Or How Small Appliances Keep the Grinch Out of the Kitchen
Home cooking plays such an important part in family holidays, whether it's crisp and tender potato latkes or the cookies set out with Santa's glass of milk. Keeping the traditions and getting nourishing daily meals on the table as well-holiday cooking challenges can turn a kitchen queen into a frazzled scullery maid.
FAMILY MEAL TIPS
The key to keeping your balance is advance planning and preparation. While you may generally reserve your small appliances for particular dishes, getting the most out of them can get holiday meal hassles under control.
Spend an afternoon creating nutritious main dishes you can freeze for hectic days. Use your food processor to chop vegetables for chicken vegetable soup, confetti rice, and a veggie-loaded spaghetti sauce all at once. Rice in the rice cooker, soup in the slow cooker and spaghetti sauce simmering in your electric skillet get you ahead of the mark on family meals.
Pop a pair of chickens into your roaster oven and take all the meat off the bones for future casseroles. Mix a little flour in with those good chicken drippings and use your hand blender to make gravy for a future dish. In just a few hours, your freezer is full, your menus are planned, your kitchen is cool-and so are you! Best of all, you know your family will eat well and healthily, no matter how hectic the holidays.
HOLIDAY HINTS
The same hand blender that made your gravy has many other talents. Grab it when the cookbook says "add eggs, beaten." Incorporate shredded veggies and finely chopped herbs into cream cheese for a quick spread. Whip just enough cream to top cocoa for a single drop-in guest. Smooth the ice crystals in a homemade sorbet or puree ingredients in a bean or pea soup. All that, and your hand blender still has the vim and vigor to mix the best eggnog in town.
A little kitchen "prep" with your hand chopper lets you cook through the holidays like a pro. Onions, celery, chives, garlic, walnuts and cashews, parsley and other herbs can all be chopped and stored for later use, in either fridge or freezer. Packaging measured amounts shortcuts adding them to recipes-if one container is cup, all you have to do is count out the number you need. Chop dried fruit before adding it to baking. Old-fashioned cooks used that secret to get more flavor from raisins, citron or candied cherries. Chop peppers, mushrooms, onions and olives, and bank the makings of family pizza night. Good "prep" means good eating.
Let your slow cooker prepare and serve hot winter holiday beverages. Cocoa, mulled cider and spiced tea will stay hot till skaters are off the ice or sledders off the hill. Slow cooking brings out the complexity of spices as nothing else can.
Family first, but they're your holidays, too! Let your small appliances do the service every kitchen queen deserves. Happy holiday wishes from our family to yours.
Home cooking plays such an important part in family holidays, whether it's crisp and tender potato latkes or the cookies set out with Santa's glass of milk. Keeping the traditions and getting nourishing daily meals on the table as well-holiday cooking challenges can turn a kitchen queen into a frazzled scullery maid.
FAMILY MEAL TIPS
The key to keeping your balance is advance planning and preparation. While you may generally reserve your small appliances for particular dishes, getting the most out of them can get holiday meal hassles under control.
Spend an afternoon creating nutritious main dishes you can freeze for hectic days. Use your food processor to chop vegetables for chicken vegetable soup, confetti rice, and a veggie-loaded spaghetti sauce all at once. Rice in the rice cooker, soup in the slow cooker and spaghetti sauce simmering in your electric skillet get you ahead of the mark on family meals.
Pop a pair of chickens into your roaster oven and take all the meat off the bones for future casseroles. Mix a little flour in with those good chicken drippings and use your hand blender to make gravy for a future dish. In just a few hours, your freezer is full, your menus are planned, your kitchen is cool-and so are you! Best of all, you know your family will eat well and healthily, no matter how hectic the holidays.
HOLIDAY HINTS
The same hand blender that made your gravy has many other talents. Grab it when the cookbook says "add eggs, beaten." Incorporate shredded veggies and finely chopped herbs into cream cheese for a quick spread. Whip just enough cream to top cocoa for a single drop-in guest. Smooth the ice crystals in a homemade sorbet or puree ingredients in a bean or pea soup. All that, and your hand blender still has the vim and vigor to mix the best eggnog in town.
A little kitchen "prep" with your hand chopper lets you cook through the holidays like a pro. Onions, celery, chives, garlic, walnuts and cashews, parsley and other herbs can all be chopped and stored for later use, in either fridge or freezer. Packaging measured amounts shortcuts adding them to recipes-if one container is cup, all you have to do is count out the number you need. Chop dried fruit before adding it to baking. Old-fashioned cooks used that secret to get more flavor from raisins, citron or candied cherries. Chop peppers, mushrooms, onions and olives, and bank the makings of family pizza night. Good "prep" means good eating.
Let your slow cooker prepare and serve hot winter holiday beverages. Cocoa, mulled cider and spiced tea will stay hot till skaters are off the ice or sledders off the hill. Slow cooking brings out the complexity of spices as nothing else can.
Family first, but they're your holidays, too! Let your small appliances do the service every kitchen queen deserves. Happy holiday wishes from our family to yours.
About the Author:
Want to find out more about holiday cooking with slow cookers, then visit HamiltonBeach.com on how to choose the best kitchen appliances for your needs.