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Health & Fitness

REAL CONVENIENCE!

KEEPING IT OLD SCHOOL! I typically enjoy cutting up vegetables when cooking, I find it very therapeutic as it brings me back to my roots as a young chef. Yes, I remember having blisters on my hands when I was at the Culinary Institute practicing different knife cuts like batonnet, brunoise, and julienne using turnips in Skill Development class……Sorry I digress from this blog!
PRE-CUT or PROCESSED PRODUCE! Most of the large grocery stores sell pre-cut (sliced or diced) processed produce such onions, tomatoes, squash, peppers, etc. These products have been available for some time to the food service industry and now can save you a tremendous amount of time when trying to prepare a meal quickly for your family. Chefs realize that it costs more to buy pre-cut produce but save on labor costs, production time, and gain consistency in preperation. Consistency is not only important visually but allows food to cook evenly. There is also a tremendous selection of salad mixes out there as well! Just open a bag and add your favorite salad dressing while keeping salad preparation to a minimum. Remember quality and convenience is a win-win!
MAKE YOUR OWN PIZZA! We all like pizza right? I like to make our own pizza because it allows me to control the ingredients better and most stores sell the dough. More vegetables, a little less cheese and you control the meat of choice should you decide to add any (this is a great place to use pre-cut vegetables). My kids get involved and we have fun with it, they now own it after helping make it and enjoy eating something they made. I make ours up before we head out for a game and pop it in the oven when we get home. I find that it cooks faster from room temperature.
REAL CONVENIENCE! While searching for healthy and convenient food choices I stumbled upon this website www.MagicKitchen.com and decided to try ordering a meal for my wife and I. I was really quite impressed with the extent of what they offered and the best part was it got delivered to my doorstep! Their selection not only included complete meals and side dishes for active families but also senior meals and special diet meals for diabetics, low sodium, gluten free, and dialysis meals as well! They even had a number of meals that were part of the Weight Watches Points program. My wife and I selected the tiger prawns in sauce, the spinach italiano, and tiramisu for desert. Everything from my culinary training tells me these shrimp shouldn’t taste very good. To my surprise it was really excellent! There were 5 shrimp each and it was in a scampi like sauce with sliced tomatoes. I followed the direction and took it out the morning we were going to serve it. I pulled off the wrapper and covered both with foil, I threw it the oven covered for about 30 minutes at 350. I cooked some angel hair pasta to accompany it, we added a salad and a glass of white wine. I have to say the spinach side dish was delicious which surprised me because I really don’t like cooked spinach! The tiramisu was amazing creamy and delicious. Best of all minimal clean up! This was exactly what I was looking for in my quest for convenience. The food was almost restaurant quality and perfect for when you don’t feel like cooking or going out to a restaurant. I’m thinking about trying one of their meal plan packs to get free shipping.
Stay Tuned!
Eat Well Everyone!
Dave

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