Mise en place = smart cooking!

Have you heard the saying 'mise en place'? It's a fancy french phrase that literally means "putting in place". Really it's a phrase used by chefs that refers to prepping & organizing their ingredients and cook stations prior to their shift - preparing cuts of meat, sauces, spices, chopped veggies - and having them all at the ready when orders begin rolling in.

However, this five dollar french phrase isn't just for professional chefs - you can have a mise en place, too! It's basic planning that will help make preparing any meal - for 2 or for 20 - much smoother. Most recipes have time constraints so any advanced preparation will allow you to cook without stopping. Personally I can't tell you how many times I've made sure I had all the ingredients, began cooking only to realize that I needed the two onions to be finely diced or the fresh Parmesan to be grated - those things take quite a bit of time and put the brakes on all the rest of the cooking.

Here are some quick steps for creating your own mise en place:

• Read your recipe. Sounds simple right? A surprising number of cooks don't read the complete recipe prior to starting to cook. A quick 45 second review will help you make sure you have all the proper ingredients and tools. And you'll know if you need to grate that fresh Parmesan or not!


• Prepare all ingredients. If you spend 15 minutes slicing, dicing and grating prior to starting you reduce the risk of burning the chicken while you're dicing the tomatoes, over cooking the pasta while you're grating the Parmesan and serving cold meals because you're finishing up part while the rest is sitting on the plate.
  Oh ... and there are all sorts of cute prep bowls you can for your mise to make your cooking a little more festive. But as you know - any old bowl will work!


• Pull out all tools. It's helpful to have the mixer, food processor, soaked wooden skewers, etc. at the ready when you're in the midst of cooking. It will help streamline your cooking and prevent you from digging in the cabinets looking for misplaced, seldom used gadgets or assembling anything.


• Keep yourself organized. Keep all your ingredients within reach of the stove or counter where you're cooking so you can see them and quickly access them. This will help keep you focused when all the other uncontrollable interruptions happen - soccer balls coming into the kitchen, phone ringing, child crying, etc.

So go ahead, get your kitchen set up with a mise en place and start cooking like a pro. Even for simple recipes a teensy bit of preparation will make the meal better and, likely, the experience more enjoyable.

Knife Sharpening Tips

The secret to taking care of your cutlery is simple: keep your knives sharp! How often should you sharpen your knives? How in the world do you sharpen a knife, anyway? Here are a few simple steps to help you.

How to determine IF you need to sharpen: Look at the edge.

Get under a bright light and hold up the edge. You’ll see reflections on flat spots and nicks. If this is so, it’s time to start sharpening.

The most common home sharpening methods are using sharpening steel and using a commercial knife sharpener.

Using Sharpening Steel:
Step 1: Hold the steel - a metal rod designed for sharpening knives - in one hand.
Step 2: With the other hand, hold the knife by its handle.
Step 3: Place the knife just under the handle of the steel, with the knife handle touching the bottom of the steel handle.
Step 4: With the knife at a 45-degree angle to the steel, hold the steel rod steady and draw the knife blade down the steel. Repeat on other side of blade.
Step 5: Repeat several times until the entire cutting surface of the knife has been drawn across the steel on both sides of the blade.
NOTE: It's critical to make sure you're using the sharpening steel properly; otherwise you can do damage to the integrity (and life) of the knife. We recommend you watch this great, informative little video by Gordon Ramsey (of Hell's Kitchen). If anyone knows how to sharpen a knife, it's him!

Using a Commercial Knife Sharpener:
There are a few varieties of these, but personally we like the Wüsthof Manual Knife & Scissors Sharpener. This is a VERY simple tool to use. It has a carbide section for sharpening, a ceramic section to finely hone and finish, and a floating ceramic rod to bevel scissor blades. Keeps almost every piece of cutlery perfectly sharp and is very safe to use, too!

Personally, I sharpen my knives every time before I use them - it's a great habit to get into. And, once you've begun the practice of taking good care of your knives it becomes routine.

Happy Sharpening!!

Kitchen Gadget Must-Haves

This weekend I got the mother of all blenders and felt like I was finally on top of the world, or at least really in charge of my kitchen! Then I stumbled across this list of "must-haves" when moving into a new place and realized I was way behind the times.

Top 25 Must Have Kitchen Utensils:

1. Shelf liners


2. Organizing tools


3. Pots and pans


4. A crock full of kitchen utensils


5. Kitchen knives


6. A blender


7. A chopper


8. Kitchen towels


9. Salt and pepper shakers


10. Cleaners


11. Broom and mop


12. Baking pans


13. Measuring spoons


14. Measuring cups


15. Pyrex measuring cup


16. Storage containers


17. Potholders


18. Pizza cutter


19. Ice cream scoop


20. A good kitchen rug


21. Placemats and napkins


22. Slow cooker


23. Colander


24. Ice cube trays


25. Coffee maker

So, let's see. I just got a blender, I don't have a chopper or a slow cooker, and I use kitchen scissors instead of pizza cutters (yay for multi-purpose tools!). I guess I'm not doing that bad overall, though I'm suddenly craving some slow-cooker meals ...

How does your kitchen compare?

The FunnySpoon Five: Utensil Must-Haves

In an ideal kitchen, we'd have a utensil for everything. I mean, just walk around a specialty kitchen store and you'll see stuff you never dreamed of (and some stuff you had but just never got around to buying)! But for various reasons - limited kitchen space, cost, realization that you only eat fresh grapefruit once a year and therefore don't need a special grapefruit knife - you probably won't buy every utensil you see. So here's our top 5 list of utensil must-haves:

The FunnySpoon Five: Utensil Must-Haves

1. A variety of good knives: Don't skimp on quality here - have a good butcher knife, bread knife and smaller paring and dicing knives. You'll frustrate yourself if you try to cut something with the wrong knife, and a cheap-o dull knife will just waste time (and will probably break quickly anyway).


2. Vegetable peeler: There really is no substitute for a good peeler. Who wants to spend the time to use a knife? Plus, when you use a peeler you get rid of the tiniest amount possible - less waste, more veggies!


3. Rubber spatulas: I get a strange sense of personal satisfaction when I get every last bit of batter/dressing/whatever out of the bowl, and my handy rubber spatulas help me do that. Plus you can use them for stirring (which means one less utensil to wash up!)


4. Kitchen shears: This is another multi-tasker. Just a few things I use kitchen shears for are: cutting pizza (way easier than a pizza cutter!), slicing gross/fatty bits off meat (especially chicken) before cooking, and opening difficult packages. Saves time and saves room in my utensil drawer when I can use one utensil for so many things!


5. Blender: Every now and then a recipe will call for a food processor. Or maybe you love margaritas as much as I do. Get your kitchen gear to do double duty and buy a good-quality blender (I know it's not technically a utensil but ...). You don't need to go top-of-the-line, but don't skimp either. You'll feel like a star the first time you successfully blend a block of ice or puree some veggies!

What are your fave kitchen utensils? Which ones serve double-duty and which ones can you not live without?

Multi-tasking gadgets

In today's society we're all about multi-tasking and want everything to have multiple purposes. I'm the queen of this ... maybe to a fault! Here are a couple of my favorite kitchen gadgets that do double duty for me.

The thermometer - I religiously use this when cooking meat because I'm freaked out about undercooking poultry! However, I also use it to check the bath water before putting my baby in the tub. I know I could buy one of those silly, plastic bath toys that checks the water temp, but why when I've got this great tool that is screaming for more use?

Kitchen Shears - Ok, these are great for cutting open bags and normal scissorly duties. But I also use them to cut up all of my kids' food. They're perfect for cutting pasta, pizza, chicken nuggets, waffles, you name it! Much easier than using a fork and knife. I aslo use kitchen sheers for preparing (almost) all of my fresh herbs - it's much simpler to cut fresh chives with shears than even the sharpest knife.

Ice cube trays - Right. They're to make ice. But you can also use them to freeze small portions of leftovers, too. Pasta sauce? Freeze in the ice tray and reheat as much as you need. Stocks and broths? Same thing - great for soups, stews and casseroles. Fruit that's about to go bad? Puree and freeze small batches for use in baking or yummy treats for the kids (or homemade baby food!).

Shoe organizer - This one isn't necessarily for the kitchen, but this is my FAVORITE new organization tool and I have to share it with you. The over-the-door shoe organizers are great for shoes, but that's not all! I have one in my hall closet to organize the millions of the power cords we have. And one in my bathroom closet to organize all of the medicine and toiletries. They're about $10 at Target and well worth the investment in my opinion!

What kitchen (or household) gadgets do you have that do double duty?

No Brainer Tip #4: Use the right utensils

Makes sense, right? Use a whisk when you're beating eggs, use a fine grater for lemon zests and a larger grater for soft cheese. However, when you're in the middle of cooking sometimes you just grab the nearest thing, or you try to double up on your utensils so there's less washing up to do later.

Over the holidays I was baking a ton of cookies. I found myself trying to use my 1 tsp. measuring spoon for everything. I was filling it 3 times for 1 tbsp., estimating when it was halfway full for 1/2 tsp., etc. It was only when I was trying to estimate 1/8 teaspoon for one ingredient that I realized I was spending more time trying to use the same darn spoon than if I would have just gotten out the whole set and then washed them later!

I find myself doing that a lot - like, slicing tomatoes with a tomato knife and then trying to use the same knife for onions and not getting the best results. You may have a really good knife that can do it all. But when you have specialized utensils, I find it's best to use them for their specific purpose. And it's also good to actually USE them, instead of letting them gather dust in the drawer (whisks) while you try to get away with using something else (forks). I bought all this stuff - I should use it!

Invest in Good Utensils

It really is worth investing in good utensils. A while back, I was making a dessert that required me to use a whisk to mix chocolate pudding mix and heavy whipping cream. Should be a simple task, right? Wrong. My whisk was a "bendy" whisk so instead of allowing the ingredients to whisk through it, it grabbed on to the mix and just formed one clump that got stuck in the center of the whisk. Great. After spending a lot of time getting the mixture off the whisk, I ended up just using a mixer to finish the job. Talk about a waste of time! Not to mention all the extra dishes I had to wash. Needless to say, I went out the next day and bought a nice sturdy whisk so that I'd be ready for the next time. And throwing away that bendy hunk-of-junk old whisk was SO satisfying.

What are your utensils mishaps? Any great suggestions for particular tools that get the job done better than others?