Do you have a crock pot? Do you love your crock pot? Have you ever used your crock pot for cooking oatmeal? i.e. the regular long-cooking kind, such as regular rolled oats (not quick oats or instant oats) or steel cut oats?
I never even considered that over all these years. Don’t know why it just never dawned on me.
What finally led me to it was while exploring other uses for my high-priced rice cooker (trying to justify it as more than a do-on-thing appliance, lol). In doing research for using the Porridge setting on the rice cooker, I happened to come across several mentions on the internet of using a crock pot for cooking oatmeal.
You might have to experiment with proportions and timing, but once you come up with what works for you, it would seem like a good way to fix no-fuss/no-watch oatmeal.
On my rice cooker, I can set up everything the night before and program it for the time I want the oatmeal to be finished in the morning. Maybe newer crock pots have similar capabilities now, too. I hate to tell you how VERY OLD my crock pot is, lol.
Let’s fight cancer together. Purchase the pattern for Thinking of You Too Hat at Ravelry with coupon code FIGHTCANCER and get $1 off through October 31, 2014. I also contribute $1 to the American Cancer Society.
Thinking of You Too Hat in the cancer awareness edition
As you knit this hat, be mindful of how Thinking of You Too reinforces the message that the bonds of loving friendship (interlocking hearts) will prevail in the face of the twists and turns of life (wavy eyelet ribbing).
Thinking of You Too incorporates symbolic elements similar to those in the Thinking of You Scarf I designed in 2006 and is still a favorite of knitters.
Whether making the hat and scarf as a coordinating set, or making just the hat by itself, you can let someone know they are special.
Save a Life (maybe your own)
Remember your breast cancer screenings. And remind the women in your life that regular screenings can help find and treat breast cancer sooner – and even save a life.
There are also things you can do to help lower your risk. Studies have consistently shown that active women are 25% less likely to develop breast cancer. Adding a brisk morning or after-dinner walk to your routine is easy. You can literally take steps to help lower your risk of developing breast cancer every day. Getting to and staying at a healthy weight and limiting your alcohol intake to one drink a day can help, too.
For a while now, there has been a heated debate about sustainability – can we really preserve mother nature and tackle global warming by changing our eating habits. Most dispiritingly, Harvard scientists told us that we can eat less than an egg a week to save the planet.
Now, this seems like a very tough price to pay, and especially when managing our food intake in the grams is a challenge in itself and definitely something to consider when you have the free time – but who does?
With this being said, it’s also important to note that sticking to the ‘Plate the Planet’ diet, you will also be saving 11 million lives a year – this is no joke. We can change our dietary habits and completely revolutionize how we interact and affect the environment.
The Success of Eco-friendly Diet
For this to be successful, though, countries need to be economically strong. You see, a country where people are considered poor won’t be able to cherry-pick what they eat. In most cases, they will just eat because that’s pretty much what they have.
But the truth is, things never have to be all about us eating specific foods. Smaller countries that have plenty of arable lands and know how to farm and use it will definitely be at an advantage. After all, a small population and plenty of lands would allow pretty much any country to farm the land and produced a well-balanced diet of meat, vegetables, dairy and more.
You see, there is no issue there. Yet, to enforce this, people need to also give up on some fruit and vegetables, as well as import meat. If salmon isn’t caught readily in your waters, you might want to avoid it, because it has been overfished.
If an avocado isn’t something grown in your region – which it most likely won’t be, then eating one avocado every two weeks might be your absolute maximum you want to do. Other than that, you will want to remind yourself that some food is more readily available to your country.
For example, dairy products are generally bad for the environment, but if you live in a low-populated country with big land, then a diary may not be an issue. On the flipside, in places like the United States, people are consuming too much meat and dairy as this is a staple – the burger is the stuff of life, Americans would say.
Yet, everyone should adjust their diet to the environment’s needs, but more importantly – to what food is available locally. Some food would still need to be shipped of course, but creating a less ‘globalized food industry’ would mean that people wouldn’t have as much of an impact on the environment.
Even an overweight 90 kilos man probably needs just about 2,000 – 2,500 good calories a day, or less, and this is less than one kilogram of food a day. It’s really no biggie and as long as you watch out and use good calories in your diet, things should be okay.
You can further help the environment by cutting out all unnecessary purchases, such as snacks, sauces – which are some of the worst things you can eat in the first place – and others.
Helping the Environment Through One’s Work
Believe it or not, you can be helping even now. Need to hop out of the house for five minutes? Perhaps you needn’t take a car after all? Many locksmith experts, for instance, prefer to ride a bike to the place where they have to do a job – simple as that. When you book a service with an established company such as 247locksmithsnearme.com, the experts will usually arrive on the back of a bike, as long as it doesn’t take them too long of course.
Sometimes cars are an absolute necessity, but the truth is, you can still manage your car time well. Some people would have to burn through $2,000 of gas while other people could last on $300 for the entire year. The key is to always keep yourself active. Some people just don’t mind hopping out of the house on a bike, as it’s much cheaper and when considering the awful traffic, it could be equally handy.
Nobody really wants to harm the environment. When we do, we do so out not of malice – but rather convenience. We don’t have time to examine under the microscope or consider what we do to the environment with our cars. After all, we have responsibilities and we have to make ends meet. As long as we are consciously doing our best, that’s fine.
Becoming a perfect Masterchef is not impossible, yet it takes a long time before you are able to use ingredients and mix them in a correct way. You have to know what each ingredient at your disposal contains in terms of nutritional properties. For instance, fish contains a high amount of omega-3 minerals and other important nutrients which you can use to build the perfect healthy meal.
If you are new to the culinary universe then you are more than welcome on board! You are about to discover the importance of eating healthy food and the joy of preparing it in a quick and enjoyable way… yeah, preparing food is, after all, like playing a game!
Look Younger, Lose Weight And Eat Tasty Food… All At Once!
Do you believe that you can eat the best food while losing weight and becoming more beautiful? Well, it’s not a dream or a joke! It’s what you can actually do in your kitchen, every day when preparing your meals.
First of all, let’s talk a little about rice. We all know that rice is an important element of our everyday diet, it’s almost always recommended by doctors to patients who have to lose weight. Rice gives you a sensation of satiety but without the high volume of carbohydrates or fats like other seeds and grains. Rice doesn’t contain any fat or any sugar, which is what makes it the perfect basic ingredient for your meals.
Moreover, rice is proven to make your skin softer and healthier thanks to vitamins such as B1, B2, B3, B9, and thanks to minerals like potassium, calcium, zinc, and others. So, what are waiting for more?
Now we get to the part where we get to learn how to prepare excellent rice-based recipes.
Easy And Tasty Everyday Rice-Based Recipes
We’ve come up with a bunch of easy and very good recipes that are rice-based and quick to prepare even for a first-time young cook. As you can see, you can mix ingredients matching your personal tastes if you want as rice lends itself well to creating new variants from popular recipes.
Tuna fried rice –
Use sesame oil to heat a wok, then add some onion and soften. At this point, you can add mushrooms and garlic or any other ingredients that you like. Finally, add cooked rice and mix all the ingredients in the wok. Add tuna in slices (or you can also put some salmon instead of tuna) and serve.
An average serving of this recipe gives you about 370 calories, 27 g proteins, 4,8 total fats, and 50 g carbohydrates.
Italian tuna pilaf – Italy is one of the main places in Europe where rice is produced, so expect to find numerous rice-based recipes in the Italian culinary tradition. One of the tastier recipes is tuna pilaf. Heat some oil of olive in an oven pot or fry pan with some onion until it softens. Add rice and some optional spices (herbs or garlic) together with small slides of tomatoes, small portions of broccoli. If needed, add also some water and stir to mix all the ingredients. Now, place in preheated oven to 180°C for 20-to-30 minutes. Stir a couple of times during oven cooking, then take out and serve.
A serving contains about 480 calories, 41g proteins, 11 g total fats, 50 g carbohydrates.
Spring pea risotto –
Another Italian recipe to keep in good shape and lose weight in a fancy way. Use arborio rice to have a low-fat dish of this recipe. Place a few small tiny slides of butter in a frypan, add rice and some onion, garlic and small cubes of ham. Stir the ingredients overcooking (you can add optional spices if you like) and add water as the rice absorbs it all. Add frozen peas and stir until rice is cooked. Then, serve each dish topped with some parmesan.
An average portion results to give you no more than about 300 calories, 14/15 g proteins, 10 g total fats, and 29 g carbohydrates. As you can see, this is a very low-fat recipe.
Oriental rice-based recipes are also very good for weight loss while eating excellent dishes. However, you might find it difficult to find oriental ingredients if you don’t have a specialized store near your place of residence.
You can also go to Chinese, Korean or Japanese restaurants to try Asiatic rice-based dishes. If you go by car, make sure not to lose your car key – which happens to many people when going out for a meal. Experienced car locksmiths suggest to use a heavy keychain for your car key, so you are more likely to notice your car key if it falls somewhere. Another thing you can do is add a key finder to that same keychain, this way you can use your phone to locate it.
Anyway, if you still can’t find it anywhere, call a car locksmith service by Locksmiths Pros to have your car key replaced in less than 25 minutes. Locksmiths Pros locksmiths are nationwide service providers who specialize in all types of car locksmith problems and have the knowledge to assist you in a short amount of time.
Don’t let a small thing such as lost car keys discourage you from moving forward with your diet. Use the recipes we provided you and find new ones or even make up your own!
There’s a nice saying from the Dalai Lama which goes like this: “approach love and cooking with equal abandon”. That’s a very good tip, indeed. Cooking and love are actually connected to the same idea of pleasure, satisfaction, and happiness. But spending a lot of time in the kitchen might also mean to face big dangers, due to the use of knives and ovens… here’s how a pleasant and nice activity like cooking becomes a nightmare for the rest of the body!
Don’t Be Scared! Learn To Avoid The Dangers!
If you are a housewife on your first attempts in the kitchen, don’t be scared of using the sharpest knives or of facing hot ovens… we’re going to suggest you the best ways to avoid the most common kitchen dangers.
In fact, although the kitchen is known to be the most dangerous room in a house, everyone can become a talented cook, just keep in mind what are the strongest and weakest points of your own kitchen.
10 Tips For Kitchen Safety
Never play with fire and if you have small children around you while cooking, make sure that they don’t play with the fire as well. If you can, turn off the stove and keep all sharp items out of your children’s reach.
While boiling or roasting food, always stay near in and keep control over the cooking process. This is a golden rule not only for making sure that everything is going the right way with your tasty recipes, but also to avoid children or other people from getting burnt by accident.
You should always keep all possible items that can catch fire (for instance, wooden tools, paper or plastic boxes or others) away from your stovetop. Even a 1-second distraction can cause a disaster. It’s been calculated that most home fires happen in the kitchen.
If you have pets, make sure that they won’t follow you to the kitchen. Their hair can be seriously at risk as it’s fire-catching. Moreover, pets may prevent you from reaching the table or any kitchen appliances if they keep laying or walking around you all the time.
It’s important that you wear close-fitting sleeves when cooking, so you won’t risk getting your sleeves burnt when you are handling pans and you will also avoid knocking things accidentally (for example, you may knock a bottle of oil or of hot food).
A kitchen is full of objects and cooking equipment made of metal. Keep in mind that metal things can heat very quickly. So, always use oven mitts and make sure to buy new ones when the old mitts have holes or they got too thin to be used. Many people use a wet towel in the place of an oven mitt, that’s not always a smart solution, because when you less expect it the towel begins to burn, as well.
Fried dishes are delicious, but be careful when handling pans with boiling oil or frying foods. Even the smallest drop of frying oil may cause serious problems, like skin burns. Anyway, a good rule is to keep all liquids away from hot oil, otherwise, the oil will splatter out of control.
Often time, we all have tended to postpone cleaning the kitchen after the meal. However, if during the cooking a spill ended up on the floor, it’s recommended to clean it up immediately.
Always keep your kitchen decluttered and clean. Clutter prevents you from finding the specific cooking tool you are looking for, which might cause your food to get burnt in the meanwhile. Moreover, clutter makes confusion in your mind and you may forget sharp tools at an easy reach for your children.
Keep your knives always off the reach of children. You’d better keep them in a safe place or in a specific box. Make sure to have a cutting board to use knives (don’t cut foods on the surface of your table). When handling knives for usage, keep your fingers always on the top of the blade, so in case the knife slips from your hand you won’t get injured.
If after following all the above tips you still get yourself into a kitchen emergency – you get locked outside your house when the stove is on or you can’t open your kitchen door to get to the rest of your house – you can call 247 ASAP Locksmith, an excellent emergency locksmith company in the US. If it’s not an emergency where you need to call the fire department and you have time, a locksmith can get you into your house quickly and for an affordable price and allow you to save your home.
Related Images:
Behind the scenes with Jackie E-S and life at the HeartStrings FiberArts studio.
