Every Friday on Instagram Stories I share my Friday Favorites. Some weeks it is all about food and other weeks it may be something household or personal. On the blog today I am sharing a compilation of my favorite kitchen tools, dry goods, and cooking tips.
Favorite Cooking Food Tips
- Drain and rinse your canned beans. Beans contain the enzyme raffinose and this is the enzyme that causes gas. If you buy canned beans, you can help with some of the gas by draining and rinsing your can of black or kidney beans, etc. The only can of beans I don’t rinse is chili beans because I’d be rinsing off all the extra flavor.
- Make mashed potatoes in the crockpot. This is a game-changer. You will make mashed potatoes more often. Select your potatoes. If you do baby reds and keep the peels on and it is super easy. Peel your potatoes. Place in the crockpot with warm water. Cover and cook on high for around 3 hours give or take 30 minutes. Drain the water, and add your milk, butter, or sour cream. Add, whatever you desire and place an immersion blender in it to mash. When it’s the right consistency turn the crockpot to warm and the potatoes are ready when you want to eat. Time saver on Thanksgiving or any night.
- Make meatballs in the microwave. Mix up your meatball recipe, roll into balls, and place on a microwave bacon pan. Microwave for 5- minutes. When they are brown and done in the middle you have meatballs to add to your gravy or sauce and all the fat has run off into the pan.
Favorite Kitchen Tools
Kitchen cooking tools, pots, and pans make cooking so much more enjoyable. When we moved across the country, I sold many kitchen items I did not love. These are some of the true favorites that made it across the USA.
Baking Favorites
10x 15 ½ size baking pans. I have 3 of them and they are the only thing I use for baking cookies or anything that needs a large pan. You can even make sheet cake brownies or monster bars in them. I have 3 of them because 3 fit in a convection oven at one time. The recipe for Monster Bars is at the link Raising kids and baking Cookies.
I also have silicon pan liners that I almost always put on these pans. It saves money by not having to buy parchment paper and I never have to spray my pans. Clean-up is easy.
Cookie scoops I have two sizes from the pampered chef- the medium and small one. I use both to make cookies and muffins. This makes baking so much more enjoyable. I just got a large one from a garage sale. Yes!
Mixing Favorites
Glass bowls. I used to have 2 pyrex glass bowls I used all the time. I used them for Microwaving, mixing, and serving. Right before we moved I broke them and got a pampered chef set of 3 and love them. These made the move and my bowls are always in the dishwasher because I use them so much.
I have some wire whips that are my favorite too. The mini-one whip works great for dressings and small things I need to whip up. It is great to whip up eggs with the larger flat one. They store nicely in the drawer too.
I love my glass pyrex liquid measuring cups in 2 and 4 cups. Once again, they are being used to measure my liquids. I like to make my homemade hot cocoa in the 4 cup one with the mini whip and microwave it.
Favorite Dry Goods
These are the dry goods you can always find in my kitchen.
Red lentils– I use red lentils in soups so these are always on hand. Recipe for lentil soup at
Rice- I like a variety of rice. Brown Rice, minute brown rice, jasmine, or basmati rice I like to use occasionally for the rice in chow Mein. Variety is the way to go.
Pasta- When I buy pasta most of the time it’s whole wheat. Once in a while, you will find regular pasta esp the pigtail pasta called cavatappi. I use this when I make my pesto pasta. We just like the way the shape holds the flavors. If I can’t find cavatappi pasta I use bowtie pasta instead.
Quinoa– This is a must for Quinoa bowls or to add to soups or make a quinoa salad. I use the tricolored quinoa or the plain one. I like variety once again. If you never have tried quinoa, try it with my recipes linked. It is high in fiber and protein. See blog on Quinoa bowls and Cold lunches for the quinoa salad recipes.
Barley– quick barley is on my shelf and I mostly use it in a couple of soups. It adds a nice dimension and fiber to your soup that you may be forgetting. You could add it to rice and make rice pilaf.
Easy Add Ins- Cooking Tips
Garlic- I cheat and buy the minced jarred garlic. I know fresh is better, but this is better when you use garlic in your cooking almost every day.
Ginger-I also buy ginger in the tube. It stores in my frig and I can add to my stir fry for extra flavor. When I buy fresh ginger- it goes bad because I only use it once every 2 weeks.
Pesto- I also buy in a small jar and use it in my pesto pasta or I put it on bread when I am making a panini. Sometimes a dish is missing something so I add a spoonful of it to the dish to flavor it up. I like the pesto in a 6-ounce jar from Aldi.
Always on Hand
Canned chicken– I love the Kirkland brand and now need to find another source since we don’t have a Costco. I use canned chicken in salads, soups, chow mein, hotdishes, Nachos, and quesadillas. I am pretty sure I could use a can a week and this makes cooking so much easier.
“Rotelle” or diced tomatoes with green peppers- These go in many soup recipes, chili, my semi-homemade salsa, guacamole, and any recipe you want a zip. I used to buy cases of them from Costco because I used them all the time.
Black beans- are also good to have on hand to add to quinoa bowls, soups, enchiladas, black bean skillet, and nachos. Great way to add fiber to the diet. The recipe for the Black bean veggie egg skillet is in my fiber blog and my black bean chowder recipe is in this link.
There you go…ideas from my Friday Favorites of the foods and kitchen items I love to have on hand. I hope some of these ideas become your favorites. My favorite kitchen and cooking tips.
What are your favorite kitchen tools or cooking items? Share in Comments.
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