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Month: February 2021

Top 10 Time-Savers in the Kitchen

Toronto Holistic Nutritionist Laurie McPhail Top 10 Time-savers in the Kitchen“But I don’t have time to cook.”  I hear this pretty much every time I suggest to my clients that preparing their own food is one of the most powerful things they can do to improve their health.  It doesn’t have to be all or nothing though.  Because it is hard to find the time to cook from scratch every morsel you put in your mouth.  But there are strategies and shortcuts you can employ to increase the proportion of home-cooked food you eat.  And, by doing so, take control over your plate, palate and portion size for prime health.

I have sprinkled many of these tips throughout previous posts.  But I figured it was high time to gather them in one place.  So, without taking up any more of your time, here are my top 10 time-savers in the kitchen.

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A Flash in One Pan Dinners

Toronto Holistic Nutritionist Laurie McPhail A Flash in One Pan DinnersFebruary is upon us.  The groundhogs all agree that we are in for an early spring.  This is something to be grateful for.  And that is the focus for the February page of my 12 Healthy Habits Calendar.  A good way to bid farewell to the February Blahs is to focus each day on a few things that went well in your day.  And then reflect on what these tell you about your world.

One thing I am grateful for each day is being able to whip up a tasty and healthy dinner with a minimum of fuss or cleanup.  I am always on the lookout for quick one pan, one pot or tray bake style dinners.  Dinners like the Sausage & Apple Tray Bake from January’s Dishing it Up post, for example.  They are a cinch to assemble, generally quick to cook and super fast to clean up!

Of the three dinners here, the first requires a large tray and the other two need pots with tight-fitting lids.  For the Lemon Turkey Quinoa Skillet, I like to use my wide but deep Le Creuset 3.6L Sauté Pan, as the broader base and domed lid works well when adding a lot of leafy greens (in fact, I use this pan almost daily, it is so versatile).  Tight-fitting lids are important as these last two recipes feature quinoa.  I love quinoa for quick dinners as it is high in fibre like a whole grain but cooks in only fifteen minutes or so.

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