12 Kitchen Hints

Here are some kitchen tips I came across recently. Some I have used and some I have yet to try. They all looked reasonably useful. Try them when you have the need and see if they work for you.

1. Eliminate Odors from Disposal Unit - Put a lemon in unit and grind it up.
2. Get rid of fish smells - Rub butter on your hands. Rubbing toothpaste on them works as well.
3. Get rid of onion smells - Dampen hands and rub bicarbonate soda on them.
4. Keep salt free of moisture - Put uncooked rice or pieces of blotting paper in the salt shaker. They will absorb the moisture. My salt shaker has large holes and so I sewed the rice into a little netting bag.
5. Over salted the dinner? - Potato absorbs the extra salt. If possible cook it for a while with a potato or two in it.
6. Freshen stale nuts - Put them in the oven for 15 minutes at 250 degrees C.
7. Boil a cracked egg - Add a dash of vinegar to the water.
8. Be sure your boil eggs will peel easily - Keep lid on a few minutes after boiling. The pressure causes shell to fall off easily.
   
9. Make sure all the popcorn pops - Freeze it first.
10. Keep berries fresh - Don't wash until ready to use. Keep in refrigerator until ready to use.
11. Keep vegetables fresh longer - Put paper towels in the bottom of the veggie bin or containers. It will absorb moisture.
12. Keep and use over ripe bananas - Mash and freeze for making cakes and baked goods.

As far as removing smells from hands I find that toothpaste gets rid of most things.
Regarding over ripe bananas. Mine never last to try the mash and freeze as I love fried banana with my breakfast egg so they all get used that way.

I am keen to try the popcorn one. How fabulous if they all popped.

Jocelyn

Easy Snacks - Looking for Healthy Foods? Snack on These

It can be hard sometimes to find healthy snack foods. It is so easy to find cakes, sweets, cookies and the like that are ready made and delicious. The problem is they are generally filled with calories but no real food value. As much as we might sometimes crave these foods we know that they do nothing to increase our health but do plenty to increase our weight.

For really easy snacks there is always fresh fruit or a handful of nuts. These take no preparation time at all. They contribute lots of vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients. In fact they make great healthy food snacks. There are times though when that is just not the sort of food we are craving for. The question is can there be such a thing as healthy snack recipes to satisfy this type of craving?

The resounding answer is yes, delicious satisfying foods. Snack on these recipes and each one will contribute fabulous nutrients to your diet. These 20 recipes give you easy snacks that require preparation but no actual cooking.

These recipes for healthy treats and healthy snack foods use no processed sugar, flour or additives. They are based primarily on nuts, fresh fruit and dried fruit. It is amazing what delicious concoctions can be made with such simple ingredients. If you are looking for healthy foods snack on these. Not one of these free recipes could be said to have empty calories. They are all made with health giving ingredients.

For those who need a gluten free diet, 19 of the 20 recipes are gluten free. The Fridge Cookies on page 14 contain oats. All the other 19 recipes in 20 Healthy Raw Snacks and Treats are gluten free. It can be even harder for the gluten free to find easy snacks so I was especially pleased to find this resource.

Next time you crave something decadently sweet or tantalizingly delicious try Coconut Orange Chocolate Squares, Chocolate Fudge, Blueberry Slice or or one of the other healthy snack recipes found in this collection of recipes. Just click on this easy snacks link and save the pdf file to your computer.

Enjoy healthy foods. Snack without compromising your health.

Jocelyn

Aloe Vera Uses and Health Benefits

Aloe Vera has been touted as something of a miracle plant. While I don't believe that any one thing is a silver bullet guaranteeing perfect health it does seem that the aloe Vera plant has a wide range of uses and health benefits. I recently read that there are at least 500 Aloe Vera uses medicinal . Even if the number was even half that it would still be an extremely useful plant.

Some Aloe Vera Health Benefits

• Alleviates constipation, haemorrhoids, rectal itching
• Heals ulcers, IBS, and other digestive disorders
• Prevents and treats viruses, fungal and bacterial infections
• Helps to alkalize the body
• Accelerates healing of burns
• Helps skin growth
• Boosts immune system
• Stabilizes blood sugar and reduces triglycerides in diabetics
• Lowers high cholesterol
• Protects the body from oxidative stress
• Boosts the oxygenation of your blood
• Helps manage allergies and AIDS
• Eases skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis, dermatitis and acne
• Helps heal skin blemishes
• Helps stop baldness
• Eases sunburn

Aloe Vera can be used externally on the skin or taken internally. While it is a tropical plant it can be grown indoors in a small pot fairly easily. To use the raw Aloe Vera leaf break or cut a piece of the leaf off. Inside the leaf is a clear gelatinous substance. Rub this on the skin for external use. For internal use try mixing it into a smoothie. Another way to use it is mix a tablespoon of Aloe Vera gel with some water to make a juice and take before meals.

If you are not able to grow your own there are many Aloe Vera products available. Read the labels and look for products that are made with 100 percent Aloe Vera gel. The less processed and the less additives in the product the better.

Aloe Vera Resource

If you are looking for more detailed information about how to use and prepare Aloe Vera to benefit your health I would recommend 'Aloe Your Miracle Doctor' by Yulia Berry. Not only does this resource tell you all the great uses for Aloe Vera it also tells you how to grow it and prepare it for use in the many home remedies detailed. For those not likely to grow there own plants there is a chapter on commercial medicinal forms of Aloe Vera.
There are some very interesting bonus ebooks that come with 'Aloe Your Miracle Doctor'. It is available in both English and Spanish.

Enjoy good health
Jocelyn

Bruises? Treatment with Vinegar Helps

Healing Bruises With Vinegar

If you do something and you know that you will get a bruise apply vinegar to it as soon as possible. The sooner you get vinegar to it the less bruising you will get. If the bruise is already apparent applying vinegar will usually lessen the amount of bruising and disperse it more quickly.

Finger Jammed in Car Door

My mother tells a story about my aunt. Her finger had got caught in the car door as someone slammed it. She was in such pain that she could hardly alert anyone to open the door to release her. My mother immediately brought her inside and put her finger in a bowl of vinegar. I believe she had a cup of tea and kept her finger in the vinegar for about an hour.
She did have some bruising but she did not lose the finger nail as everyone expected. I had forgotten this treatment for bruises until my mother retold the story recently.

How to Apply

Putting your hand, finger or foot in a bowl of vinegar is not that difficult. If it is your arm, leg or other part of your anatomy try soaking cotton balls in vinegar and putting that on the bruised part. If it is a fairly large area soak an appropriate sized cloth in vinegar and wring it out before applying it to the affected part. Leave it soak on the bruise for up to an hour. If it seems necessary apply again later.

There are other remedies around for healing bruise but this is the only one that I have a story for. The success my aunt had with this bruises treatment makes it a good one to try as an immediate first aid treatment.

I don't think it matters what kind of vinegar you use but ordinary white distilled vinegar is usually the cheapest around. In case of needing it for immediate first aid use what ever is handy.

If you have a favorite family first aid treatment share it by leaving a comment.

Jocelyn

Recipe - Almond Sticky Date, Gluten Free

To follow yesterdays article about alternative sweeteners I thought a recipe using rapadura would be a good idea. This particular recipe is one I developed from an ordinary sticky date pudding recipe.

Why was I changing the original recipe? My family need to follow a strict gluten free diet. After much experimentation I have come up with a few things that really work well in the baked goods department. This is one of them. They will keep fresh for weeks in the refrigerator, if they don't get eaten first. In fact they get nicer with age which is a bit unusual in terms of gluten free baked goods.

Almond Sticky Date

Boil together 500 gram (17 ozs) chopped dates and 2/3 cup water.
Then add 2 1/2 teaspoons bi carbonate soda and leave for 5 minutes. Mash with a fork. (I have forgotten to mash them and it still worked)

Beat 5 eggs (6 if small) with a fork. Add 1/4 - 1/2 cup rapadura (use honey or other sweetener if desired). Adjust the amount to your taste.
Add 1/2 cup coconut oil. Mix all these together.
Stir in 2 1/2 cups (20 ozs or 250 gram) almond meal.
Stir in dates.

Spoon into muffin cases and cook in 170-180 degree C oven for 30 minutes In Fahrenheit degrees that would be about 335-350 degrees.

Notes to clarify some points

I know that doesn't seem like much water to boil the dates in but it is right. You don't need to boil them for long. Just bring them up to the boil and the water is pretty much evaporated and it is time to take them off.

I use coconut oil in nearly all my baking and love it. If you prefer you could use butter instead or whatever you normally use for shortening. I am sure it would work satisfactorily.

Experiment with the amount of sweetening you need. Dates are quite sweet in themselves. When I first made these I used half a cup now I only use a quarter of a cup.

I hope you enjoy them. They are fairly easy to make. The most time consuming part is chopping the dates and grinding the almonds to make almond meal.

Jocelyn

4 Alternate Natural Sweeteners

Refined sugar, whether it originates from cane or beet, contributes only empty calories to our diet. Sometimes, in our efforts to improve our diet and therefore our health we are looking for a natural option to sweeten our food that will add nutrients not just calories.

There are four options that I would like to briefly explore here.

1. Rapadura
2. Honey
3. Agave nectar
4. Stevia.

Rapadura

Rapadura is evaporated cane juice. In some places it is called Panela or Jaggery. If the label says it is 100% evaporated cane juice then it is the same as rapadura. It is made by extracting the juice from the sugar cane by using a press. The juice is then evaporated and dries into granules. It has a different texture from sugar as it has not been heated and spun to produce the crystals of sugar.
Rapadura still has the all the nutrients that are in the cane juice. It is metabolized more slowly than refined sugar and does not cause your blood sugar to spike. In other words it has a low glycemic index rating. For a comparison between the components of rapadura, raw sugar and refined sugar click here.
I use rapadura in much of my baking. I find it very successful in cakes and biscuits. I always reduce the quantity of sweetening of any recipe so I might use 1/4 -1/3 cup of rapadua when the recipe asks for 1 cup sugar. Others might prefer things sweeter so experiment and see what suits you.

Honey

Honey is said to be 25 to 50 percent sweeter than sugar. I can be used in all forms of cooking. I sometimes use it in some cake recipes. In large quantities it can cause a spike in blood sugar levels. Raw honey contains enzynes and other health giving substances that are damaged by heat. As raw, unheated honey is usually more expensive it is a good idea to use it only when not heating it and to use cheaper heat treated honey for cooking purposes.

Agave Nectar

Agave nectar is relatively new on the supermarket shelves. However it is made from a plant that has been used for food in Mexico for thousands of years. The agave is a large spikey succulent type plant.
When the plants are 7-10 years old the leaves are cut off, leaving the core of the plant called the pina. The sap is extracted from the pina, filtered using enzymes and heated at a low temperature (under 118F), giving the resulting agave nectar.
Agave nectar has about the same calories as sugar but is sweeter so less is used.

Stevia

Stevia is a shrub that is native to Paraguay. While the leaves of this plant can be 30 times sweeter than sugar extracts from the leaves called steviosides are said to be about 300 times sweeter than sugar. The body does not metabolize the stevia leaf or any of its extracts so there are no calories. It doesn't raise blood sugar.
Raw herbal stevia contains nearly 100 identified phytonutrients and volatile oils. Most of these will be nonexistant in the refined extracts. On the down side many stevia products leave an aftertaste.

Make Your Own Stevia Extract
If you have access to stevia leaves you can make your own extract. Combine a measured portion of stevia leaves or herval powder with pure USP grain alcohol (eg Scotch) and let sit for 24 hours. Filter and dilute to taste using pure water. Reduce the alcohol content by heating vely slowly to allow the alcohol to evaporate off.
To make a water based extract. Pour boiling water over the leaves and allow to steep, strain when ready. This will now extract as much of the sweet glycosides as the alcohol. Either extract can be cooked down and concentrated into a syrup.

Stevia can be used for any cooking where sweetening is the only use. It does not caramelize, brown or crystalize like sugar does so it is not suitable for anything that needs these properties.

If you have a favorite natural sweetener please share it with us by leaving a comment.

Be healthy
Jocelyn

Kitchen Beauty Instead of Expensive Alpha Hydroxy Acid Products

Kitchen Beauty
Again Kitchen beauty comes to the rescue. Alpha hydroxy acids are used in the cosmetics industry. They are used in products intended to reduce wrinkles, aging and to improve the look and feel of the skin. Chemical peels also use alpha hydroxy acids. Most commercial products use synthetic alpha hydroxy acid. These products are usually quite expensive.

Instead of buying expensive alpha hydroxy acid products turn to your kitchen instead.

There are several types of alpha hydroxy acids derived from various foods.

• Malic acid - apples, vinegar
• Lactic acid - Buttermilk, yoghurt, kefir, powdered skim milk, sour cream, blackberries, tomatoes.
• Tartaric Acid - Grapes, grape juice, wine, cream of tartar
• Citric acid - Citrus fruits such as lemons, limes, grapefruit, orange.
• Glycolic acid - Cane sugar

Glycolic acid and lactic acid are considered the two that are most useful in skin care because they have a smaller molecular structure which makes them more able to penetrate the skin.

How it works
The alpha hydroxy acid either in commercial products or simple ingredients from your kitchen work by loosening the glue between dead skin cells. The dead cells then fall away leaving smooth and soft skin. If you have sensitive skin test any thing new on a small patch of skin first. Be careful to keep any of these out of your eyes.

Just before I sat down to do this article I rubbed kefir into my face, neck and arms. It went into the skin really easily. It is just about time to go wash it off. You could rub a small amount of lemon juice on, leave 10 minutes and wash off. For something quick try cutting a grape or strawberry in half and rubbing it over your skin. Leave it on for a few minutes before washing off.

Other benefits from utilizing the alpha hydroxy acid from your kitchen produce

• Can help prevent clogged pores
• Enhance cell renewal through exfoliation
• Help hydrate the skin
• Increase collagen production
• Improve skin texture making it appear more radiant
  

When beauty care products are the same as the food you eat you know you are not putting dangerous chemicals on your skin.

Have fun as you find what is in your kitchen to help your skin.

Jocelyn

If you are looking for a book that has compiled loads of kitchen beauty skin care together you might like "Leon's Anti-Aging Beauty Secrets" Ebook. Plenty of recipes including alpha hydroxy facial masks. This information allows you to take advantage of the natural powers of natural ingredients without all the useless added ingredients. Click now to check out Leon's Anti-Aging Beauty Secrets!