Natalie: Let's face it even though I like to cook most people would say that's inconvenient or its time consuming and they don't want to go in the kitchen and cook. Its so much easier to go pick up something from a restaurant, get something to go but that can be a nutrition disaster.
So, today we are talking about top ten kitchen equipment essentials that are going to make your life so much easier. Number ten, the garlic press. Now I love garlic not only for the flavor but because it has tremendous nutrition and health benefits especially as it support for the immune system.
So, I typically will add garlic to almost everything I cook and all you have to do to use the garlic press and they are only about 10 dollars to get a good one. You just peel off the outer layer of the garlic, you put the whole clove in the press, squeeze the handles and then the garlic comes out almost looking like its been grated and then you can put into any dish you are cooking and then you don't have to worry about having sliced or chop it in you know that's take extra time.
Number nine is the crock-pot. This is the best invention for being able to throw a ton of ingredients in the morning into a pot and then come home after work and everything is ready. Dinner is prepared. When time is limited and you know you don't want to spend a whole lot of time in the kitchen, it's a great way to have homemade recipes prepared without spending a whole lot of time but I do have a warning, be careful of crock-pot recipes that called for a lot of cream and cheese because that's going to add to a lot of calories.
Number eight is cutlery scissors. Now for those of you who hate touching raw poultry or raw meat and so you will leave the fat on the meat just because you don't want to deal with it where this is an easy tool to use, its easy to clean and you can just cut off all of the trimmings and all of the fat off of the meat that you are about to cook and its hassle-free, you don't even ever have to touch the piece of meat and that way you are reducing your amount of fat and then you don't have to worry about whole bunch of calories from eating just fat.
Number seven is the cheese grater. You can use a cheese grater to grate not only cheese but also vegetables and if you get one that has different grades of grating you can also use lemons for recipes or shred vegetables depending on which type of grater you buy and they are only a couple of bucks so not expensive at all but it will certainly cut down the time on ingredients for recipes.
Number six is the juicer. This is an excellent piece of equipment to juice fruits and vegetables, it's a fantastic way to get vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and enzymes. You don't have to cook anything, it's a very quick process and it really supports your choline health. The problem with eating foods that are been cooked as we loose lot of the vitamins and lot of the nutrients and a lot of these enzymes.
So, juicing fruits and vegetables is a great way to get a quick breakfast or a quick juice and then not worrying about having to cook anything. However if you do have a juicer and you are completely depending on just juicing fruits and vegetables you do have to keep in mind that you are not getting any fiber when you juice fruits and vegetables.
Number five is the rice cooker. Now you don't just have to use it to cook rice, you can actually use this piece of equipment to steam all your vegetables. Steaming vegetables is an excellent way to cook your vegetables without having to add any additional fat like butter or oil and another good thing about steaming your vegetables is well is that it's a really simple process.
Now if you don't want to spend the extra money on a rice cooker you can actually buy a metal insert that goes into a pot that you already have and just inside your pot and then you will fill your pot up with water and that way they stand, the middle stand keeps your vegetables away from the water so you can steam and you can put the lid on your pot, that's only a couple of dollars, so either way excellent way to cook vegetables is the steam.
Number four is the blender and the hand blender. I will use my blender almost every morning or every day to make smoothies and just to like you know what I put in my smoothies I do eight ounces of a liquid and that could be a combination of water, soy milk and fresh squeezed juice, I will do only two cups of frozen berries, one scoop of protein powder, one tablespoon of flaxseed oil, so I blend all that together and it's a very nutritious and filling breakfast or meal and obviously we dint have a blender that would be difficult to create that and you can also do a hand blender.
Now hand blenders are usually used to make my protein shakes, I hate hell when you use a shaker cup to make your protein shakes that leaves all the clumpy pieces of protein, I just can't really deal with that. So, it's a hand blenders 10, 12 dollars at your grocery store and you just take it in your cup with your milk and your protein powder and it blends up everything really smooth and its easy to drink. So, those are two things that I use almost every single day.
Number three is measuring cups and spoons. Now you know you might be thinking okay, everyone has measuring cups and spoons but actually its not quite true, you know there are people that you know may be eat out so after night just never had purchased them or don't think its really important and its not just important to have these measuring cups and spoons to make recipes correctly but to also understand how much of volume equates to a serving of a particular item.
For example if you are going to eat black beans half a cup of black beans would be a serving of the beans, now you may not know that and then when you are serving the black beans onto your plate or your bowl, you know just based on how big your plate is or how big the bowl is you may be getting more or less of that type of food. So, buy those measuring cups and spoons are not expensive and then it's a good way to make sure that you are keeping your calories down by not eating too much and then also your recipes will out right.
Number two is a food processor. Now these can range anywhere from 50 bucks to 200 bucks depending on the size of the processor you are buying. I use the large one which is a 14 cup because I prep a lot of fruits and vegetables but you can buy a smaller one but this really cuts down the time that you need to prep fruits and vegetables or really anything else. I mean you can even slice, chop, dice, mix, stir, shred I mean you can do a variety of things with this one piece of equipment and I mean it cuts my prepping of vegetables it cuts my time down from sometimes it would take me 30 minutes just to sit there and slice something you know to 3-4 minutes you just roll over in there and it is done. So, definitely something worth investing in.
Number one is the vacuum sealer. These were about a 100 dollars and you can really get them on a variety of different stores. Now the reason why this is really important and you may have never heard of this or you may think its not very important but I pick one day out of a week to prepare meals ahead of time and then to make sure that they are going to stay good until I am ready to eat them I vacuum seal them.
So, for instance on Sundays I like to prepare soups and you know few meals ahead of time and then you can put them in bags and then vacuum seal it, so it takes away all the oxygen and it basically quadruples the amount of time that the food will stay fresh and then you can also purchase accessories like canisters where you can put soups and stews and gravies in and then you can use the same machine to suck out the air that the canisters and that way you can freeze, you can leave it on the counter, you can refrigerate and it stays good for so long.
So, when no one has time to do anything a piece of equipment that is going to allow to repair home-cooked meals, so you don't have to depend on restaurant or take out so that you can ensure that you and your family are getting healthy meals, nutritious meals, and you know not getting a ton of excess of calories, this is a piece of equipment to invest in.
And on a personal note I really want to say to all the subscribers out there I think are awesome, I love all your comments, I am so glad that there are people out there they are care enough about their health to watch these videos and leave comments I just thank our best subscribers and all of you too. So, keep watching and I will see you next time. Bye.
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