All of the sudden, a quick trip to McDonalds is not really an option, and you find yourself standing in front of the fridge muttering to yourself that there's nothing to eat that takes less than 30 minutes to eat.
Needless to say, we've had a few growing pains in the cooking department. It's a long process to go from fast-food, high fat/sodium/chemical meals with virtually no prep-time and no
BUT, in an effort to eat healthier, I've been getting creative with my recipes. First off, I'm expanding my cooking utensils. Normally, my cooking involved a non-stick skillet and a microwave. Maybe a pot. Now, I'm playing with dutch ovens, cast-iron skillets, garlic presses, and (gasp!) spices - thus the need for a garlic press.
I grew up seventh of ten children. My mom grew up the youngest of two children. I can only imagine how much of a shock it was for her to go from such a small family to a hoard of kids sitting around a picnic table (in the kitchen) clamouring for their food. Sadly, cooking for such a group was not her talent. She had many other amazing qualities, cooking was not one of them. Add in the sheer quantity of food needed for each meal and the expense associated with such an endeavor, and I can completely understand why she tried to cut corners at every opportunity.
I remember growing up eating Cream of Wheat or home made oatmeal for breakfast. If we were really lucky, she'd butter some bread, sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top and broil it in the oven until melted. Cereal really wasn't an option. Primarily because it cost too much to feed so many hungry mouths with cereal. But also because, if we lucked out and she did buy cereal, my older brothers would get up at the butt-crack of dawn and eat the entire box before any of the rest of us woke up to complain. So, yeah. Cereal was out.
Dinners included options such as split-pea soup, char-broiled liver, potato soup (one of my favorites), taco salad, tater tot casserole, meatloaf, or one of the many concoctions she attempted out of our Food Storage. To this day, thirty years later, I can still remember the distinct and nauseating smell of imitation meat (I think she called it TVP?) wafting through our home on any number of nights. She did her best to disguise the horrific taste, but there was no hiding its hideousness.
And for those of you who still store year-supplies of food, or are preppers stock-piling food for the zombie Apocalypse, I can tell you from first-hand experience that whatever you stock had better taste good. The though that "I (or the kids) will eat it if we're hungry enough" is wrong. There were many nights I went to bed hungry because I couldn't stomach that nasty stuff!!
But I digress...
With those happy childhood memories tucked neatly in my brain, I've decided I'm not going to force-feed my kids healthy foods that they hate. It's gotta be healthy AND yummy. Now I'm on a quest.
While on this quest for yummy, healthy meals, I've picked up a couple of tools to help me achieve my goals. The first is my beloved garlic press. I got this for free as a tester and I am NEVER giving it up. Garlic has become a staple in our family. It's the one spice that is universally appreciated among the family members, and I use a LOT of it. In the past, I'd either break out a little paring knife and meticulously mince each clove of garlic into perfectly shaped pieces for the meals, or I'd break down and buy a jar of store-bought pre-cut garlic which, quite frankly, is bland and barely passes for garlic. When I got my garlic press in the mail, I was impressed. It's a heavy duty press - heavy enough to use as a weapon should some random burglar break into your house while you're cooking and you need to defend yourself while making your Chicken Marsala. Yeah, you'll win. I promise. Anyway, The I was intrigued when KUK (the manufacturer) promised that you'd no longer have to peel the cloves - just put them in the press and squeeze. You should have seen my delight when I took the leap of faith and squeezed the peel-intact clove of garlic between the press and aromatic garlic pure' came out the other side. I gasped. This thing will seriously take minutes off my prep time, and I no longer have to buy that insipid bottled garlic any more! Grade: A+ (P.S - if you're family and reading this...I'm not sharing. Get your own!)
Cast Iron Cleaner: When I got this, I wasn't sure what to think. It is essentially a 5 or 6 inch square of chain meal. But at the moment, all I was using to clean my dutch ovens was tin foil, so this was certainly a step up.
I thought it might be hard to clean all the gunk out from between the links of metal, but it was pretty much as easy as just rinsing it off in the sink or with a hose, etc. the chain links were big enough that you can get in between the spaces and they don't get wedged into the holes.
Plus, it doesn't take up a lot of space. Throw it into the camping supplies or on a hook, or with the wash clothes, or wherever, and it's good to go. The only problem I had was that some of the links had come apart before it arrived at our house, so I had to bend them back, but it took like five seconds and it was never an issue again.
Grade: A-
*I received these products for free in exchange for an honest and unbiased review
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