Kitchen

Purging Carbs From the Kitchen Cupboards

August 6, 2017 by Michele Neylon 1 Comment

Spanish chorizo and ham imported from Spain

Spanish chorizo and cured ham.

I don’t like wasting food. If there’s food in the cupboard it needs to be eaten at some point by somebody. However if you’re following a low carb diet you quickly discover that a lot of the food in the cupboard simply is not compatible.

Flour? Not unless it’s almond or coconut.

Pasta? Not a hope.

Sugar? No way.

Alpen muesli? Nope. The dried fruit is high in carbs no matter whether you choose the “no added sugar” version or not.

And the list goes on….

This weekend is a bank holiday here in Ireland, so I’m visiting family. So guess who gets to “inherit” all my carbs?

So between Thursday evening and Friday morning I went through the kitchen cupboards and did a purge. Within a few minutes I’d managed to fill two reusable shopping bags with pasta, rice, flour, breakfast cereal and other carb-heavy foods.

Taking the entire lot to my mother and sister means I know that they’ll get used and that is a lot better than having them sitting in my kitchen cupboards.

I also think it’s a good idea to not have things hanging around that I simply won’t be eating. If they’re in the cupboards then they’re temptation at some level. If they’re simply not there then there’s no issue. Also there’s the practical issue of space. Getting rid of all this stuff freed up quite a bit of space in the cupboards, so I’ll have more space for the kind of food I’m eating at the moment. And while many of the things like pasta have quite long dates they do go off eventually.

So when I get a delivery of ham, chorizo and other tasty keto compatible foods I’ll have space in the cupboards to store any of the tinned food, like the tuna in olive oil.

Setting up my new Kitchen

January 15, 2017 by Michele Neylon Leave a Comment

I recently bought a house, so for the last while I’ve been working on getting it ready and moving my stuff into it. As someone who enjoys cooking getting the kitchen setup the way I want is key.

The house I’ve been in for the last 13 years has a very spacious kitchen, but it wasn’t the best equipped. The work surfaces, for example, weren’t exactly generous. Also the fridge freezer had a really tiny freezer compartment, which was quite annoying. I don’t rely much on frozen food, but I do use the freezer compartment for some things, such as frozen berries and the like for smoothies, as well as extra meat when I find those irresistible bargains. The current freezer compartment was so small that you couldn’t even see what was in it half the time, so you’d end up with things being buried at the back. The new fridge freezer is a “half and half”, so I’ll have more space and I might actually be able to see what’s in it!

The new house’s kitchen isn’t as big, but it’s a lot better equipped, or at least it will be by the end of the week.

There’s also a double oven, builtin microwave and a dishwasher.

As far as I can tell everything is working correctly except for the 4 ring gas hob, which I’m replacing with a new 5 burner from Siemens:

It turns out that the current hob, which isn’t working properly anyway, wasn’t installed correctly so it could be a safety risk! The new hob will be installed by a certified gas installer and will have a warranty.

As you can see from the photo of the kitchen above there are plenty of worktops in the new kitchen as well as a reasonable amount of cupboard space. Having a dishwasher for the first time makes me very happy – I hate washing up and it’s always been one of those things that I let pile up beside the sink until I had to deal with it. Now I’ll be able to load it into the machine and it’ll be out of sight 🙂

When you start delving into the world of kitchen organisation you quickly find that there are hundreds of things you can get to help organise your cupboards, drawers and even your fridge. For now I’ll be trying to keep it relatively simple, so I’ve ordered an extendible cutlery basket as well as a fridge tidy for holding bottles. As someone who likes craft beer the bottles were always rolling around on the shelves, so this little gizmo should help fix that. I know it might sound a little nutty, but the fact that the kitchen drawers in the new kitchen are so wide really makes me happy. My current kitchen has really narrow drawers that aren’t that deep, so no matter what I do it’s just a mess of junk in there.

The cupboards themselves are all fine, though one of the bigger ones is missing its shelf, so I’ll have to get that replaced, or I’ll won’t be able to make good use of the storage space.

So far I’ve resisted making a trip to Ikea in Dublin, though I know I’ll need to go soon, I’m just afraid I’ll end up buying a ton of stuff that I don’t really need!

Anyway, back to packing up my life!

Microwave Your Soup (Or Stew) Easily

February 1, 2016 by Michele Neylon Leave a Comment

I’ll freely admit to being mildly addicted to kitchen gadgets and gizmos. Any time I’m in a reasonable sized mall in the US I end up in the kitchen department of Macy’s or in the local “Sur la Table”

One of the things I picked up on a recent trip was this microwave friendly soup mug from sistema. Yes, it’s also available in shops over here, but I picked it up along with a few other things 🙂

Anyway … I had been using my Stanley Classic Vacuum food jar, which I got a couple of years ago. The Stanley food jar works very well but I thought I’d give the sistema mug a go, as it’s a generous size 656 ml vs the Stanley’s 500 ml.

What’s interesting about the sistema soup mug is that it’s so sturdy. It’s got 3 clips that hold the lid on firmly and make a strong seal, so the liquid won’t seep out when you’re transporting it.

When you want to heat up the soup (or stew) you don’t need to take it out of the mug – it’s got a very well thought out air vent in the lid which you can simply pop open during the heating process.

One thing I did learn, however, is that heating up soups or stews can take a bit longer than you might expect. You’ll probably work out the right amount of time to leave something in the microwave with a little experimentation.

So you can eat the soup or stew directly from the mug once it’s heated up. Personally I prefer to move the heated up food to a proper bowl, but if I was in a hurry I’d probably eat it straight from the mug.

All in all it’s a pretty good way of transporting, storing and re-heating a single portion of soup or stew. Available on Amazon and other places.

Cute Beatles Themed Pepper Mill

September 24, 2015 by Michele Neylon 1 Comment

I’m currently in the market for a pepper mill for the office. I’ll probably get a rather boring, yet functional one. However while browsing I came across this one that I really like. It’s cute and quirky and still does its job:

Yes, it’s “The Sergeant” which of course is playing on the imagery of the iconic Beatles’ album.

I guess I could add it to my growing collection of quirky kitchen gadgets like my Star Wars bottle opener ..

Geeky Chopping Board

August 18, 2015 by Michele Neylon 1 Comment

I’m not sure if I’d want this kind of style of chopping board in my kitchen, though that’s also partially because I prefer wooden boards.

The “motherboard” chopping board is a glass chopping board. It’s got the design of a motherboard printed on to it, so if you’re a bit of a geek you might appreciate it.

Or maybe if you’re trying to find a gift for a geek who cooks, then this is the right option?

It’s a reasonable size board: H:31 x W:41 x D:0.9cm

More details here.

Keeping Your Kitchen Work Area Clean

December 11, 2013 by Michele Neylon Leave a Comment

I love cooking. Chopping, slicing and dicing vegetables is a very calming process.

However the cleanup is a pain. You peel an onion, or top and tail a carrot and you have debris left over.

What to do?

I *was* either letting it sit there until I’d finished the prep and then scooping it all up and putting it in the bin.

Or using the empty packaging from mushrooms or meat to hold all the peelings

But neither option is particularly satisfactory

So I finally succumbed and got a counter top bin:

It might seem silly, but having a bin on the counter that I can dump peels into directly makes things a LOT easier and has also meant that I’ve been able to keep the kitchen work area a lot tidier.

I paid around €14 for the bin in my local Argos. You might find cheaper, but I wanted a good quality bin so opted for the Simple Human one

Taking Shortcuts With Garlic

March 27, 2012 by Michele Neylon 2 Comments

This is one full head of garlic beside another with removed cloves (one clove of garlic has been peeled) Deutsch: Geschlossene und angebrochene Knoblauchknolle (Allium sativum) Ελληνικά: Ξερά Σκόρδα (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I love garlic. It’s a wonderful food that adds a little something to a lot of different dishes.

But sometimes peeling and crushing it can be a pain in the neck.

You can use a knife to peel it and crush it, or use the heel of your palm to break it up before peeling it ..

Then there’s garlic crushers, though they’re awkward to wash and if you’re only crushing one or two cloves you’d have to wonder if it was really worth the effort in the first place..

A recent discovery for me, however, is this quite versatile gadget:

It’s both a garlic peeler and crusher in one. Simply pop a clove in, turn the handle and it does everything else.

But of course if you’re really really lazy you can always opt for “ready” garlic like the “Very Lazy Garlic” that I picked up on special offer this weekend:

Just use a teaspoon of paste for every clove you would have spent a couple of minutes preparing.

Kitchen

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