5 Favorite Things – Kitchen Toys for Healthy & Easy

The most common complaint I hear when it comes to preparing healthy meals for a family is the time it takes to accomplish it.  I get it.  Convenience is easier and unfortunately, we live in a culture that doesn’t often put the terms “healthy” and “convenient” together in the same sentence.  As a busy mother of 4, yeah… I TOTALLY get it.  Yet, the bright spot in my quest for healthy living has been my kitchen toys.  And here… are my top five faves that I play with on a regular basis… 

Rice Cooker

If it weren’t for my rice cooker, I would have given up on trying to get the crunch out of my short grain brown rice, long long ago.  Someday I long to own one that you can fill and preset for whatever time you want, but for now I just have this little simple jobby I bought at Wally World for a song.  Add a little extra water because I live in the land known as “Your Cooking/Baking Will Always Get Screwed Up Because You Choose To Live A Mile Over Sea Level.”

Ha.  Mine looks a tad older and far more haggard than this photo but someday when I strike it rich in Catholic ministry, I want something like this:

Come to mama…

Slow Cooker

This is the Creme de la Creme of every woman’s kitchen.  This information should come as surprising as Miley Cyrus’ lack of dance ability.  Chicken breasts with a bit of taco seasoning and salsa verde can be added to the device in the morning (when I actually have energy) and therefore be magically transformed into dinner in by 6pm (when I’m exhausted and little people have surrounded me and are screaming their dinner war-cry).

Again, mine has been loved into ugliness.  It still works and you know what they say, “If it ain’t broke, save your money to get something better so you can take this one to the GoodWill.” Er…or something like that.

Mine:  

Future Mine:

Garlic Press

I just got this doohickey at the kitchen store-made-in-heaven known as Sur La Table.  I get really really tired of my hands smelling like garlic and/or pulling out my mini-chopper to do the dirty work, thereby filling up the dishwasher with an extra dish I don’t want to wash by hand thereby forcing my husband to do it.  You add multiple peeled cloves of garlic and then use the crank to expel the garlic all medieval-like AND keep the remaining cloves in the fridge.  Brilliant…and my hands are fresh as a daisy…most of the time.

Food Processor

I know not everyone thinks much of these.  They are a bit on the expensive side and take a massive amount of cupboard and/or counter space.  However, I have no idea how I would make yummy healthy pestos and salsas and purees and such without this lovely device.  Yes, it scares me a little bit as its blade whips around at 677 mph*, but its culinary output far outweighs my fear.  

Citrus Juicer 

Another thingamajig I just picked up at Sur La Table.  I had a Pampered Chef model for a few years, but apparently, I squeezed one too many limes for its taste and therefore decided to go into early retirement (ie The Garbage).  This one is like the Cadillac of juicers, but I was rich one day (meaning, I had a b-day gift certificate I finally decided to spend from JULY) so when I feasted my citrus-loving eyes upon this bad boy, I was all “Get in my hand shopping basket!” A great way to make quick salad dressings fo sho… 

So there you have it.  A healthy lifestyles takes a bit of planning, prep and know-how, but made deliciously easy with the right toy.  

*Completely made up MPH