A Day in the Life of a Busy Kitchen
- I have a confession to make ... my kitchen in normally, everyday, mostly in a state of disarray of one kind or another. Stuff on the counters, stuff in the sink, floor needs sweeping or mopping, or the dishwasher to be loaded or unloaded. Sound familiar? If you cook at all I'm sure you can totally identify! But, you might say, The Granny Plan step number three says it's important to clean as you go. And I do. So, what's going on here? An Active Kitchen is Always in a State of Becoming the Next Meal Take a look at these three stunning kitchens and what do you notice? Zero cleanup, zero meal prep ... all is perfect! Of course we all know these are model kitchens, but I still think it has an effect on us that we see oh so many of these picture perfect kitchens on TV shows, in advertisements, online, on cooking shows, and on and on ad nauseum. On cooking shows all is clean, ingredients are pre-measured and in cute little bowls and totally ready to cook. But, in your own home there are dishes from the last meal in the sink, a full dishwasher… READ MORE
Most Recent Posts
Making the Most of Granny’s Free Meal Plan
Last week I released my first meal plan as a free download for anyone signing up for my mailing list. The meal plan has a page devoted to getting started with the plan but that is necessarily brief, so I wanted to share a few more thoughts with everyone on how best to work the […]
Three Spice Snickerdoodles
This funny sounding cookie is believed to have originated in New England in the 1800’s. So not only did your grandma likely eat these cookies, but your great-great-great grandma may have had them too! Supposedly the older recipes used cream of tartar and to make the cookies rise, while the newer recipes just use baking […]
Two Meat Crockpot Chili
This set-it-and-forget-it crockpot meal is sure to please the guys in particular this fall. But then who doesn’t enjoy a hot steaming bowl of comforting chili on a cool night! In a nutshell all you do here is brown the meat on the stove, add the remaining ingredients and pour into your slow cooker. Then […]
Crockpot Baked Apples
Nothing says fall than the smell of apples and cinnamon. It makes the entire house smell warm and comforting. These ‘baked’ apples are simple, throw it all in the crock pot and have a fresh warm dessert ready at dinnertime. Served with vanilla ice cream, it’s like apple pie with out the crust. This recipe […]
Saving Money Cooking from Scratch
The Pantry Principle – How to save gobs of time cooking for your family — Part 1
Ok, so you’ve decided to improve your diet. Maybe you’d like to lose weight, or as you’ve learned more about the source of your food you’ve decided to improve the quality of what you buy. Or maybe you, one of your children, or your husband is suffering from a chronic health problem and you’ve decided that it’s likely your diet is contributing. Whatever your motivation, there is always big questions about how to actually go about making a change, from a practical point of view.
The Pantry Principle – How to maintain your pantry – Part 5
Now that your pantry is building momentum it’s important to keep it rolling in the right direction. Mainly I’m thinking of problems with: Things going bad before they are used. Running low on things you thought you had a lot of. So let’s consider each problem individually.
Real Food at Walmart – Pantry Foods
We’ve come to the last group of foods in our Ninja-style Real Food shopping at Walmart. This group is a catch-all … basically all the foods that are not quickly perishable. This includes grains, flours, nuts, seeds, dried fruits, canned goods and condiments. Really, this stuff is the easiest stuff to find at Walmart. Why? […]
Real Food at Walmart – Fruits and Vegetables
What is the first thing people think of when they decide to start eating healthy? Getting more fruits and vegetables into their daily diet of course! I thought we’d start here for that reason … Also, fruits and veggies at Walmart are pretty easy as long as we are okay with compromise on the issue […]
Straight Talk
Wait! Don’t Throw Out All the Processed Food at Once!
While browsing Pinterest earlier today looking for good recipes to share I happened to see a pin that reminded me of one of my pet peeves … so of course I thought I’d write a short post about what you should absolutely positively not do when you are switching your family over to a real food diet. When it comes to […]
How Long Did People Live 100 Years Ago?
“Of course people didn’t live long … the average life expectancy was 40 years”. How often have you heard this quote or something very similar? If you are a watcher of tv documentaries or attended public school anytime in the last 70 years or so you’ve probably heard this several hundred times. Just last night […]
A Word About Inadequate Kitchens and Tools
Do you live in an apartment? Do you have an old house with a little, old, dingy kitchen? Is all the kitchen equipment you have handed down from you mother-in-law? Is it too crowded? or is it devoid of tools, even a can opener? Do you dream of a beautiful, well-lit, well-equipped kitchen? If the […]
Butter – Getting the best quality you can afford
Butter butter everywhere and not a drop that’s real! Ever feel that way staring at the refrigerated section at the supermarket? Diana at Eat More Butter definitely has. Foodie at Kitchen Drawer Online took a series of pictures showing that only about 10% of the butter-like food items in the refrigerated section is actually butter! […]
Local Honey is the Best Honey
We, all of us have a sweet tooth, don’t we? Nature has fitted us with a strong drive to find the sweet in our food. In nature, sweet flavors are a bit rare and hard to come by. But in our foodscape sweet taste is abundant and cheap. Not only the inexpensive granular sugar which […]
Why Traditional Diets are Better for You
There is much talk these days about diet. What to eat, how to prepare it, how much to eat, so on and so forth. In fact there is so much nervous hand wringing talk about food these days that it begins to sound like the whole country is suffering from an eating disorder. No one […]
Wholesome Ingredients
Feel Bad About Eating White Rice?
I’m here to tell ‘ya that you can feel good about eating white rice again! I’ve never cared much for brown rice and I bet you feel much the same. I’ve had maybe one or two good plates of brown rice in a lifetime. Most brown rice in the US is rancid long before it gets to you. That’s why it generally tastes rather bitter not nutty as it should if it were fresh.
Choosing Flour – Are Whole Grain Flours Traditional?
When we think of Grandma in the kitchen cookin’ up something good, that something good probably involves flour. Yet, people know very little about flour. How it’s made, how long it keeps or how to care for it. There are many shades of difference for the sake of flavor or cooking characteristics but for today’s […]
Whole Grains Have a Sketchy Past
To most everyone in the western world whole grains are always better for you than refined grains. To all it’s really clear, black-and-white. The only real argument that exists concerning grains is over whether or not we should be eating them at all. Some say they are allergenic to pretty much everyone. Some say they […]
Local Honey is the Best Honey
We, all of us have a sweet tooth, don’t we? Nature has fitted us with a strong drive to find the sweet in our food. In nature, sweet flavors are a bit rare and hard to come by. But in our foodscape sweet taste is abundant and cheap. Not only the inexpensive granular sugar which […]