Tips For The One-Armed Cook
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If you are soon to be a one-armed cook, preparation is the key to success. Stock your kitchen now to make those early weeks at home with your new baby just a little less stressful.
1. Stock Your Pantry: Staples like pastas, grains, and pasta sauces; cans of beans, vegetables and fruit, and diced tomatoes; cartons of good quality chicken, beef, and vegetable broth; and bottles of salad dressings and marinades are the basis for great meals in minutes. Many delicious meals can make it from pantry to table in 20 minutes.
2. Stock Your Fridge: Keep bagged salads, pre-cut veggies, and assorted dairy products including grated or shredded cheeses, sour cream, yogurt, cream cheese, and milk on hand which will give your pantry meals a fresh taste and appeal. The items from the produce aisle will need to be restocked more frequently, but the dairy products are ultrapasturized and have long expiration dates.
3. Stock Your Freezer: Keep frozen chopped onions, assorted veggies and fruit, flour tortillas, piecrusts, meatballs, and chicken tenders on hand to boost flavor and nutrition at a moment's notice.
4. Stock Your Kitchen: A cordless can-opener, kitchen shears, a non-stick saut pan, rubber bottom mixing bowls, and a slow cooker are kitchen essentials. Don't be afraid to put some of these items on your baby shower wish list. A slow cooker will be a lot more useful to you in the long run than will a baby wipes warmer!
5. Double Up: When you are making a great one-dish meal or entree, make it a double batch. It takes such little time and effort to prepare a double recipe and you can freeze the second portion for a future meal. This is a great habit to get into even before the baby is born.
The real pay-off for these survival strategies is that you will ultimately spend more time with your baby and less time in the kitchen. But don't throw away the take-out menus - a new baby can unexpectedly redirect your day, thwarting the best intentions of even the most organized new parent.
Cynthia Stevens Graubart and Catherine Fliegel, RN, CCE are the authors of " The One-Armed Cook: Quick and Easy Recipes, Smart Meal Plans, and Savvy Advice for New (and not-so-new) Moms" published by Meredith Books (April 2005). Visit them online at www.theonearmedcook.com.
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