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Category: Kitchen Tips

  1. Thursday, May 17

    Call for ‘Recipes’: Introducing Solid Food to Baby

    I have to admit something to you. One of my least favorite parts of parenting is feeding kids…of all ages! But I especially dread the days when it’s time to introduce baby to solid foods. It involves way too much thinking, it takes FOREVER to feed the baby, it’s super duper messy, my hand cramps up from holding that tiny spoon ‘just so’…you get the drift. Of course it IS cute, don’t get me wrong, but STILL…

    Call me crazy, but I am tempted to eat that scrumptious baby! 

    Owen is finally beginning to eat baby food. He’s not that into it yet, but we’re getting there. Today we let him have his hand at toasted oat cereal, you know, the classic first finger food. I thought for sure he’d pick them up and immediately stick them in his mouth, since that is what he does with everything else that he picks up. Funny enough, he just played with the o’s for 10 minutes or so before one ever found its way to his mouth. And when he finally ate one, well, he was not such a big fan…there was a lot of gagging going on there. So funny.

    Going in for the o…

    Look mom, I’m totally going to eat this…

    Gotcha! Come on, why would I put that in my mouth? It’s food! Dirty shoes are much tastier.

    Anyway, as I struggle through this process yet AGAIN, I am thinking maybe this would be a good Call for Recipes of sorts…a call for baby food recipes, advice, tips, favorite products, anything! I’m sure I’m not the only one frustrated and/or overwhelmed by the prospect of feeding a baby FOOD. Let’s share our wisdom with one another…hopefully it will make some of our lives a little easier. Or at least we can commiserate together! And if you love feeding babies solid food, please share some of that good positive food kharma. I need it!

    All I have to offer is that avocado is a good first food and that I like the Earth’s Best Whole Grain Rice Cereal. Beyond that, I’m useless! It’s amazing what one can forget in just a few years’ time!

    Posted by Jane Maynard at 1:19 pm   33 Comments
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  2. Wednesday, May 9

    Smoothies!!!

    I think we need to do a smoothie post. Because it’s been on my mind for, well, years! I want to share a few tips, a few flavors that we love, and then open up the floor to tips and recipes from all of you!

    First, a small plug for expensive blenders. I have to say that one of the best things that ever took residence in our kitchen is our heavy duty blender. This is an appliance that I think is completely worth saving up for. We use it all the time and it can handle anything. Our previous blender, which was just your regular run-of-the-mill blender, just didn’t cut it. I don’t care if you get a Blendtec or a Vitamix, just get one. Or start saving up for one. They are awesome.

    Okay, on to technique! Do you know how to build your smoothie in the blender? After I got my Blendtec and read the instruction manual, I realized I had been putting the juice and fruit in the opposite order than I should have been! The logic my brain followed was that you should put the harder-to-blend items in first so that they get blended better…but it just jams everything up. As soon as I reversed the order of things, my smoothies improved immediately and significantly. Here is the RIGHT way to do it.

    1. Juice first. You can also use grapes as your juice base.
    2. Softer, unfrozen fruits.
    3. Harder fruits and frozen fruits. Say you’re doing frozen pineapple and frozen banana, put the frozen pineapple in first. Basically you want whatever is easiest to blend to go in first.
    4. Ice.
    Essentially you put the ‘liquidiest’ and softest stuff first then move up in order to the hardest items. Make sense?

    Now, on to flavors! Nate is the smoothie master in our house. He’s always blending up some sort of smoothie or “juicey” for the family and he’s quite the master! Here are the fruits and juices he most commonly uses:

    • Mango juice for the base. I also love papaya juice as the base. If we don’t have either of those, we’ll go with orange or grape, which are both nice. Apple is just too, well, apple-y for us. It’s still good in a pinch, but definitely our least favorite.
    • Frozen strawberries, frozen mango, frozen pineapple and frozen banana make the most frequent appearances in our smoothies! Oh, and when peaches are in season, we love frozen peaches!!
    • I love tossing coconut into the smoothie. Nate isn’t such a big fan of coconut, but it makes me (and the girls) super happy!
    • Yogurt…usually plain.
    • ICE. Lately Nate has been making “juiceys,” which basically means there’s no ice and the smoothies aren’t so slushy. They are very tasty and the girls like them, too…but I gotta say, I love a good, slushy smoothie! Bring on the ice!

    No specific recipes from us…our smoothies change pretty much every time we make them, which is part of the fun! We’ve also recently started adding SPINACH to the smoothies and that is a great trick! I know some of you have been telling me to do that for years…glad we finally jumped on board!

    Your turn! Please share your favorite fruit/juice combos, specific recipes, tips, anything smoothie related! Can’t wait to be inspired by all of you!

    Posted by Jane Maynard at 9:52 am   24 Comments
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  3. Thursday, May 3

    Let’s Talk Knives, Take Two {+ a Giveaway!}

    Remember my big long knife post when I rambled on and on about knives and it was awesome? Well, I have a quick update…and a giveaway! Woo-hoo!

    First off, if you haven’t read the first knife post, please do! In that post, one of the things I mention is getting your knives professionally sharpened regularly unless you really know what you’re doing (which I didn’t). WELLLLLL…Edgeware recently sent me their Manual Adjustable Sharpener. I love this thing. You can adjust the angle of the sharpener so that you know you are properly sharpening your knife’s edge to the original factory angle. It was time for my knives to be sharpened again – I used this sharpener and it was fabulous. I even used the serrated slot for my serrated knife, which in all honesty made me totally nervous…but my serrated knife is cutting better than it has in ages! Another thing I love is the non-stick base…the sharpener does not move when I am using it.

    The “fine” slot is for honing and makes that task easy and quick…and again, you can set the angle to where it should be, so you know your knife is being properly honed. Now that I have this sharpener, I’ve been much more consistent with honing my knives before every use, which makes my knives very happy. (See my original knife post to read more about the difference between sharpening and honing.)

    I stand by the statement in my original knife post that you should get your knives sharpened regularly (how often you use your knife will determine how often you need to sharpen your knives). BUT I now feel comfortable doing it myself! Yippee! Here’s to happy, healthy knives in the comfort of my own home!

    As you know, I like to share the love, so we are giving away an Edgeware Manual Adjustable Sharpener ($39.95) available exclusively at Williams Sonoma, along with the Yellow Fine Grater ($16.99), available on Amazon. (Prize must be shipped within the U.S.) P.S. The grater is cool, too! It’s nice and wide, which makes for easy chocolate and cheese grating.

    Here’s how to enter!

    You must leave separate comments to get the extra entries. All comments must be added before Midnight PT on Wednesday, May 9.
    Good luck with the giveaway!
    (Edgeware provided me with a sharpener and a zester. All opinions are my own.)

    Posted by Jane Maynard at 12:26 am   255 Comments
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  4. Tuesday, May 1

    I Am a Genius Zucchini Cutter…finally.

    I have always had a love-hate relationship with zucchini as a side dish. I love it sauteed with olive oil, salt and pepper. However, I could never get it to cook just right…or at least not consistently. For some reason I always cut the zucchini into discs. They were hard to flip in the pan and I was never patient enough to make sure they were all the same thickness, yielding uneven cooking. Once in a while I’d get it right, but more often than not it was a little off.

    Then last night, as I was trying to scrounge up a bit of healthy food to go with boxed mac n’ cheese (this crazy work week is turning out to be even crazier than I anticipated), I had a lucky stroke of genius. I cut the zucchini into thirds, then turned those pieces up on their ends and cut them into sixths. Make sense? I hope so because it is AWESOME. Here’s a picture to clear up my confusing directions:

    The pieces were all the same size, so they cooked much more evenly, and the zucchini came out great! Thought I’d share this little tip as we head into the summer months when there is more zucchini than we know what to do with!

    Also, since zucchini season is on the horizon, be sure to check out the Zucchini Call for Recipes from a few years back, which is where I discovered this Chocolate Zucchini Bread recipe. Mmmmmm…..

    Posted by Jane Maynard at 12:54 pm   6 Comments
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  5. Tuesday, April 24

    Kitchen Tip: Shredding Chicken

    Today’s Kitchen Tip is SO AWESOME. Brace yourselves. No really, you might want to sit down.

    The other night I was bopping around Facebook and couldn’t help but notice my friend Malerie’s status update, which claimed that using your KitchenAid stand mixer is the best way to shred chicken. I’ll admit, I was not totally convinced. I couldn’t really see the chicken coming out shredded and it just seemed like more dishes to wash in the end. But I decided to trust Malerie…I told myself that next time I needed to shred chicken, I must give this trick a try.

    Well, the need for shredding chicken arose just days later, so I tossed the chicken breasts into the KitchenAid, grabbed the paddle attachment, turned the mixer up to about medium high and let ‘er have at it.

    HEAVENS TO BETSY it worked like a charm! And I have never used the phrase ‘heavens to Betsy,’ so that tells you how awesome it was. TOTALLY worth washing the mixer bowl and paddle attachment.

    Thank you, Malerie. You’ve changed my life…well, at least when I need shredded chicken.

    Posted by Jane Maynard at 12:20 am   36 Comments
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  6. Friday, March 2

    How to make delicious scrambled eggs…even when they’re green!

    Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

    I got to spend the morning in Cate’s first grade class making green eggs for the Dr. Seuss festivities. We scrambled up two dozen eggs, which were all cracked by the kids. Amazingly there were only 2 egg shells in the final product. I consider that a success!

    My eggs were a hit. Yes, I’m bragging. The kids were asking for seconds, which we didn’t have. Sorry kiddos!

    Here’s the trick to perfect scrambled eggs. Simply use salt and pepper and make sure you don’t overcook the eggs. When the eggs are still a bit wet-looking, call it quits and they’ll be cooked perfectly. Trust me.

    I hear they taste even better when they’re green.

    Posted by Jane Maynard at 12:18 pm   5 Comments
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  7. Friday, December 16

    It’s the most wonderful time of the year…Birthday Cake Time!

    While the rest of the world is celebrating Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and the like…you know holidays involving winter, snow, lights…well, our house is celebrating birthdays galore! Both of my sweet daughters were born just a week before Christmas. It’s crazy town. But (as long as I can survive the stress) it’s lots of fun!

    Since their birthdays are so close to Christmas, each year I make them whatever birthday cake their little hearts desire to make sure their day is special and non-Christmasy.

    Anna is having a “Glamour Party” this year, which evolved into a “Hello Kitty Glamour Party” when she discovered the Hello Kitty plates and napkins at Target. So, a Hello Kitty cake it is! Hello Kitty by the way is an AWESOME subject for a cake. SO easy. Thank you, Anna! She was so cute this morning, staring at her cake the whole time she ate breakfast.

    Cate picked out some kitty cat cupcakes from my favorite kids’ cake book. For some reason I thought Juicy Fruit was white. It’s yellow. So yeah, yellow ears and whiskers is what we got. I’m pretty sure Cate won’t mind!

    Because I would like to make this post semi-useful to you, I used regular buttercream frosting this year (adding a little cream cheese to the frosting for Cate’s red velvet cupcakes). And I most definitely did a crumb coat on the Hello Kitty cake (a thin layer of icing on the cake that picks up all the crumbs, followed by 10 minutes in the freezer before doing the final coat of icing). And for the kitty eyes, just use a food writer on M&Ms. Instant cat eyes!

    Even though the birthday cakes invariably cause me to stay up way too late at night, I must admit the torture is fun. ;)

    Posted by Jane Maynard at 10:11 am   20 Comments
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  8. Friday, December 2

    Kitchen Tip: Keeping Your Brown Sugar Soft

    I’m doing something I’ve never done on my blog before…reposting a post! But I have a very good reason: this Kitchen Tip is awesome. I almost wrote about it today thinking I hadn’t before, but then I did a quick search and found that I had! The post is over four years old, so I figured I could bring it back. And I really want to make sure you all know this little bit of knowledge, so here we are! (And, eternal editor that I am, I made a few tweaks to the original copy. I just couldn’t help myself.)

    ******

    The other night I was thinking that it’s been a while since I did a Kitchen Tips post…then later that evening a friend stopped by to borrow some brown sugar and was excited about the piece of bread inside my brown sugar container. Tah-dah! A post!

    Want soft brown sugar? Just throw a piece of bread in the container. That’s it. Simple, easy, cheap. I change it out, oh, I don’t know…hardly ever. I use whatever sandwich bread I happen to have lying around. The bread never gets moldy (seriously, it doesn’t) and the brown sugar always remains a perfect, soft consistency. Just a little something I learned from my mama at a very young age.

    My friend Adrianne’s scientist husband tried to explain why it works to us…he said the explanation really wasn’t complicated, but I think Adrianne and I only caught a couple words, like “the bread won’t go moldy” and “there’s a scientific reason it works.” Good enough for us cooks!

    Posted by Jane Maynard at 12:26 am   13 Comments
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  9. Thursday, October 6

    Salt Box

    I love coarse salt. And I love Penzeys. So when I saw a big bag of course salt at Penzeys, of course I bought it. However, I had nothing to store the salt in that made it easy for me to use, so it’s just been sitting in my cupboard for months. Until now.

    Shopping on Amazon is something I can do while I’m recovering from Owen’s birth, so I finally spent a little time this week searching for the perfect salt container. There are all kinds of salt crocks out there so it was tough to pick, but I decided to get this small bamboo salt box. It came in the mail yesterday and…I LOVE IT. I almost went with the Le Creuset salt crock but decided to go with this one instead, and I’m so glad I did. Here are the reasons it rocks:

    • It has a lid, so foreign objects can’t easily get into the salt.
    • The swinging lid has a little magnet that helps snap it closed.
    • It’s small, but fits in a good amount of salt, I think around 3/4 of a cup.
    • I like that the opening to the box is on top of the container rather than on the side.
    I can’t wait to start salting things!

    Posted by Jane Maynard at 8:55 am   8 Comments
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  10. Thursday, July 14

    Fresh Garlic…and LOTS of it!

    Last week when it was time to put my order in for this week’s CSA bag, garlic made its first appearance on the list of available produce. I have been waiting for this moment. I love fresh garlic. But I HATE buying garlic bulbs at the market that end up being old…you know, you cut into a clove and it’s already sprouted green inside. Which happens probably 90% of the time. It seriously makes me bonkers.

    Of course I added garlic to my order as quick as I could. And I picked up my CSA bag yesterday. AND this is what I found:

    SO MUCH GARLIC. I am super excited about it, don’t get me wrong…but what am I going to do with all this garlic?

    I think this giant bag of garlic is just screaming for a Call for Recipes, don’t you? And this Call for Recipes is also a Call for Tips…as in, if you have good tips for storing garlic or ways to use it up that doesn’t necessarily involve a recipe, please share! And, as always, we love it when you share recipes, too!

    I’ll start us off Roasted Garlic Bulbs. Heaven.

    So, put your garlic thinking caps on and let’s get this party started.

    Posted by Jane Maynard at 2:26 pm   24 Comments
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