If you love an occasional sweet and gooey treat, then I’ve got just the thing for you! Check this out…Yum!! CHECK OUT OUR RECIPES PAGE FOR MORE GREAT RECIPES!!!
Want more great natural recipes??? Our “Eating Additive-Free” Natural Cookbook & Grocery Shopping Guide is available here in e-book format.
Below is an overview of a few things we’d prefer not to live without in our REAL FOODIE kitchen. What would you add to this list?? We’d love to hear your suggestions in the comment section below!!
Crock Pot/Slow Cooker – We don’t have a particular brand preference, but a slow cooker is a MUST for occasional “low maintenance” dinner preparation like our favorite Crock Pot Roasted Chicken recipe! Also…the bigger the crock pot, the better – in our opinion!
Cutco Knives – We’ve owned this set for many years, and they’ve never failed us.
Fruit & Vegetable Chopper – This link is the brand we own. It’s also the only one we’ve ever tried, but it works great! And we found it at Costco for $20 or $25! It’s also available on Amazon!
Garlic Press – We LOVE this one from Pampered Chef! There is actually a big difference in how well garlic presses work, and we’ve been disappointed with many other (expensive) name brand presses.
No-slip cutting boards/mats. These are from Sur la table, but ANY type of cutting board that is “grippy” will suffice. After all, it’s no fun (and just plain dangerous, actually) to be chasing your cutting board around as you slice and chop!
Good Cook “Safe” Can Opener – We don’t eat many canned foods…but when we do open an occasional can of tomato paste or beans, there’s NO chance we’ll injure ourselves because we threw out our regular can opener after slicing open a finger on the sharp edge of a can lid. Yikes! I’ve seen these priced as high as $20 at some stores, but if you’ve ever cut yourself in this fashion, I’m sure you can appreciate the value!
Hand Blender & Mini Processor – This is the brand we own/use (because we found it at Costco for more than $10 cheaper than other stores)! It’s the only brand we’ve ever owned, but it works GREAT! We use it to chop nuts, puree soups, and to make our favorite homemade mayo recipe!
Hand Chopper – This gadget is great for dicing veggies or nuts. We also LOVE our mini version that we use for mincing garlic!
Popcorn Popper – We love making air-popped popcorn because there’s no greasy pan to clean up! Click here for our favorite Sweet ‘n’ Salty Popcorn recipe!
Salad Spinner – This is one kitchen tool we absolutely cannot imagine living without! No more soggy salads or waiting around for lettuce leaves to dry in our house!
Vita Mix – This is an expensive machine (about $400!!), but we use it a TON! It can turn even the most stringy veggies into smooth and delicious healthful drinks with a juice-like consistency! We also LOVE making health-ier desserts (like our favorite Candy Apple Dip) with our Vita Mix, and a regular blender just doesn’t do the job! We happen to own the Vita Mix, but Blendtec is another comparable high-powered blending machine that can do all of the same things! The best prices I’ve seen (for new machines) are at Costco – they have them on demo a few times per year at our local store!
Food processors are awesome! And the bigger, the better!! 🙂 We don’t have a particular brand to recommend; but this tool comes in REALLY handy for making some of our favorite recipes, like Dairy-Free “Ice Cream”.
Tovolo Groovy Ice Pop Molds – We love that these molds can be taken individually from the mold stand with their individual covers! We use these to make (dairy-free) Homemade Chocolate Pudding Pops and other tasty treats!
The Eating Additive-Free e-book includes a 160-recipe natural cookbook and a 40-page grocery shopping guide to provide REAL FOODIES (and aspiring REAL FOODIES) with all of the recipes and information Chad and Christy Pooschke (founders of CompletelyNourished.com) discovered when they started converting to a more natural lifestyle. Click here for pricing and more details!
What would you add to this list of “must haves”?? We’d love to hear your suggestions in the comment section below!!
One of the most important components of living a “nourished” lifestyle is…to feel happy! It’s incredibly easy to allow our happiness to depend on what’s happening around us – which is a great plan…as long as everything happening around us makes us happy! 😉 Generally, though, the events that surround us are a mixture of positives and negatives. So, it’s important to find ways of focusing our attention on the things that make us feel good! Here’s one of my favorite “tricks” for keeping myself focused on the positives…
Herb Roasted Chicken Thighs & Oven Roasted Potatoes
Holidays and other social events can be a tricky part of life when you battle a bazillion food intolerances! I’m sure many of you can relate, and I’d LOVE to hear how you enjoyed this Thanksgiving – just leave a comment below. :)Typically, Chad and I go to my Mom’s house for Thanksgiving. It’s a wonderful event filled with family and friends, fellowship…and never-ending food (none of which I can eat, unfortunately). So how do we handle this holiday? I know everyone has a different solution for this apparent dilemma – and surely many of you just eat what is offered and suffer silently for it. Perhaps others of you attend the function and just skip the food? That’s what we usually do at most events and social functions…but Thanksgiving is a little more food-focused than your average function (LOL!), and we certainly don’t want to cause any awkwardness for anyone.
Apple crisp for dessert!
So, over the years, what we’ve determined works best for us is to bring our own food. This way, no one struggles to accommodate my very specific and complicated dietary needs; there’s no risk of anyone accidentally “poisoning” me (which makes them and me a bit more relaxed); and I’m not just sitting there eating the carrot sticks or a few other items that happen to be okay for me while everyone else enjoys the full courses and feels bad that I’m sitting there with nothing on my plate. I’ve included some pictures here of what Chad and I prepared and packed for our “to go” meal this Thanksgiving (click any pics to enlarge). Okay…Chad actually prepared all of it…and I packed it! LOL! Yes, you read that correctly….I didn’t cook a thing on Thanksgiving! Score!
Entrees and desserts all packed and ready to go!
Alright, so we kept things pretty “low maintenance,” and we both prefer chicken over turkey, anyway; so we feasted on Roasted Chicken Thighs and Oven Roasted Taters….umm, and those might be plain canned green beans. (Shoot us…we like them! LOL!) Oh, and some yummy gluten-free/dairy-free apple crisp for dessert! When dinner was ready to be served, we popped our grub in the microwave (which we normally don’t use…but we decided to “live on the edge” for the day. Hee, hee!) Admittedly, it wasn’t the typical Thanksgiving feast; but there’s no rule that you have to eat the same food as everyone else at the table in order to have fellowship, right? And at a glance it seemed we were partaking in the meal – it’s not like we had a bowl of spaghetti or a piece of pizza or something! 😉
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday; and if you deal with “food issues” at holidays and social functions, we’d love for you to share in the comments section below!
Completely Nourished 