Posted in Equipment Reviews

We Sliced Hundreds of Carrots and Tomatoes to Find the 7 Best Knife Sharpeners

Knives are, perhaps, the most important tool in a cook’s kitchen. However, even the best knives can dull with use and time. To hone a knife back to proper cutting shape, you’ll need a dependable knife sharpener. There are several kinds of sharpeners available, including classic whetstones, manual sharpeners, and even electric models. 

To find the best knife sharpeners, we put 40 different models to the test and found eight fantastic options for keeping your kitchen blades in ideal condition. 

Allrecipes

Posted in Kitchen Tips

The Art of One-Pot Country Cooking

Cooking can be a chore, especially on weeknights when you’re short on time and energy. But what if you could simplify your routine without sacrificing taste or nutrition? That’s where one-pot country cooking comes in. This style of cooking is all about creating hearty, wholesome meals with minimal fuss and cleanup. In this post, we’ll explore the art of one-pot country cooking, from why it’s perfect for busy weeknights to how you can customize it to your liking. Plus, we’ll share our top five favorite one-pot country cooking recipes, along with tips and tricks for making this style of cooking even easier. If you’re looking for a way to simplify mealtime, keep reading – we’ve got you covered.,

222395317 © Oregon State University Special Collections & Archives | Dreamstime.com

Why One-Pot Meals Are Perfect for Busy Weeknights

One-pot meals are a lifesaver on busy weeknights. With all the ingredients cooked together in one pot, you save yourself time, energy and cleanup. There’s no need to juggle multiple pots and pans or worry about timing everything perfectly. Plus, since all the flavors meld together in one pot, the resulting dish is incredibly flavorful and comforting. It’s no wonder that one-pot meals have become a go-to for many home cooks.

Next, we’ll be sharing our top five one-pot country cooking recipes that are perfect for busy weeknights. These meals are flavorful, filling, and easy to make. Even better, they’ll leave you with just one pot to clean up at the end of the night. So, let’s dive in and discover the joys of one-pot country cooking!,

Top Five One-Pot Country Cooking Recipes

I’ve included links to YouTube videos depicting each recipe. These are just here as examples for you, not as definitive recipes. They are from different individuals and I thank them for the inspiration!

The Reluctant Retiree!

One-pot meals are a lifesaver on busy weeknights. With all the ingredients cooked together in one pot, you save yourself time, energy, and cleanup. There’s no need to juggle multiple pots and pans or worry about timing everything perfectly. Plus, since all the flavors meld together in one pot, the resulting dish is incredibly flavorful and comforting.

Next, we’ll be sharing our top five one-pot country cooking recipes that are perfect for busy weeknights. These meals are flavorful, filling, and easy to make. Even better, they’ll leave you with just one pot to clean up at the end of the night.

  1. Beef Stew: This classic one-pot meal is perfect for colder weather. It’s made with tender chunks of beef, carrots, potatoes, onions, and a rich beef broth. Seasoned with herbs and spices, it’s a hearty and comforting meal that’s easy to make and delicious to eat.
  2. Chicken and Dumplings: This dish is a favorite in many households for good reason. The chicken is tender, the broth is flavorful, and the dumplings are fluffy and comforting. Plus, it’s all cooked in one pot for easy cleanup.
  3. Jambalaya: This Louisiana classic is a spicy and flavorful dish that’s packed with rice, chicken, and sausage. It’s easy to customize to your taste by adding more heat or more vegetables. Best of all, it’s a one-pot meal that fills you up and keeps you satisfied.
  4. Chili: This hearty and comforting one-pot meal is perfect for colder weather. It’s packed with ground beef, beans, and vegetables, and can be customized to your taste by adding more heat or toppings like cheese or sour cream. Plus, it’s a one-pot meal, so there’s minimal cleanup.
  5. Sausage and Potato Skillet: This meal is made with fresh vegetables like potatoes, onions, and bell peppers, topped with savory sausage that’s full of flavor. It’s an easy one-pan meal that’s perfect for busy weeknights and can be customized with your favorite veggies or herbs.

Now that you have your go-to one-pot country cooking recipes, it’s time to customize them to your taste. Learn how to make these recipes your own in our next section on “How to Customize Your One-Pot Meals.”,

How to Customize Your One-Pot Meals

Whether you’re looking to switch up the flavors in your favorite one-pot meal or want to make it healthier, customizing your recipe is key. Start by experimenting with your favorite vegetables, or swap out the protein for something new. Add in herbs and spices to enhance the flavor and make the dish your own.

For example, try adding chopped carrots and celery to the Sausage and Potato Skillet for an extra dose of veggies. Or swap out the sausage for ground turkey or chicken to create a leaner dish. The possibilities are endless, and the result will be a one-pot meal that’s uniquely yours.

By customizing your one-pot meals, you can also tailor them to your dietary needs or preferences. If you’re looking for a low-carb option, replace the potatoes in the skillet with cauliflower or broccoli. Or, if you’re vegan or vegetarian, switch out the meat for plant-based protein sources like legumes or tofu.

Learning how to customize your one-pot meals not only adds variety to your dinner rotation, but it also allows you to create a dish that’s perfectly suited to your tastes. In the next section, we’ll share some tips and tricks for making one-pot cooking even simpler.,

Tips and Tricks for Making One-Pot Cooking Even Easier

Learning how to make one-pot cooking even easier doesn’t have to be complicated. With a few tricks up your sleeve, you can create delicious meals with minimal effort. Here are some tips to help you streamline your one-pot cooking process:

  1. Prep ahead: Before you start cooking, take some time to prep your ingredients. Chop your vegetables, measure out your spices, and portion out any other ingredients you’ll need. This will save you time and stress when it comes to actually cooking your meal.
  2. Use a good quality pot: Investing in a high-quality pot will not only make your cooking experience more enjoyable, but it will also ensure that your meal cooks evenly and doesn’t stick to the bottom.
  3. Layer your ingredients: Start with ingredients that take the longest to cook, like root vegetables, and layer the rest of your ingredients on top. This will help ensure that everything cooks at the same pace.
  4. Experiment with different spices: One-pot cooking is the perfect opportunity to experiment with different flavors and spices. Don’t be afraid to try something new and add some heat, sweetness, or tang to your meal.

By using these tips and tricks, you can take your one-pot cooking to the next level. With a little bit of planning and a good quality pot, you can create delicious and nutritious meals that are easy to make and even easier to clean up.,

In Conclusion!

In conclusion, one-pot country cooking is the ultimate time-saving solution for busy weeknights. The top five recipes we’ve covered show that nutritious and flavorful meals don’t have to be complicated. By customizing your one-pot meals and using the tips and tricks we’ve provided, you can make this cooking method even easier. So why not simplify your routine and give these recipes a try? As the saying goes, “Cooking is like love, it should be entered into with abandon or not at all.” With one-pot country cooking, you can definitely enter the kitchen with abandon and enjoy the delicious results.

Posted in Kitchen Tips

Storing Your Onions in This Room Could Have Some Unexpected Benefits

TikTok has gotten incredibly popular in recent years, and some of the most shared videos on the app involve food hacks like the viral feta pasta or last year’s epic Dalgona coffee trend — but every now and then there’s a tip that really leaves people scratching their heads.

The latest controversial life hack to come out of TikTok is shower onions, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: keeping onions in the bathroom. And it turns out, there’s an actual legitimate reason someone might be doing this.

This conversation grew out of a video posted by TikTok user @karalynndunton, who met a guy on Tinder and then found herself in his apartment, snooping in his bathroom. While all this seemed a bit commonplace (except maybe not under the backdrop of a global pandemic, though that’s another story entirely), she came across pretty common items in the bathroom, from hygiene products to grooming products. She even marveled about how neat and well-organized his bathroom was. Things were about to get odd, though.

Allrecipes

Posted in Kitchen Tips

I Tried 6 Ways to Make Hard-Boiled Eggs Easier to Peel, and This Is the Best One

How do you peel a hard-boiled egg without the shell sticking? And how do you peel hard-boiled eggs without tearing them up? Some say easy peeling starts with how you cook eggs, whether it’s adding baking soda, salt, or vinegar to the water. Others say your peeling technique matters most, from enlisting a spoon or a jar to dousing eggs with water.

So, what is the easiest way to peel hard-boiled eggs? I tested six of the most popular methods on the internet to find out.

Allrecipes

Posted in Kitchen Tips

Our Most-Requested Recipe Tool Is Finally Here—And It’s Going to Make Dinner So Much Easier

Allrecipes community, rejoice! We just launched a new recipe scaling tool that’ll make resizing recipes so much easier. There are two reasons we know you’ll love it: 

  1. We understand that recipes aren’t always one-size-fits-all. Sometimes a recipe makes enough for two, but you need it to feed a family of four. That’s just the nature of cooking—it needs to be adaptable. 
  2. You asked for it. This is one of our community’s most-requested features. You’ve waited patiently while we perfected the tool and now it’s finally here! 

Allrecipes

Posted in Kitchen Tips

This Shockingly Easy Trick Keeps Cheese Fresh 3x Longer

You’re standing at the fridge door, staring down at a block of Cheddar cheese. It’s only been a couple of weeks, but there it is—a fuzzy, moldy reminder that you once again bought more cheese than you could eat in time. Sound familiar? Well, it’s time to say goodbye to that sad cheese saga for good.

We’ve stumbled upon a cheese hack so easy and effective, you’ll never believe it can solve all your cheese troubles. It only takes one step (and one pantry ingredient) and it will ensure your cheese stays fresh until you whittle it down to the very last nub. 

Allrecipes

Posted in Kitchen Tips

Meal Prep for Country Cooks

This post was originally posted on my book review blog, Book Reviews by the Reluctant Retiree. Now that I’ve started a separate blog just for cooking, I thought it would be better added here.

Sandy, the Reluctant Retiree

Meal prep is something that many of us leave until the last moment. I’m not talking about taking the meat out of the freezer or refrigerator. I’m talking about chopping up all the vegetables that go in that soup, stew, one-pot meal. I’m talking celery, carrots, peppers, onions. (Onions are the worst in my humble opinion!)

Why not just buy it?

Before you jump up and tell me that you can just buy those items already chopped up, stop and think about it. What is cheaper, buying the already chopped up items and having to take what is available, or doing it yourself and including the items that your family likes? Last time I checked prices in the grocery store, it was cheaper to buy the produce in the produce section or at the produce market than to pay someone else to do all that chopping.

There are tons of books/pins/blogs that detail how to accomplish this. I love to look through these places for ideas. I don’t have a problem with the ideas they present, just the quantities!

It’s just my husband and myself, that’s it! I don’t need to cook a meal for more than 2 unless we are talking about soups. So what’s more convenient for me is ingredients that are prepped in such a way that I can simply measure out how much I need.

I don’t have time!

I got this idea the second time I bought a bag of celery stalks and part of them went bad before I could use them all. I grabbed a small cookie tray that would fit in my Side-by-side freezer and lined it with parchment paper. Then I grabbed my celery, cutting board and knife before starting to chop. 5 – 10 minutes later I had the tray filled with chopped celery. I popped it in the freezer and waited. About 2 hours later, I came back, and the celery was frozen enough that I could dump it from there into a freezer container. The pieces remained separated enough that I could easily just get what I needed out. I repeated this until I had all the celery done.

I took one large onion and cut it up using a mandolin slicer. It took maybe 5 minutes to do. This is going into the refrigerator for use. I’ll cut a few more up and freeze them to use later.

This is sliced Starfruit. A friend of mine has a tree in her backyard. She has started freezing the slices and then adding them to drinks instead of ice cubes.

Think about what you want to store the frozen vegetables in. I use a mixture of freezer bags and freezer containers. This makes it easier for me to see what is in the bags. Just remember to date the bags/containers so you know when you froze them.

My recipe calls for a different type of measurement!

Yeah, so do mine. My favorite cooking magazine, Cook’s Illustrated, once tackled this question. According to their tests, a small onion = 1/2 cup of diced onions, a medium onion = 1 cup, and a large onion = 2 cups!

Now, of course, you probably won’t only be dealing with just onions. Which led me to another website, https://www.howmuchisin.com/produce_converters Great website! Having found this, I plan to go back through my favorite recipes and make notes.

Now that I gave you some ideas, go forth and conquer! With all those vegetables already prepared, cooking becomes so much more enjoyable!

Posted in #Recipes

50 Ground Beef Recipes That Are Super Easy

What’s for dinner tonight? From simple skillets to hearty soups and casseroles, we have the best ground beef recipes for busy nights.

Taste of Home

Posted in Kitchen Tips

Rethinking My Recipes

What brought this on?

I was doing that dread chore again, cleaning out the freezer and the refrigerator. I was struck by the sheer amount of “mystery leftovers” that I found. We all have them, even if we don’t think about them. However, it got me thinking about the food being wasted and thrown out.

So what seems to be the problem here? None of us start out looking to waste time and money, especially not on food. This puzzled me so much that I decided to take a look at what the answer might be.

Continue reading “Rethinking My Recipes”
Posted in Kitchen Tips

How to Roast Pumpkin Seeds, Step by Step

Confession: For years, I threw away the seeds after carving pumpkins. Roasting them just didn’t seem worth the trouble—why mess with all that stringy, slimy pumpkin flesh?

Then a few years ago, after learning more about food waste and vowing to make the most of every ingredient, I decided not to toss the seeds. Instead, I learned how to roast pumpkin seeds and realized that crispy, baked pumpkin seeds are super easy to make! Their nutty flavor was so addictive, they didn’t even make it to the pantry. My family gobbled them up, risking burned fingers, straight from the sheet tray.

The best part is, pumpkin seeds are good for you. They’re high in protein and fiber, and they’re a good source of minerals like zinc and iron. You can even cook with pumpkin seed oil. So the next time you make jack-o’-lanterns, save the insides and follow our Test Kitchen’s step-by-step guide for how to roast pumpkin seeds.

Taste of Home