Cooking Tips – Using a Juicer

First of all, cooking has not been easy without a sink. It has been three weeks since we took out the sink, and I miss it! You might be wondering why we have not put the sink back. So am I! No, I am just kidding. I know why we have not put the sink back in yet.

First of all, it will be easier to do the backsplash if the sink is not there. The space between the faucet and the wall is not big enough to tile with the sink in place. We could put it in and then take it back out…and then put it back in. However, Douglas has already done that several times already, and that sucker is heavy!

This brings us to the second reason that we remain without a sink. Douglas has been sick. Not just sick, he has pneumonia. He feels so badly that for the first time in his professional life, he has taken a sick day… three so far. Therefore, the only one working in the kitchen in the past week has been me. There is no way that I am putting that sink in myself, no matter how much I miss it.

My main task has been cooking healthy things to get Douglas well. This has included a lot of soup. In the past week, I have made lentil/split pea, pumpkin and chicken soup. I make all my soup from scratch without a recipe. Mostly, I just throw all the ingredients in a pot of water and let it cook for a day. I love how easy it is to make a good soup.

Today, while making chicken soup, I had an epiphany. I wanted to use up all of the celery and carrots that I had in the refrigerator because I knew that they were going to start to go bad. However, I did not want to do all of the chopping. I was also afraid that it would be too much. That was when the light bulb went off. I decided to use my juicer to make carrot/celery juice for Douglas.

Veggie juice is extremely healthy for you and easy to make because I have a juicer. My mother bought me the juicer while I was in college. As with many things, I used it all the time in the beginning and then slowly stopped using it so much. One of the reasons that I did not use it was that I did not like all of the waste. There are large quantities of pulp left behind after extracting the juice. From now on, I will not be wasting that pulp! After I made the juice for Douglas, I threw the pulp in the soup – lots of vitamins and fiber for us!

Another tip I have is that every time we make chicken or turkey, I freeze the carcass. When I make chicken soup, I just throw it in the pot with all of the vegetables. The meat cooks right off of the bones, which I pick out before we eat.

t makes a tasty, easy-to-make soup.

Douglas helped wash the dishes… in the tub. Fun, fun, fun without a sink!

I hope you are healthy and well.

Happy Homemaking!