Paula Deen 3 Quart Stack & Steamer, Stainless Steel

Anyone desiring to live a healthy lifestyle understands how important nutrients are for good health. When we cook our food, we need to save the nutrients for our body while we maintain the color and taste of the food to satisfy our soul. If the food doesn’t look or smell good, we probably won’t eat what we should.

That is one of the things I like best about the Paula Deen 3 Quart Stack and Steamer. Using the steamer does everything we want to make our meal delicious as well as looking palatable.

I have found that anything Paula Deen indorses is quality. This stainless steel covered saucepot with steamer insert is perfect for steaming vegetables quickly and safely so that we can enjoy the delicious tasting meal.

One of the best things I like about this steamer is that I can watch the food cook without opening the lid. Having wonderful cooking equipment in my kitchen makes it much more fun for me to spend time providing good home cooked meals. I love this steamer and I hope you give it a try as well. You'll be glad you did!

This item and more wonderful Paula Deen products as well as other kitchen pots and pans can be found on my Squidoo lens that pays homage to Paula and her products. You can reach this lens by clicking on the link just above this paragraph. If you would like to see more Squidoo lenses, you can click this link.

Are you a Paula Deen fan? Do you watch her TV shows? Have you ever visited her restaurant (if you have I'm going to be very jealous :))?

Homemade Pancakes

Usually I make pancakes using Bisquick or some other brand of mix, but yesterday when I went to the cupboard - it was bare. Therefore, back to the basics.

I reached for my trusty Betty Crocker Cookbook and made pancakes from scratch. The only variation in the recipe below was due to lack of buttermilk. I used 2% instead.

The pancakes turned out much softer and fluffier than the mixes. They didn't take much longer to make and were well worth the time. I just may go back to homemade every time.

For the sake of space, I will put the alternate changes when using "sweet milk" in parenthesis.

1 egg
1 cup buttermilk (sweet milk)
2 tbsp. vegetable oil or melted shortening
1 cup flour
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder (add 2 tsp.)
1/2 tsp. soda (omit)
1/2 tsp salt

Blend egg, milk and oil. Blend dry ingredients together. Add to liquids; beat with rotary beater until all flour is moistened. Batter will be slightly lumpy.

Grease heated griddle until a sprinkle of water sizzles. Pour batter from pitcher or tip of large spoon in pools slightly apart. Turn pancakes as soon as they are puffed and full of bubbles, but before bubbles break. Turn and brown on other side. Serve immediately with butter and syrup, or your favorite topping.

For extra fluffy pancakes, beat egg yolk, add milk, etc. Fold in stiffly beaten egg white.

Kitchen Plastic and Easy Greening

On the Care2 Make a Difference website is a great article regarding kitchen plastic.

The author writes in great detail about the recycling codes and what types of plastic can be recycled. A very informative article for anyone interested in saving the earth from mounds of plastic.

Let me know what green sites you find and share them in the comments. Thank you.