drain, set aside.
• In your IP, on sauté setting, cook two big handfuls of chopped onion & 2-3 chopped garlic cloves in a Tbsp. of avocado oil.
• Add a pound a ground beef or bison and cook until no longer pink. At the end of cooking. add ½ packet of @TraderJoes taco mix seasoning [or less if you don’t like a little heat].
• Move the meat/onion mixture to a bowl and set aside.
• Add your beans to your IP [I didn’t even clean it out] and add water so it covers the beans by about ½ inch. I also added a bay leaf.
• Set your IP to pressure and once it gets to pressure, let it cook for 5 minutes. Yes, FIVE minutes! I’ve found that if it cooks longer it gets mushy.
• I take my IP outside and do a quick manual release [stay out of the way of the steam, obviously].

I then put the IP back on sauté and added in the meat mixture, a 28 ounce can of chopped tomatoes, a large jar of @TraderJoes no sodium salsa, and a can of refried beans [the addition of the refried beans adds a little creaminess to the chili]. Remove the bay leaf and let the mixture simmer for about 5 minutes. Add more seasoning as needed.

I add a drizzle of apple cider vinegar to soften the tartness of the tomatoes.

Ready to eat!

P.S. Freeze it so you always have chili on a cold night. ❄️

🥗My Favorite Beet Salad 🥗

• 1 pound beets (about 2 bunches greens removed, and trimmed)
• 1 clove garlic (crushed and peeled)
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 3/4 teaspoon salt

Steps:

1. Place beets in a 3-quart saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until the beets are tender and a fork inserted into the beets comes out easily, 40 to 55 minutes, depending on the size of the beets. Drain and cool beets until cool enough to handle.
2. Whisk garlic, oil, vinegar and salt in a medium bowl. Peel and slice beets. Add to the dressing, and toss to coat. Cool beets completely in the dressing. Refrigerate or serve immediately.

Recipe via @yummly

Enjoy! 😋