125 | 5 Essential Kitchen Tools for a Quick and Healthy Dinner

Ever wished your kitchen was as efficient as a professional chef's? Ever wondered why your meals don't turn out as flavorful? In this episode of Moving Through Midlife, we fill you in on the magic of healthy cooking and the essential tools you need in your kitchen. You'll discover why a good knife is worth your investment and how a rice cooker is a true game-changer in meal prepping. We also share tips on using cast iron pans without battling the infamous sticking.

Moving forward, we delve into the practicality and health benefits of other kitchen essentials. We discuss the convenience of a food processor and the versatility of an immersion blender. Also, we navigate the world of cookware, laying out the pros and cons of different types and how to select the ones that suit you best. We even give you tips on using a mini chopper effectively. Whether you're a cooking novice or a seasoned home chef, this episode will equip you with the knowledge to turn your kitchen into a healthier, happier place. Tune in and be ready to take your culinary skills to a whole new level!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to Moving Through Midlife. I am your host, courtney, a personal trainer and movement specialist who wants to help you move through midlife with more grace. Each week, we will discuss ways we can show up better for ourselves and our children without the burnout. We will focus on overall health through habit stacking to help increase energy, provide movement snacks to help you move more throughout the day, while also moving your body more, and learn from professionals on moving through midlife with ease so that you can feel confident with aging. Gracefully, grab your earbuds and join me on a leisurely walk while we discuss moving through midlife. Today, we are talking about cooking in the kitchen and things that you need to help you in the kitchen. So my thought with this podcast episode is, since we are getting closer to the holidays, if you're looking for ideas for people to gift you, these are some great ones I'm providing you with five things that you need to have in your kitchen to help you have a healthier cooking experience. So the first one is a good knife. I don't know how people make it without a good knife. If you don't have one, you better go get one, and I'm not talking about a Target or Walmart knife. You need to go, either like Sir Latah, william Sonoma, something like that, or go directly through these companies. I recommend Wustaf or Hinkle. They have great products that will last for a very long time, if not a lifetime.

Speaker 1: 1:57

I personally love the Santoku knives. They have little oval depressions on the side to keep things from sticking, so as you're chopping things, sometimes onions and different things can get stuck to the side of the knife. These make it easier for them to fall off. It's just a universal knife. I use it honestly, for everything. That is the most used knife in my house and I would probably say I almost use that solely. I'm disappointed when it's not washed and ready to go because it's so universal and I use it all the time. I love it. So when looking for a knife, I do recommend you go test them out, put them in your hand and see what it feels like, because this can make or break your experience in the kitchen. You want a sharp knife that's going to make your cooking task easier, simpler, because if you're trying to cut with a dull knife, it makes the experience much more difficult, more time consuming. So this is what I recommend, let's say, a Toku knife. I like Wustaf or Hinkle and those to sell around $100 if you're looking for that knife. But that knife can be used for so much, so don't feel like you have to get a whole set. You could probably get that one and get away with using it in different ways.

Speaker 1: 3:31

The second thing that I am going to recommend is a rice cooker. Yes, I know you can make it in an instant pot and that's great, but usually when I'm trying to use my rice cooker, I'm cooking in my Instapot already. So, like the other night, I made garlicy Cuban pork and it was delicious. If you need that is one recipe, go find it right now. It was a Melissa Clark recipe. I know skinny taste redid it, but it is really, really good. So I made that and then I was making. You know I made that in the Instapot and then I had my rice cooker on the side.

Speaker 1: 4:19

Don't bother getting a fancy one. It doesn't need to do 1500 things. I have a very small one. Mine is like a six cup blackened decker. I checked it out online. It's pretty much what I have, very similar. It sells for $25 on Amazon. It just literally it's start or warm, so you click the little button to start it. It works on its own and then it stays warm until you're ready to use it. So that is the perfect thing. I love it because we make a lot of rice bowls in our house and so for those families, if you're on the go a lot, it's a perfect one to be able to just, you know, to cook the rice on the side. You just get that ready while you're cooking everything else or making everything else, and then it is there for you and it's always perfect. It's perfect rice every time. If you I you know I'm not real specific about measuring the rice or the water, I know about how much that I need and it always makes it perfect. So definitely look into that one.

Speaker 1: 5:31

The other one is a good pan, so I'm going to recommend cast iron pans are amazing. I love them. They. I use them a lot to sear Meats and then I can then cook them in the oven. They're they last forever. They're perfect. I love them.

Speaker 1: 5:55

But I do want to, because I know some people struggle with sticking. I will give you this little tip If you're newer to cooking or you know you're not a pro, you need to get your pan hot before you put oil in it, and then you need to put oil in the pan and let the oil get hot before you put the meat in it or whatever you're doing, and that usually will keep it from sticking. The other thing is make sure that you don't flip too soon. If you go to lift your, say, you're trying to brown chicken. If you try to lift the chicken before it is seared and brown on one side, it will be tough to get it off. So just wait patience and then flip it over, and then you know it will not stick if you've waited long enough. So there's a little side tip for you.

Speaker 1: 6:51

But if you are looking at nonstick hands, I'm going to recommend one. I've tried to do some research on it. It's not exactly clear as to the safety of it. They tout themselves as safe, but when you start trying to dig in further, there may be some questionable things about them. It is our place and I heard that they're at Target. Now I really like ours. We have one and we use it for almost everything.

Speaker 1: 7:26

It is a ceramic cookware and I bought the Always Pan. It was about $100 when I purchased it. I think that's what it still is. I don't know what Target if they offer better deals on them. You can get them in different colors. They're real pretty and I don't use it for everything, like you can use it for steaming and stuff I wouldn't waste. Don't do that. Get a good steamer and steam your stuff or a plot with a steamer attachment. Do it that way. It's too shallow to do in the Always Pan, but I really like it. They say it's ceramic. They say that it's safe. I'm enjoying it. But if you are really concerned about the toxins from pans and nonstick, you might want to look into this and do your own research. From what I can tell, it's pretty safe. I don't see anything that really concerns me, but you know it's that. You know some things are left hidden, so you can do your own research in regard to that. I feel like it's safe.

Speaker 1: 8:37

The next one is an immersion blender, so you can have a regular blender. I love my Vitamix. It's amazing, but you've probably heard about Vitamix's over and over and over again, so I'm not going to bother with that one. You need to. Just if you haven't already bought one, then what's your problem? No, just joking, but immersion blenders. These are great. These are handheld. They sell between about 30 and 60. All these prices. I kind of was just looking at Amazon to see what the prices were. Between 30 and 60 dollars. I would go with a reputable name. I love KitchenAid, I love Cuisinart. They're ones that will hold up. Sometimes it is worth buying something a little bit more expensive like KitchenAid or Cuisinart because they will last longer than the cheaper named product. So immersion blender is just like a handheld mixer and I love them.

Speaker 1: 9:39

You could make smoothies. I really don't do that with mine. What I do, mine I always grab it for, like mashed potatoes. The biggest thing that I do is when you're trying to emulsify soup. So if you are making certain soups, say like a tomato soup, and you have carrots and onions and tomatoes in there and you're trying to make it a smooth broth or a smooth soup, that's when you use the immersion blender. That way you're not having to pour the hot liquids into the blender on your countertop. You just grab the handheld, you pop it in the pot and you can emulsify. Can it be emulsify? Blend everything up at that point. I love that and we do. In the winter time we do make a lot more soups and I just think it's a great quick thing and I can just keep it in my drawer. It's not very big but it makes life easier. And for those with little ones, if you have little ones and you're wanting to put some vegetables maybe in your spaghetti sauce and you don't want your kids complaining about, I feel, carrots in my spaghetti sauce, whatever you can put the immersion blender in the sauce and you can make it so that there aren't little chunks of things. But that is another one that I really love.

Speaker 1: 11:18

And then the last thing that I want to share is a food processor. Now you can get big ones or you can get little ones. Again, I recommend buying one with a well-known name. I have one. It is not by a well-known name and it's garbage. It broke early on. I have to hold, I have to press things awkwardly to get it to stay on. What a mess. It was given to me. It was my mom's. She was no longer using it. I was like, okay, I'll take it until it breaks. I'm asking for a Cuisinart one this Christmas that I saw advertised.

Speaker 1: 12:00

That has a lot of things. It's great because you can grate cheese, you can cut up onions and different things like that. It has so many things that it can do If you buy a mini chopper, you can use it. I pull mine out, make pesto a lot, make my own homemade dressings a lot. I make a lot of like. I have mentioned the Cuban pork that I made the night before. I use the food processor for that to mix everything up before putting it in the Instapot. I use a ton of things.

Speaker 1: 12:40

If you are looking to live healthier and you are tired of grabbing those dressings at the store because they're filled with garbage ingredients, you can use the food processor or, honestly, the immersion blender. Either one would work well for making dressings and things like that. Those are the five things that I would recommend that, all healthy, you know. If you have the space and enjoy cooking or are looking to start cooking more in your household for a healthier life, those would be five things I would recommend you get started with. Great gift items is a good knife, a rice cooker, a nice piece of like a pan, either being cast iron pan. I would go with that first, but people who are uncomfortable with cast iron, maybe something like that, our place ceramic cookware, an immersion blender and a food processor.

Speaker 1: 13:45

I hope you enjoyed my list. Feel free to jump over in our community moving through midlife. We're going to share a lives each day this week, kind of showing you these things and then make sure to head over there so you can share with us your favorite cooking utensils and appliances that help you live a healthier life. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found something to take away to help you practice healthier habits, move more or handle the midlife in aging with grace. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or leave us a review to help us reach more moms just like you. Head to movingthroughmidlifecom to join the free community or learn how you can move more and feel better in your daily life.