January 30, 2025 • 27 mins
We love to talk about all kinds of kitchen tools that make life easier on the show, but this week we're digging into what I consider the most essential tools. These are the items in my kitchen that I truly couldn't live without.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, everybody. I'm Kelsey Nixon and this is Kitchen Prescription,
the podcast you listened to when you don't know what
to make for dinner. Today's episode one hundred and fifteen,
five tools I can't live without in my kitchen. It's
been a week over here. I hope your week has
been a bit more stable than mine. The good news
(00:25):
is that I spent a few days in Cabo Cabo
San Lucas in Mexico. I had the best time with
a group of friends from college. We all turned forty
this year, and it was just truly so beautiful, and
we ate such good food, and we caught up and
it was so much fun. But then something happened. I
(00:48):
went from one extreme truly. I literally saw whales breaching
in the ocean on Friday, and by Saturday after after noon,
I was home and I had come home to something
that I'd hoped i'd never come home to, and that,
my friends, is lice. I know this is a food
(01:11):
podcast and we should never ever discuss something so gross,
but I feel like I've just recently joined a club
one of solidarity, where if you haven't experienced lice, you
don't really understand just how awful. It is, and if
you have, you are willing to bear witness to anyone's
experience with it. So it was a crummy return home.
(01:34):
Re Entry has been rough. Very happy to see my kids.
Just wish I was seeing my kids without lice. January
It's going to go down January twenty twenty five in
the medical history books. For my personal family, we have
had just this month, a hairline fracture, two root canals
for my eight year old technically polpotomies but yeah to
(01:55):
eight two two Nora virus for all of us can
gots out. A terrible case of the flu for my
twelve year old son, Ali, who had a super scary
complication where he wasn't able to walk for a few days.
You may be seeing some stuff going on. It's been
posted on Instagram and TikTok of how these kids can't
(02:15):
walk after they've had Anyways, Luckily he can walk again.
He's recovered. But that was very scary, and now lice.
So we are hanging on by a thread. But we
are still hanging and we will get through it. So
here is to a healthy February. Thanks for letting me
just kind of complain a bit I'm on day two
of life, so anything could happen. Guys, all right, I
(02:38):
always like to do just a bit of an inventory
on my kitchen. We're switching gears now, and our episode
last week about building a better kitchen this year kind
of laid that out nicely. But today I'm excited to
get a bit more granular and talk about the five
tools I sincerely could not live without in my kitchen.
But before we do that, let's get into a few
rescue ideas you could potentially throw on your meal plan
(03:00):
for the week, because we all know that deciding what
to make for dinner is the hardest part of making dinner.
First up, Greek chicken couscous salad. This is for a
such a great recipe if you're wanting to meal prep
at all, meaning you can make all of the components
in advance and then pull it together for either lunches
(03:20):
or dinners. We did this at dinner in my house
because my kids really like Israeli or pearled couscouse. They
just eat that up like rice, and then I will
sometimes I'll grill the chicken. Sometimes I will just use
a rotisserie chicken. It just depends on my bandwidth for
the week. But it's a really easy recipe to deconstruct,
(03:41):
and it's fresh and light, and it's just a good
contrast to some of the other more hardy comfort foods
we've been having. And I make it set zeki sauce
to go with it. That's so yummy, and I'm excited
to have this. We haven't had it in a bit
and it just sounds so good to me. On the
flip side, on the other side of that, we have
(04:03):
Keeso chicken chili on the menu, and I am so excited.
Super Bowl Sunday is just around the corner. And if
you only make one thing for Super Bowl Sunday, let
it be this caso chicken chili. It is next level delicious.
I mean, we eat it like bowls of chili, but
you could literally make this and just dip tortilla chips
(04:26):
in it and it would be fire like, so so
so so so good. So Kiso chicken chili. It's happening.
I'm so excited. And then this next month in Recipe Club,
we are doing a lot of slow cooker recipes. We
are really going to help our members build out kind
of their slow cooker libraries when it comes to easy
(04:47):
slow cooker recipes that they can turn to. Everyone should
have like five to ten slow cooker recipes that can
just come and clutch for them. And so you are
really making an effort to offer that. Whether you are
a vegetarian, whether you're gluten free, whatever it may be,
everyone needs a couple of like dumpinster recipes. So this
is a new recipe we've just added to your Recipe
(05:07):
Club slow cooker veggie lasagna. And I gotta say it
was a bit skeptical and I was developing this recipe,
but I'd seen a couple of people talk about it
and it was actually awesome. It turned out so good,
and it was so much easier than the traditional method.
It cooked great, the leftovers were great. My kids ate
it and it was choc fol of vegetables. Don't tell
(05:29):
them it was awesome. So we're having that again. I
tested that a few weeks ago, and I'm going to
make it again. All right. There are your recipes for
the week. You can find and print them all in
Recipe Club individually or in our weekly meal plan where
we have an easy to follow a shopping list where
it's broken down by Recipe. Remember, the Recipe Club is
this resource that really allows you to access family tested,
(05:49):
quick and simple recipes on the internet without having to
be bombarded with banner ads, long blog posts, or drawn
out stories. That was the thing that was so frustrating
to me for years as I was accessing recipes online,
and so I very intentionally created a space to try
and make recipe access easier and more seamless where you
(06:12):
weren't dealing with all those pop ups. And for just
a few more days the month of January, we are
discounting our annual membership by twenty five percent for twenty
twenty five and that makes Recipe Club just barely more
than a dollar per week for the whole year. Like,
you can't afford to not have someone help you decide
what to make for dinner. It's such a good investment
(06:32):
to help you establish a simple dinner system you can
rely on, and really having kind of like a team
behind you to say that's okay, you fell off the
wagon last week, you didn't really make dinner, no problem,
here's some ideas for dinner this week. And I'm just
so proud of anyways. I love it. I couldn't live
without it. I love it so well worth that dollar
(06:54):
plus a week if you ask me. All right, let's
jump into the back half of the podcast and discuss
those five tools I truly could not live without in
my kitchen. Every time I head to the kitchen to
make a meal, I can almost guarantee that there are
certain items I'm going to reach for. These items are
(07:17):
what I would call foundational to my kitchen, and if
you took them away, I'd be lost. And I can
speak to that specifically because we'll talk about it. None
of them are super fancy. In fact, they're all pretty basic.
But I thought it would be a good idea to
go over these life savers in the kitchen and a
great time to kind of take inventory of the basics
at the beginning of the year to make sure you
(07:39):
are setting yourself up to make cooking dinner as easy
as possible for the year. So some of these are
gonna be really obvious, but I'm going to try and
provide some insight that might not be as obvious, and
we'll go from there. So first, the most foundational thing
to my kitchen is a good knife. And you know,
(08:00):
chances are if I'm cooking dinner I'm cutting something, and
owning a sharp knife that feels comfortable in your hands
can make a world of a difference. In fact, one
of my first jobs out of college and culinary school
was teaching a knife skills class at sir La Toab.
I did this for years. I loved teaching these classes
because not only do we make delicious recipes together like
(08:22):
French onion soup and chopped cob salad where where you're
just slicing and dicing a bunch of veggies, but it
was also just there was just this fun teaching element
to educating people on what was and wasn't important when
it came to owning and using a knife. So here's
my best advice. The most important thing is focus on
(08:43):
having a sharp knife that feels good in your hand
versus some super fancy, expensive brand. Taking a knife skills
is actually a great way to try a few different knives,
Like if you were to go take a class at
William Snowmer a Serla tab or you're like your local
cooking store, that way you could slice and thence with
a bunch of different knives because they do feel different
(09:05):
and it's not only the weight, but it's also the size,
Like you've heard me talk about this before, but I
have really small hands, and so a traditional like chef's knife,
like an everyday knife would be probably between eight and
ten inches at least maybe ten to twelve, like a
lot of men are probably using a twelve inch knife.
(09:25):
I like a five and a half inch knife, which
is a baby knife, like, but I love it because
I have so much control over it. So ninety percent
of what I cut is with that baby five and
a half inch Santoku knife, which means it's got the
little divots in it so that the veggies slide off
the blade very easily. I love my Woostaff knife, and
(09:45):
Woostaff definitely is a very respected, nice brand. But if
you put a dull Woostoff or Shoon or Globe knife
in front of me, a dull one, and you put
a sharp target knife in front of me, like just
target branded, I would pick the sharp knife every single time.
And I share that because I think it's so important
(10:08):
for you to know that your knives need to be sharp,
and the reason they should be sharp is a it's safer.
It seems a little counterintuitive, but a sharp knife is
a safe knife, and it's easier. It's so much easier
to slice and dice things. I'm convinced cooking goes faster,
it's more seamless, it's more enjoyable. You deserve a sharp
(10:30):
knife now if you're like, Okay, but wait, I have
one of those nice knives. I got a hankle knife
for my wedding. I got the whole set, but it
is dull. You have a couple of options. You can
take it in to one of these stores, Sirla, tab Williams,
so Noma, even your local hardware store, and you can
have them sharpen. It's usually a dollar an inch, so
(10:52):
it's gonna cost you ten bucks. Maybe do that. Or
you can buy an at home sharpener. And I used
to be really against these be because you don't want
to damage a knife, but they've gotten much better at
these Like you could use a wetstone, which is like
at the traditional way of sharpening a knife that I
learned in culinary school. But I have found an electric
sharpener that I actually really like and has been good
(11:15):
to my knives. It has not been too hard on
my knives, and so I will make sure you guys
get a link to that. Both in the Gimme five
post on my blog at Kelsey Nixon dot com and
in our email that goes out this week. But it's
a really really good product. So don't go buy a
new nice knife. If you have a crappy like Walmart knife, yes,
(11:36):
maybe invest in a nice knife. But if you've got
a good brand. This is what I think most people have.
They have a good knife that's just dull. Sharpen your knife.
It will make things better, I promise. Okay, second goes
hand in hand a cutting board. Another thing you've probably
heard me say before is I think most people are
using cutting boards that are too small. I think having
(11:59):
a nice, big cutting board with a large work surface
makes dinner easier. You want to think about how you're
gonna use it, and look, I have cutting boards multiple sizes,
but I do like having a big cutting board for
preparing dinner. It's much harder to try and cut something
on a teeny tiny little board that just slip sides around.
So there's a couple of things I look for A
(12:20):
because I don't always keep my board out. I want
my board to not be too heavy. I love like
a traditional, big, thick booze board, but honestly, for this
chapter of life where I'm cooking so much and I've
got so many things in and out of cabinets and cupboards,
I like having the thinner epicurean boards, which are made
(12:41):
of a wood composit. I love this brand. I've loved
this brand for years. They can go on the dishwasher,
although I usually just hand wash mine, and they have
little feet on them, little silicone feet so they don't
slide around. Just a great product. So get yourself a
good cutting board. Think about if it's important to you
that it can go in the washer. I think about where
you're gonna store it. I do like having a separate
(13:03):
board for fruits, veggies, everything else, and then protein, like
if I'm cutting raw meat, and for that I use
what's called the gel board. It's more like a plastic board.
I have two. I have one from Material Kitchen that
is awesome, and I have one from Oxo that is
like clear, it's got black on the sides. Anyways, it's
(13:23):
also it's also great. They're both fine, But I do
like having a separate protein board. Okay, you know where
else you're gonna find links to all of this stuff,
you guys, is in Recipe Club. There is a tap
that says my kitchen, and I go through every single
space in my kitchen, like every cupboard, every drawer, and
I have taken pictures of everything and linked it all.
(13:44):
So if you are wanting more resources like this, recipe
Club is a great place to find all of those. Okay,
we'll talked about a knife, we talked about a cutting board.
Now let's talk about my stove top setup. Obviously, I'm
doing a lot of cooking at the stove and I
have this little gold tray and it's got a couple
things on it, and I am lost when these things disappear. First,
a salt cellar or pig. Now, we talked about this
(14:07):
a couple weeks ago on here, but I updated my
salt cellar, which really was just like a small ceramic
bowl to a French salt pig. And it's just called
that because of the shape of it. It kind of looks
like a pig's nose. I guess if that's what we're
going for. But it's not pink, it doesn't have a
curly tail. It's very classic looking and I intend to
have it for a very long time. The reason I
(14:28):
got or I upgraded to the salt pig is because
it's bigger, it holds more salt, and it's really easy
to get my hand in and out of there. My
sisters had one for years. I finally caved and got one,
and I love it. I absolutely love it. The reason
you want that there is you want easy access to
good cooking salt. We are not using iodized salt anymore.
(14:49):
You are not using salt out of a shaker. You
are going to be the chef that you are in
your home and you are going to pinch salt as
you cook. It's gonna feel great, I promise I. I
am a big fan of kosher salt. I exclusively use
kosher salt except for when I'm using finishing salts for
things like freshly made bread that's been buttered and I
(15:09):
want to finish with a little gray French salt or
flaky sea salt. But for most of my cooking and
baking I use I use Morton Kosher salt. Morton and
Diamond Kosher Salt are the two big players, and I
would actually it's funny. I think more people on the
West Coast use Morton salt, and more people on the
East Coast. Use diamond seas are diamond kosher salt. They're
(15:33):
fine either way. Diamond has like more varied texture and shapes,
but don't worry about it. Just use kosher salt. What
everyone you can find fourth to go hand in hand
with my salt cellar as a spice grinder or a
pepper grinder. Cracked black pepper from a pepper grinder makes
a huge difference in everyday cooking. And same thing. You're
(15:55):
better than shaking pepper out of a little jar. Get
yourself a grinder. You are gonna love it. I get
my black peppercorns at Costco, but you can really get
them at any store. This is the element where there's
a bit of a story. And I think I mentioned
it last week on the podcast, so forgive me. But
I had a pepper grinder that I bought two or
(16:16):
three years ago that literally cost ten dollars on Amazon.
It was wood. It's pretty like the way I look.
I needed a quick solve and it was a quick
solve and it gave me three good years awesome, and
it finally broke. It fell and it broke, so I
needed a new one, and I decided to invest in
a more classic brand, So instead of spending ten dollars,
I spent forty dollars and I believe the brand is
(16:38):
Poge Peu Got. I don't speak French, forgive me. It's
so much better than my ten dollars one and well
worth the investment. So if you are looking to get
yourself a stove top setup, I recommend the salt pig
and a good quality spice grinder or pepper grinder. I
(17:00):
spend forty dollars, so it's not like I spent. You
don't need to spend tons of money, but a good
classic brand I think will go a long way. Then
the last thing are olive and avocado oil dispensers. I
use olive oil and avocado oil every single day, depends
on what I'm cooking. Like we did potstickers for lunch,
and I used avocado oil because it has a higher
(17:21):
smoke point and I was doing Asian cooking, so I
didn't need that olive undertone for flavor. But I'm probably
using olive oil most often. So I have this awesome
dispenser set from Amazon and that sits there. But the
thing I really love that sits next to it is
my oil sprayer. Not the first time you've heard me
(17:42):
talk about this either, Guys. It's a good thing that
I talk about things multiple times because it means that
I have been using them for years because they work.
This olive oil sprayer is particularly a favorite during the
winter months when I'm doing more roasted things. I have
tried a few of them. If you go cheap, sometimes
they get clogged and they're not as easy to use.
(18:05):
I have the brand that is ev Oh, and it
is like a dark green and you just put your
favorite olive oil in it. I use the Kirkland olive oil.
And you can spray vegetables evenly. You can spray breads,
you can spray. It's just a really great way to
get a nice, even coating of olive oil on whatever
it is you're cooking, to give you even crisping and browning.
(18:29):
My mom put it in my stocking a few years ago.
I had no idea I'd love it so much, and
boy do I love it. I just took it to
a Favorite Things party, like it's so great. So it
also sits there because I use Oh. The other thing
that's great for is seasoning greens. You're making a salad,
and you don't want to do a heavy dressing, but
you want to just do like some olive oil and
a lemon juice. You just spray it on the leaves
(18:50):
and it's perfect. It's perfect. All right. There you have it.
Those are five things I cannot live without. A sharp knife,
a big cutting board, a salt pig, a spice grinder,
and my oil dispensers inclusive of my sprayer. There you
have it. If you don't have them, treat yourself to it.
I promise all of those things will make dinner easier.
(19:11):
All right. Finally, let's finish with my weekly give me five,
so five things that made my life easier are more
enjoyable this week. Let's start in the kitchen. I have
had a kitchen iam, I've had my eye on for
a long time, and after attending two friends house recently
where they had them, I was like, I'm just gonna
do it. I want one of these. It is the
(19:32):
our Place griddle pan, and it looks like the size
of a sheet pan, but it's got handles and kind
of a sloped side and you can use it for
everything from baking cookies to doing sheep pan dinners. I
just love the shape. I love the shape. I love
the look. I just got it, so I haven't used
it a ton yet, but I have no doubt that
(19:52):
I'm going to like it because everyone I know that
has one rapes about it. Absolutely. It's nonstick with that
serram coding, so everything's gonna come off of it nicely.
Very excited. I got the spice color and I can't
wait to start using that in the kitchen. Okay, next you,
let's do this Valentine's Day sweater. I am wearing it today.
(20:14):
It is red, it is fun. It was also my
Christmas sweater. I am intentionally trying to buy less clothes
and buy clothes that are part of a capsule wardrobe.
I know that feels like a buzzy word, but really
just classics. So instead of buying the heart sweater at
Target that has little hearts on it that's so cute
that I will feel weird wearing after February fourteenth, I
(20:37):
bought a very nice red sweater that I can wear
over and over again and for Christmas and Valentine's Day.
And it comes from Seeszon Seyson. I love it. It's
got big buttons, makes me happy. It's cozy, it's cute,
fun color red, and it is my Valentine's Day sweater.
Now let's talk about my vacation. So I mentioned I
(20:58):
went to Cabo and I had so much fun. Last
week I shared my vacation wardrobe with you, kind of
how I was putting together that vacation capsule wardrobe. And
after being on vacation for three days, two things that
stood out for me. First of all, I had a
pair I bought a pair of sunglasses that were more
expensive than the twelve dollars sunglasses I usually wear from Amazon,
(21:21):
but still only fifty dollars, which feels like a very
reasonable amount to spend on sunglasses. And I wanted to
tell you that there's not really a difference and that
I enjoyed the Amazon twelve dollars sunglasses as much as
I the other ones, but it's that's not the case.
I loved these sunglasses. I kind of was like, uh, oh,
I might have to break up with my twelve dollars sunglasses.
(21:43):
They're so great, the style is writer and they're from Quints,
and I'm so glad I bought them, especially because I
have a few more vacations this year and I'm going
to get really good use out of them. So the
Quints Writer sunglasses huge hit. Another thing that was a
hit is the older I get, the more I am
aware of being protected by the sun, avoiding sunspots, wearing
(22:06):
more sunscreen. But I want to feel confident in a swimsuit,
meaning I would like a little color on my skin,
so I'd like a tan. So after much trial and error,
I have developed a self tanning system at home. I
laugh because that sounds so ridiculous, but basically, I have
nailed down the products I like to use for self tanning,
(22:27):
and it's perfect. It's a great system. And I actually
created a little list for you in Amazon. Because it
is a couple of products. You don't have to use
all of them. But I will very quickly tell you
I do this once a week when I'm either going
on vacation or in the summer, and once every two
weeks the rest of the year. I do in everything shower,
(22:48):
and in that everything shower I use the way we
I don't know, guys, oh you ai. You know that
fancy brand by the hairdresser of Kim Kardashian. They have
a body scrub. It smells Divine. I use that body
scrub to kind of get off any flakiness, right. I
exfoliate with it, and when I get out, I use
my favorite sunless tanning foam, which is called Bondi Sands.
(23:12):
It's got over forty I think it's close to forty
thousand reviews on Amazon. Comes with a mitt. It's the
least offensive when it comes to smelling. It looks natural.
Been using it for years. It's the best that's gonna
look like a serious tan. But if you like to
be in and out of the water on vacation, or
you live in a beach community like I do, and
(23:32):
you're in and out of the water, you don't want
that tan to fade very fast. So you got to
use the Jurgens Daily Ferming natural glow lotion every day.
So you're gonna take your shower and you're just gonna
put that on in between. It does not smell weird.
It really does help you maintain your tan for one
to two weeks so that you don't have to constantly
(23:54):
be retanning. That's that. And I have these tanning drops
that I like to put in my moisturizer for my face,
and that just gives my face a little bit of
a glow. So I put that all in one place
for you. Because lots of talk with a group of
four year old women who are like, we got to
protect our skin from the sun, and I said, we
(24:15):
all need to be some you know, sunless tanning. So
there's that. Okay, last, oh, I'm sorry to even tell
you guys this, but it's just it has consumed my mind.
The last thing I might give me five list is
a space on the internet I found called My Life's
Advice and this is what I learned. I learned so
(24:36):
I have a PhD In lice now, but this is
what I've learned about it. Everyone who's had an experience
with lice wants to tell you what they did to
get rid of it, and they are going to tell
you wildly different things, everything from soaking hair in a
yellow listreine to going to a professional. We're going to
(24:58):
spend two hundred and fifty dollars ahead everyone in your
family to have lice combed out of their hair. To
hot air from a blow dryer and flat irons, to
over the counter shampoos to like it's I cannot it's laughable.
How many suggestions I have received. I went to YouTube
(25:21):
looking for a simple video to make sure I was
pulling things out correctly, and I found this person. She's
a nurse specializes in HEADLCE and she has a site
called My Life's Advice, and it was exactly what I
was looking for. Every question I had had she has
answered in a video and she actually walked you through. Anyways.
(25:48):
This is where I would tell anybody to go because
you're gonna get so many different opinions from people. I
was ready to begin soaking my daughter's hair in olive
oil every single night for two weeks and never saying
when never I might do that. I don't know. But
really what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna stick to
the nurse with My Life's Advice, and she has made
(26:09):
a very difficult week a little easier because I trust
her information and it can be one spot I go
as I work my way through this. All right, On
that note, that's it for today. Make sure you're subscribed
to the podcast so that you never miss an episode.
This podcast is meant to be a quick twenty to
thirty minute listen while you map out your meals for
(26:29):
the week. Listening to a podcast will I personally meal
plan has always been part of my own system, so
I try to put out something that's a good fit
for that. I really appreciate you listening today. I'm so
glad you're here, and until next time, happy cooking. I'm
Kelsey and look forward to chatting next week. The Test
(27:00):
Belay
Hi, everybody. I'm Kelsey Nixon and this is Kitchen Prescription,
the podcast you listened to when you don't know what
to make for dinner. Today's episode one hundred and fifteen,
five tools I can't live without in my kitchen. It's
been a week over here. I hope your week has
been a bit more stable than mine. The good news
(00:25):
is that I spent a few days in Cabo Cabo
San Lucas in Mexico. I had the best time with
a group of friends from college. We all turned forty
this year, and it was just truly so beautiful, and
we ate such good food, and we caught up and
it was so much fun. But then something happened. I
(00:48):
went from one extreme truly. I literally saw whales breaching
in the ocean on Friday, and by Saturday after after noon,
I was home and I had come home to something
that I'd hoped i'd never come home to, and that,
my friends, is lice. I know this is a food
(01:11):
podcast and we should never ever discuss something so gross,
but I feel like I've just recently joined a club
one of solidarity, where if you haven't experienced lice, you
don't really understand just how awful. It is, and if
you have, you are willing to bear witness to anyone's
experience with it. So it was a crummy return home.
(01:34):
Re Entry has been rough. Very happy to see my kids.
Just wish I was seeing my kids without lice. January
It's going to go down January twenty twenty five in
the medical history books. For my personal family, we have
had just this month, a hairline fracture, two root canals
for my eight year old technically polpotomies but yeah to
(01:55):
eight two two Nora virus for all of us can
gots out. A terrible case of the flu for my
twelve year old son, Ali, who had a super scary
complication where he wasn't able to walk for a few days.
You may be seeing some stuff going on. It's been
posted on Instagram and TikTok of how these kids can't
(02:15):
walk after they've had Anyways, Luckily he can walk again.
He's recovered. But that was very scary, and now lice.
So we are hanging on by a thread. But we
are still hanging and we will get through it. So
here is to a healthy February. Thanks for letting me
just kind of complain a bit I'm on day two
of life, so anything could happen. Guys, all right, I
(02:38):
always like to do just a bit of an inventory
on my kitchen. We're switching gears now, and our episode
last week about building a better kitchen this year kind
of laid that out nicely. But today I'm excited to
get a bit more granular and talk about the five
tools I sincerely could not live without in my kitchen.
But before we do that, let's get into a few
rescue ideas you could potentially throw on your meal plan
(03:00):
for the week, because we all know that deciding what
to make for dinner is the hardest part of making dinner.
First up, Greek chicken couscous salad. This is for a
such a great recipe if you're wanting to meal prep
at all, meaning you can make all of the components
in advance and then pull it together for either lunches
(03:20):
or dinners. We did this at dinner in my house
because my kids really like Israeli or pearled couscouse. They
just eat that up like rice, and then I will
sometimes I'll grill the chicken. Sometimes I will just use
a rotisserie chicken. It just depends on my bandwidth for
the week. But it's a really easy recipe to deconstruct,
(03:41):
and it's fresh and light, and it's just a good
contrast to some of the other more hardy comfort foods
we've been having. And I make it set zeki sauce
to go with it. That's so yummy, and I'm excited
to have this. We haven't had it in a bit
and it just sounds so good to me. On the
flip side, on the other side of that, we have
(04:03):
Keeso chicken chili on the menu, and I am so excited.
Super Bowl Sunday is just around the corner. And if
you only make one thing for Super Bowl Sunday, let
it be this caso chicken chili. It is next level delicious.
I mean, we eat it like bowls of chili, but
you could literally make this and just dip tortilla chips
(04:26):
in it and it would be fire like, so so
so so so good. So Kiso chicken chili. It's happening.
I'm so excited. And then this next month in Recipe Club,
we are doing a lot of slow cooker recipes. We
are really going to help our members build out kind
of their slow cooker libraries when it comes to easy
(04:47):
slow cooker recipes that they can turn to. Everyone should
have like five to ten slow cooker recipes that can
just come and clutch for them. And so you are
really making an effort to offer that. Whether you are
a vegetarian, whether you're gluten free, whatever it may be,
everyone needs a couple of like dumpinster recipes. So this
is a new recipe we've just added to your Recipe
(05:07):
Club slow cooker veggie lasagna. And I gotta say it
was a bit skeptical and I was developing this recipe,
but I'd seen a couple of people talk about it
and it was actually awesome. It turned out so good,
and it was so much easier than the traditional method.
It cooked great, the leftovers were great. My kids ate
it and it was choc fol of vegetables. Don't tell
(05:29):
them it was awesome. So we're having that again. I
tested that a few weeks ago, and I'm going to
make it again. All right. There are your recipes for
the week. You can find and print them all in
Recipe Club individually or in our weekly meal plan where
we have an easy to follow a shopping list where
it's broken down by Recipe. Remember, the Recipe Club is
this resource that really allows you to access family tested,
(05:49):
quick and simple recipes on the internet without having to
be bombarded with banner ads, long blog posts, or drawn
out stories. That was the thing that was so frustrating
to me for years as I was accessing recipes online,
and so I very intentionally created a space to try
and make recipe access easier and more seamless where you
(06:12):
weren't dealing with all those pop ups. And for just
a few more days the month of January, we are
discounting our annual membership by twenty five percent for twenty
twenty five and that makes Recipe Club just barely more
than a dollar per week for the whole year. Like,
you can't afford to not have someone help you decide
what to make for dinner. It's such a good investment
(06:32):
to help you establish a simple dinner system you can
rely on, and really having kind of like a team
behind you to say that's okay, you fell off the
wagon last week, you didn't really make dinner, no problem,
here's some ideas for dinner this week. And I'm just
so proud of anyways. I love it. I couldn't live
without it. I love it so well worth that dollar
(06:54):
plus a week if you ask me. All right, let's
jump into the back half of the podcast and discuss
those five tools I truly could not live without in
my kitchen. Every time I head to the kitchen to
make a meal, I can almost guarantee that there are
certain items I'm going to reach for. These items are
(07:17):
what I would call foundational to my kitchen, and if
you took them away, I'd be lost. And I can
speak to that specifically because we'll talk about it. None
of them are super fancy. In fact, they're all pretty basic.
But I thought it would be a good idea to
go over these life savers in the kitchen and a
great time to kind of take inventory of the basics
at the beginning of the year to make sure you
(07:39):
are setting yourself up to make cooking dinner as easy
as possible for the year. So some of these are
gonna be really obvious, but I'm going to try and
provide some insight that might not be as obvious, and
we'll go from there. So first, the most foundational thing
to my kitchen is a good knife. And you know,
(08:00):
chances are if I'm cooking dinner I'm cutting something, and
owning a sharp knife that feels comfortable in your hands
can make a world of a difference. In fact, one
of my first jobs out of college and culinary school
was teaching a knife skills class at sir La Toab.
I did this for years. I loved teaching these classes
because not only do we make delicious recipes together like
(08:22):
French onion soup and chopped cob salad where where you're
just slicing and dicing a bunch of veggies, but it
was also just there was just this fun teaching element
to educating people on what was and wasn't important when
it came to owning and using a knife. So here's
my best advice. The most important thing is focus on
(08:43):
having a sharp knife that feels good in your hand
versus some super fancy, expensive brand. Taking a knife skills
is actually a great way to try a few different knives,
Like if you were to go take a class at
William Snowmer a Serla tab or you're like your local
cooking store, that way you could slice and thence with
a bunch of different knives because they do feel different
(09:05):
and it's not only the weight, but it's also the size,
Like you've heard me talk about this before, but I
have really small hands, and so a traditional like chef's knife,
like an everyday knife would be probably between eight and
ten inches at least maybe ten to twelve, like a
lot of men are probably using a twelve inch knife.
(09:25):
I like a five and a half inch knife, which
is a baby knife, like, but I love it because
I have so much control over it. So ninety percent
of what I cut is with that baby five and
a half inch Santoku knife, which means it's got the
little divots in it so that the veggies slide off
the blade very easily. I love my Woostaff knife, and
(09:45):
Woostaff definitely is a very respected, nice brand. But if
you put a dull Woostoff or Shoon or Globe knife
in front of me, a dull one, and you put
a sharp target knife in front of me, like just
target branded, I would pick the sharp knife every single time.
And I share that because I think it's so important
(10:08):
for you to know that your knives need to be sharp,
and the reason they should be sharp is a it's safer.
It seems a little counterintuitive, but a sharp knife is
a safe knife, and it's easier. It's so much easier
to slice and dice things. I'm convinced cooking goes faster,
it's more seamless, it's more enjoyable. You deserve a sharp
(10:30):
knife now if you're like, Okay, but wait, I have
one of those nice knives. I got a hankle knife
for my wedding. I got the whole set, but it
is dull. You have a couple of options. You can
take it in to one of these stores, Sirla, tab Williams,
so Noma, even your local hardware store, and you can
have them sharpen. It's usually a dollar an inch, so
(10:52):
it's gonna cost you ten bucks. Maybe do that. Or
you can buy an at home sharpener. And I used
to be really against these be because you don't want
to damage a knife, but they've gotten much better at
these Like you could use a wetstone, which is like
at the traditional way of sharpening a knife that I
learned in culinary school. But I have found an electric
sharpener that I actually really like and has been good
(11:15):
to my knives. It has not been too hard on
my knives, and so I will make sure you guys
get a link to that. Both in the Gimme five
post on my blog at Kelsey Nixon dot com and
in our email that goes out this week. But it's
a really really good product. So don't go buy a
new nice knife. If you have a crappy like Walmart knife, yes,
(11:36):
maybe invest in a nice knife. But if you've got
a good brand. This is what I think most people have.
They have a good knife that's just dull. Sharpen your knife.
It will make things better, I promise. Okay, second goes
hand in hand a cutting board. Another thing you've probably
heard me say before is I think most people are
using cutting boards that are too small. I think having
(11:59):
a nice, big cutting board with a large work surface
makes dinner easier. You want to think about how you're
gonna use it, and look, I have cutting boards multiple sizes,
but I do like having a big cutting board for
preparing dinner. It's much harder to try and cut something
on a teeny tiny little board that just slip sides around.
So there's a couple of things I look for A
(12:20):
because I don't always keep my board out. I want
my board to not be too heavy. I love like
a traditional, big, thick booze board, but honestly, for this
chapter of life where I'm cooking so much and I've
got so many things in and out of cabinets and cupboards,
I like having the thinner epicurean boards, which are made
(12:41):
of a wood composit. I love this brand. I've loved
this brand for years. They can go on the dishwasher,
although I usually just hand wash mine, and they have
little feet on them, little silicone feet so they don't
slide around. Just a great product. So get yourself a
good cutting board. Think about if it's important to you
that it can go in the washer. I think about where
you're gonna store it. I do like having a separate
(13:03):
board for fruits, veggies, everything else, and then protein, like
if I'm cutting raw meat, and for that I use
what's called the gel board. It's more like a plastic board.
I have two. I have one from Material Kitchen that
is awesome, and I have one from Oxo that is
like clear, it's got black on the sides. Anyways, it's
(13:23):
also it's also great. They're both fine, But I do
like having a separate protein board. Okay, you know where
else you're gonna find links to all of this stuff,
you guys, is in Recipe Club. There is a tap
that says my kitchen, and I go through every single
space in my kitchen, like every cupboard, every drawer, and
I have taken pictures of everything and linked it all.
(13:44):
So if you are wanting more resources like this, recipe
Club is a great place to find all of those. Okay,
we'll talked about a knife, we talked about a cutting board.
Now let's talk about my stove top setup. Obviously, I'm
doing a lot of cooking at the stove and I
have this little gold tray and it's got a couple
things on it, and I am lost when these things disappear. First,
a salt cellar or pig. Now, we talked about this
(14:07):
a couple weeks ago on here, but I updated my
salt cellar, which really was just like a small ceramic
bowl to a French salt pig. And it's just called
that because of the shape of it. It kind of looks
like a pig's nose. I guess if that's what we're
going for. But it's not pink, it doesn't have a
curly tail. It's very classic looking and I intend to
have it for a very long time. The reason I
(14:28):
got or I upgraded to the salt pig is because
it's bigger, it holds more salt, and it's really easy
to get my hand in and out of there. My
sisters had one for years. I finally caved and got one,
and I love it. I absolutely love it. The reason
you want that there is you want easy access to
good cooking salt. We are not using iodized salt anymore.
(14:49):
You are not using salt out of a shaker. You
are going to be the chef that you are in
your home and you are going to pinch salt as
you cook. It's gonna feel great, I promise I. I
am a big fan of kosher salt. I exclusively use
kosher salt except for when I'm using finishing salts for
things like freshly made bread that's been buttered and I
(15:09):
want to finish with a little gray French salt or
flaky sea salt. But for most of my cooking and
baking I use I use Morton Kosher salt. Morton and
Diamond Kosher Salt are the two big players, and I
would actually it's funny. I think more people on the
West Coast use Morton salt, and more people on the
East Coast. Use diamond seas are diamond kosher salt. They're
(15:33):
fine either way. Diamond has like more varied texture and shapes,
but don't worry about it. Just use kosher salt. What
everyone you can find fourth to go hand in hand
with my salt cellar as a spice grinder or a
pepper grinder. Cracked black pepper from a pepper grinder makes
a huge difference in everyday cooking. And same thing. You're
(15:55):
better than shaking pepper out of a little jar. Get
yourself a grinder. You are gonna love it. I get
my black peppercorns at Costco, but you can really get
them at any store. This is the element where there's
a bit of a story. And I think I mentioned
it last week on the podcast, so forgive me. But
I had a pepper grinder that I bought two or
(16:16):
three years ago that literally cost ten dollars on Amazon.
It was wood. It's pretty like the way I look.
I needed a quick solve and it was a quick
solve and it gave me three good years awesome, and
it finally broke. It fell and it broke, so I
needed a new one, and I decided to invest in
a more classic brand, So instead of spending ten dollars,
I spent forty dollars and I believe the brand is
(16:38):
Poge Peu Got. I don't speak French, forgive me. It's
so much better than my ten dollars one and well
worth the investment. So if you are looking to get
yourself a stove top setup, I recommend the salt pig
and a good quality spice grinder or pepper grinder. I
(17:00):
spend forty dollars, so it's not like I spent. You
don't need to spend tons of money, but a good
classic brand I think will go a long way. Then
the last thing are olive and avocado oil dispensers. I
use olive oil and avocado oil every single day, depends
on what I'm cooking. Like we did potstickers for lunch,
and I used avocado oil because it has a higher
(17:21):
smoke point and I was doing Asian cooking, so I
didn't need that olive undertone for flavor. But I'm probably
using olive oil most often. So I have this awesome
dispenser set from Amazon and that sits there. But the
thing I really love that sits next to it is
my oil sprayer. Not the first time you've heard me
(17:42):
talk about this either, Guys. It's a good thing that
I talk about things multiple times because it means that
I have been using them for years because they work.
This olive oil sprayer is particularly a favorite during the
winter months when I'm doing more roasted things. I have
tried a few of them. If you go cheap, sometimes
they get clogged and they're not as easy to use.
(18:05):
I have the brand that is ev Oh, and it
is like a dark green and you just put your
favorite olive oil in it. I use the Kirkland olive oil.
And you can spray vegetables evenly. You can spray breads,
you can spray. It's just a really great way to
get a nice, even coating of olive oil on whatever
it is you're cooking, to give you even crisping and browning.
(18:29):
My mom put it in my stocking a few years ago.
I had no idea I'd love it so much, and
boy do I love it. I just took it to
a Favorite Things party, like it's so great. So it
also sits there because I use Oh. The other thing
that's great for is seasoning greens. You're making a salad,
and you don't want to do a heavy dressing, but
you want to just do like some olive oil and
a lemon juice. You just spray it on the leaves
(18:50):
and it's perfect. It's perfect. All right. There you have it.
Those are five things I cannot live without. A sharp knife,
a big cutting board, a salt pig, a spice grinder,
and my oil dispensers inclusive of my sprayer. There you
have it. If you don't have them, treat yourself to it.
I promise all of those things will make dinner easier.
(19:11):
All right. Finally, let's finish with my weekly give me five,
so five things that made my life easier are more
enjoyable this week. Let's start in the kitchen. I have
had a kitchen iam, I've had my eye on for
a long time, and after attending two friends house recently
where they had them, I was like, I'm just gonna
do it. I want one of these. It is the
(19:32):
our Place griddle pan, and it looks like the size
of a sheet pan, but it's got handles and kind
of a sloped side and you can use it for
everything from baking cookies to doing sheep pan dinners. I
just love the shape. I love the shape. I love
the look. I just got it, so I haven't used
it a ton yet, but I have no doubt that
(19:52):
I'm going to like it because everyone I know that
has one rapes about it. Absolutely. It's nonstick with that
serram coding, so everything's gonna come off of it nicely.
Very excited. I got the spice color and I can't
wait to start using that in the kitchen. Okay, next you,
let's do this Valentine's Day sweater. I am wearing it today.
(20:14):
It is red, it is fun. It was also my
Christmas sweater. I am intentionally trying to buy less clothes
and buy clothes that are part of a capsule wardrobe.
I know that feels like a buzzy word, but really
just classics. So instead of buying the heart sweater at
Target that has little hearts on it that's so cute
that I will feel weird wearing after February fourteenth, I
(20:37):
bought a very nice red sweater that I can wear
over and over again and for Christmas and Valentine's Day.
And it comes from Seeszon Seyson. I love it. It's
got big buttons, makes me happy. It's cozy, it's cute,
fun color red, and it is my Valentine's Day sweater.
Now let's talk about my vacation. So I mentioned I
(20:58):
went to Cabo and I had so much fun. Last
week I shared my vacation wardrobe with you, kind of
how I was putting together that vacation capsule wardrobe. And
after being on vacation for three days, two things that
stood out for me. First of all, I had a
pair I bought a pair of sunglasses that were more
expensive than the twelve dollars sunglasses I usually wear from Amazon,
(21:21):
but still only fifty dollars, which feels like a very
reasonable amount to spend on sunglasses. And I wanted to
tell you that there's not really a difference and that
I enjoyed the Amazon twelve dollars sunglasses as much as
I the other ones, but it's that's not the case.
I loved these sunglasses. I kind of was like, uh, oh,
I might have to break up with my twelve dollars sunglasses.
(21:43):
They're so great, the style is writer and they're from Quints,
and I'm so glad I bought them, especially because I
have a few more vacations this year and I'm going
to get really good use out of them. So the
Quints Writer sunglasses huge hit. Another thing that was a
hit is the older I get, the more I am
aware of being protected by the sun, avoiding sunspots, wearing
(22:06):
more sunscreen. But I want to feel confident in a swimsuit,
meaning I would like a little color on my skin,
so I'd like a tan. So after much trial and error,
I have developed a self tanning system at home. I
laugh because that sounds so ridiculous, but basically, I have
nailed down the products I like to use for self tanning,
(22:27):
and it's perfect. It's a great system. And I actually
created a little list for you in Amazon. Because it
is a couple of products. You don't have to use
all of them. But I will very quickly tell you
I do this once a week when I'm either going
on vacation or in the summer, and once every two
weeks the rest of the year. I do in everything shower,
(22:48):
and in that everything shower I use the way we
I don't know, guys, oh you ai. You know that
fancy brand by the hairdresser of Kim Kardashian. They have
a body scrub. It smells Divine. I use that body
scrub to kind of get off any flakiness, right. I
exfoliate with it, and when I get out, I use
my favorite sunless tanning foam, which is called Bondi Sands.
(23:12):
It's got over forty I think it's close to forty
thousand reviews on Amazon. Comes with a mitt. It's the
least offensive when it comes to smelling. It looks natural.
Been using it for years. It's the best that's gonna
look like a serious tan. But if you like to
be in and out of the water on vacation, or
you live in a beach community like I do, and
(23:32):
you're in and out of the water, you don't want
that tan to fade very fast. So you got to
use the Jurgens Daily Ferming natural glow lotion every day.
So you're gonna take your shower and you're just gonna
put that on in between. It does not smell weird.
It really does help you maintain your tan for one
to two weeks so that you don't have to constantly
(23:54):
be retanning. That's that. And I have these tanning drops
that I like to put in my moisturizer for my face,
and that just gives my face a little bit of
a glow. So I put that all in one place
for you. Because lots of talk with a group of
four year old women who are like, we got to
protect our skin from the sun, and I said, we
(24:15):
all need to be some you know, sunless tanning. So
there's that. Okay, last, oh, I'm sorry to even tell
you guys this, but it's just it has consumed my mind.
The last thing I might give me five list is
a space on the internet I found called My Life's
Advice and this is what I learned. I learned so
(24:36):
I have a PhD In lice now, but this is
what I've learned about it. Everyone who's had an experience
with lice wants to tell you what they did to
get rid of it, and they are going to tell
you wildly different things, everything from soaking hair in a
yellow listreine to going to a professional. We're going to
(24:58):
spend two hundred and fifty dollars ahead everyone in your
family to have lice combed out of their hair. To
hot air from a blow dryer and flat irons, to
over the counter shampoos to like it's I cannot it's laughable.
How many suggestions I have received. I went to YouTube
(25:21):
looking for a simple video to make sure I was
pulling things out correctly, and I found this person. She's
a nurse specializes in HEADLCE and she has a site
called My Life's Advice, and it was exactly what I
was looking for. Every question I had had she has
answered in a video and she actually walked you through. Anyways.
(25:48):
This is where I would tell anybody to go because
you're gonna get so many different opinions from people. I
was ready to begin soaking my daughter's hair in olive
oil every single night for two weeks and never saying
when never I might do that. I don't know. But
really what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna stick to
the nurse with My Life's Advice, and she has made
(26:09):
a very difficult week a little easier because I trust
her information and it can be one spot I go
as I work my way through this. All right, On
that note, that's it for today. Make sure you're subscribed
to the podcast so that you never miss an episode.
This podcast is meant to be a quick twenty to
thirty minute listen while you map out your meals for
(26:29):
the week. Listening to a podcast will I personally meal
plan has always been part of my own system, so
I try to put out something that's a good fit
for that. I really appreciate you listening today. I'm so
glad you're here, and until next time, happy cooking. I'm
Kelsey and look forward to chatting next week. The Test
(27:00):
Belay
Host
Kelsey Nixon
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