Fancy cucumber slices Friday, Jan 18 2013

 

For my son’s 4th birthday party, I decided to do his favourite foods: cucumber slices, spaghetti, and bread. I wanted to dress things up a bit, so I cut the cucumbers in a fancy way. (See him trying to sneak some while I’m busy trying to take a picture of the cucumbers?!)

It’s so easy to do these! You need a sharp knife. Simply make “W” cuts all around the slices, pushing the knife half-way through the diameters of the cucumber. When you get all the way around, simply pull apart the slices and voila! So pretty. 🙂

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Making salad for a crowd! Monday, Nov 5 2012

 

 

 

While I’m showing pictures of a time my husband and I made salad for a crowd (100 people), we do this on a small scale in our home regularly as well! I love having pretty salad waiting in the fridge, ready to eat. We eat more salad this way! It’s appealing to the eyes, and the tummy. 🙂 It lasts about 4-5 days in the fridge.

We made this salad back in March, when we put together a spaghetti supper fundraiser. We had no bowl big enough to make this much lettuce (10 heads of iceburg!), so we put a clean tablecloth on the table and had fun! 😀

 

 

 

First, get all your ingredients ready. Then spread the chopped up the lettuce on a clean table (on a smaller scale, we put it in a large bowl or large ziploc bag).

Next, you spread all your other veggies. Here, we had chopped up purple cabbage, grated carrots, as well as diced peppers (green/yellow/red/orange). These veggies make the salad so appealing to the eyes, and so much more fun to eat! Yet, it’s simple veggies to chop up and add. 🙂

 

 

 

Then you mix it all up and bag it. 🙂  On a small scale at home, we fill up a large ziploc bag full of ready-made salad this way. We use whatever veggies we have on hand, which usually means some carrots and purple cabbage as a basic (adds nice colour). Other veggies we’ve added is broccoli, cauliflower, and cucumbers. You don’t want to add any tomatoes as they will make the salad soggy and it will go bad faster. Sliced cucumbers also don’t last as long, so be careful if you add those.

 

This is a great way of preparing salad for a crowd, of just for your own family at home. My husband and I often prepare the salad together. It gives us a chance to talk, while preparing enough salad to last us several days. 🙂 A huge time saver!

Check out these yummy homemade salad dressings!

Voeller Salad Dressing (our favourite!)
Catalina Salad Dressing
Rachel’s Vinaigrette
Asian Salad Dressing

 

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Kitchen Tip: Internal Bread Temperature Monday, Oct 15 2012

I have baked many hundreds of loaves of bread in my life! One thing I always hated was trying to accurately guess whether or not the bread was fully cooked. It’s very disappointing to cut open a loaf of bread you thought was cooked, but lacked a few minutes of baking! 🙂

One way that I check if the bread is baked is by knocking on the top of the loaf. If it sounds hallow, it’s probably cooked enough.

BUT, there is a way to make sure the bread truly is baked long enough! By taking the internal temperature of the bread. If the internal temperature is 170C or higher, then yes, the bread is baked enough. It’s such an easy way to know for sure! It does leave a little poke hole in the middle of the bread, but that is small and certainly doesn’t affect the taste of the bread. 🙂

Check out my 100% whole wheat bread recipe here! And my 100% spelt bread recipe here! 🙂

 

Shared at Kitchen Tip Tuesday!

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Smoothie Tips Tuesday, Oct 9 2012

I found this picture on Pinterest, from here. I wanted to share it with you, as you may find it interesting! My smoothies pretty much follow the “guidelines” from this picture, and gave me a few more ideas. 🙂

Here is what I put in my typical smoothie: 2-3 frozen bananas, handful frozen blueberries, 3-4 frozen strawberries, frozen spinach, achai berry powder, vitamin C powder, probiotic powder, and milk. Sometimes I’ll use yogurt, and/or protein powder as well.

Here are my recipes for Fruit Smoothie, Green Smoothies, Pumpkin Smoothie, and Chocolate Banana Smoothie.

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Kitchen Tip: drying ziploc bags, way #2! Tuesday, Jan 31 2012

Last week, I posted about how I dry my ziploc bags, especially when I have several to dry. My friend Julie commented that she simply sticks hers to the wall. My reaction may be similar to yours: WHAT?! I have never heard of that! Does it really work?

So when I was washing a few ziploc bags later that week, I tried it. Guess what? IT WORKS! The ziploc bag is wet from being washed, and it sticks right to the wall! I put my hand in the bag to put the outer layer against the wall. When I take my hand out, it leaves the bag open so the water can just drip out! The bags dried way faster than when I hang them upside down on a flower vase. It was awesome!

If you have a wall above your kitchen sink, or are only drying a bag or two, this is a great way! 🙂

Warning: I didn’t think about the writing on the Ziploc bag and the white stayed on the wall. It washed right off without any problem, but now I make sure to have the writing facing out.

Shared at Kitchen Tip Tuesday! Thanks, Tammy!

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