Cooking Time Savers

I have been wanting to post something non baby related for quite some time and the perfect thing came to mind the other night. Over the past few years I have found a couple of items at the grocery store that have been life savers when things are busy or I just feel lazy about cooking.

The first is frozen onions. Right there on the top shelf of the frozen vegetables. I think my mom used these sometimes when we were growing up, not sure. I HATE chopping onions, but really value what they do for depth of flavor in many of my recipes. These babies save TONS of time and tears. Soups, casseroles, omelets, are some of my favorite ways to use this product.

The next item I have just started to use in the last year or so. Italian Sausage fresh from the meat department. I can just buy one or two and use them many different ways. One way I use them is for homemade pizza. I just remove the casing and brown the meat, and I have a quick fresh pizza topping. Another use is in an egg scramble mixed with peppers, frozen onions, tomatoes and cheese. I remove the casing and brown before adding the other ingredients. I have also chopped up the sausage and put it in Jambalaya and red beans and rice. So easy!

The best time saver I think I have in the kitchen though is my electric kettle. Thank the Brits for this one! I love this thing. I can get hot drinks so fast, I can boil water in half the time it takes on the stove. When we were first married, Brent thought I was crazy when I went to make pasta and filled and turned on the kettle. I always boil the water in the kettle, turn on the burner on the stove, but a bit of water in the bottom of my pot (so it doesn't burn the pot) and then add the boiling water from the kettle when it is done. I can boil a pot of water in about 3 minutes. I LOVE it, and now my sweet husband does it too. Crazy, NO. Efficient, YES!




I love time savers and would love to hear anything that you might have in your arsenal that would save me some time as a mom of a busy little girl---healthy times savers. One of us has cholesterol that needs to be watched and the other wants to loose some baby weight. The sausage may have to go and bring on egg white omelets:(.