They say that before you give birth there is this nesting phase that occurs. It may be hitting us a smidgen early, at least in the kitchen department. In the past two weeks we have now added a food processor, a slow cooker with three different dish sizes, an electric grater & slicer, a new glass toaster, and a some new knives. It’s like every gadget that is available and useful to make all things kitchen easier have now been added into our lives.

Learning how to use all of these it’s it’s own process and today I’m learning via experience on how to use the slow cooker. My first meal should be ready within the next couple of hours and is Mexican inspired. I love Mexican food and am grateful that it has finally become trendy enough here in Australia that I can get a lot (but not all) things that remind me of the goodness of the California Mexican cuisine I grew up with. I don’t always like to buy the premade versions of things though because I just never really know what some of those ingredients are, and of course I know that if I did actually make it myself I could create a huge savings, which brings a strange sense of satisfaction like I’m one upping the premade guys.

I love the idea of doing something once, turning it on, knowing that it’s all going to be okay and not burn, and then have a meal ready at dinner time. This is very exciting to me. I know that once the baby comes along we will need to truly maximize our time efficiently and this seems like a sure fire way to get into gear to cut down on time in the kitchen. Honestly I don’t really like to spend much time in the kitchen anyway. I do have a strong penchant for healthy, tasty, fresh, and wholesome foods, so by that very nature I am wind up in the kitchen more than I would like just so I can eat well. It’s also super important to me to be able to provide healthy meals to my husband. Obviously this is naturally extending to the family we are growing as well.

Another kitchen gadget that I’ve gone on a test run with today is the food processor with the skinny grating option. WHOA! Can I just say that I finely shredded 500 grams of cheese in less than a minute and it’s lovely, light, and smells divine! We’ve been buying shredded cheese in packets at the supermarket lately to save on time, but it’s always a little weird. I know they add some kind of anti-caking substance to it, so I assume that’s why, but there was no way that I was going to really grate by hand all that cheese, it just wasn’t going to happen. So the freshly grated cheese with the Mexican inspired slow cooked meal should be a winner tonight on this winter evening.

All of this is just practice and conscious habit forming to prepare us, to prepare me for the very near future. I embrace it. I certainly would never have guessed that I’d be so excited about kitchen gadgets as I am. Interestingly it kinda goes with every other thing in my life right now that I would not have predicted ten years ago. So wild how it changes, but I love it.