Easy way to cook with onions

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We love to cook with onions and garlic. In fact, a few onions and a clove or two of garlic are the basis for most of our meals and most of the vegetables that we serve up.  As I am writing here,   I am realizing that we eat onions and garlic on (almost) a daily basis. WOW.

So what is the one part about cooking with onions that we absolutely hate… YES, the chopping of the onions.  All the shedding of tears etc… makes the whole job a real pain. But we are here to tell you that we have found a way to overcome this nightly onion situation.

Chop up 2 or 3 onions one night, and then freeze extras in a plastic bag.

What we do is exactly that. Sometime when we are cooking and have a bit more time in the kitchen (like a Saturday afternoon), we will chop up some extra onions, say 2 of them, and then place them in a zip-top bag and freeze them.  It helps to keep the bag as flat as possible as the onions are freezing.

Then when you are ready to cook with onions, you can just pour out some of the frozen onions right into the hot pan.  We have enjoyed having onions in more meals because we have a bag of frozen onions ready to cook in the freezer. It does not seem to be such a big deal to chop up a few onions to add to a meal when they are already to pour out into a pan, right?

Note: Because they were frozen, these onions might make some extra noise in your pan as they hit the hot oil, but so just be aware that they might make a popping noise and spit some oil out at you.

Bag of Frozen Onions

Bag of Frozen Onions

Easy way to cook with fresh garlic

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Microplane Fine Grater

Microplane Fine Grater

This post goes hand-in hand with a previous post on Easy way to cook with onions.

We love fresh garlic in our food. But it is another thing to chop it up with a knife every time you want to eat. Ugh…. We always had some big chunks that would be overwhelming when you bit into the big piece in you meal.

Now for the sake of convince, we have tried a number of kinds of pre-chopped garlic. They were all good, don’t get us wrong but just not our favorite.

We would always return to purchasing the fresh garlic heads and enjoy all the wonderful flavor.

Finally, we have figured out a great way to cook with fresh garlic every time we want to: Follow the advice of Rachel Ray.  Use a Micro plane grater hand grater.

The funny thing about this story is that we used to watch Rachel Ray’s 30 Minute Meals show a lot (in the days before Graduate school). We watched her use the Microplane Fine Grater many, many, many times. And even thought we owned a Microplane grater, we waited for years before trying it ourselves. Eeks! It is almost too embarrassing to tell this story….

Anyway one evening, quite recently in fact,  we were faced with chopping fresh garlic cloves and  suddenly we remembered how Rachel grated up her garlic, and we pulled the grater out of the drawer and …. we….used it!

Well, we have never looked back. The Microplane Fine Grater works like a charm and reduces 2 cloves of garlic to a spoonful of wonderful fresh paste in seconds.

Note: watch your fingers when you use this sharp product.

We also use it for grating up fresh gingerroot and some hard cheeses (like parmesan).

We LOVE this grater, and can’t believe that we waited so long before trying it out. We bet you will also love it as well.  We are including the Amazon link for your shopping convenience- this makes a great gift for someone who loves to cook!

Trader Joe’s Easy Soup Recipe

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Trader Joe's EZ Soup

Trader Joe's EZ Soup

Here is an easy soup recipe that we made last night. We like to have the basic ingredients on hand for those nights when you wish  to  make a quick soup. Like those  days when the weather gets suddenly cool and you think “gee I wish we could have soup tonight”  without a lot of prep and running around.

We call this Trader Joe’s EZ soup.

This soup starts with some basic ingredients, and then you can add other items to jazz it up, or leave it as is- that is up to you.

Another idea: make this soup on a weekly basis, as an easy and  great way to use up leftover vegetables and meat and rice and pasta. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination (and how hungry you are)

Basic Ingredients

  • Trader Joe’s Stock in a box- any kind you like
  • Trader Joe’s Organic Foursome frozen mixed veggies
  • Trader Joe’s garbanzo beans
  • Trader Joe’s white beans

How to:

Combine these ingredients in a pan and heat till boiling, then simmer for 5- 30 minutes to blend the flavors. If you have the time/ desire, cook some diced onions and garlic in the pan for 5 minutes before adding the beans. Then you can season the soup with salt and pepper, Trader Joe’s seasoning blends or whatever you prefer.

Variations:

Italian Soup:

  • ½ to 1 jar spaghetti sauce (good way to use up leftovers)
  • Cooked short noodles like penne
  • Trader Joe’s Italian seasoning mix
  • Cooked sausages cut into chunks

Chicken soup:

  • Add leftover diced chicken
  • Egg noodles or cooked rice
Trader Joe's EZ soup with Pork

Trader Joe's EZ soup with Pork

Here is one of our Trader Joe’s EZ soups with some leftover smoked pork shoulder and a can of diced green chilies added for some kick!  (go leftovers, go leftovers- our neighbor just LOVED this soup).

Enjoy this recipe and let us know how you jazzed up your Trader Joe’s EZ soup

Trader Joe’s Oatmeal Soap

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Trader Joe's Oatmeal Soap

Trader Joe's Oatmeal Soap

Here is a new product that caught our eye the last time we were at Trader Joe’s:  Trader Joe’s Oatmeal Exfoliant Ginger Almond Soap.

Can you really have too many bars of soap in the bathroom?

Well, the answer could be, yes. In fact we are approaching a dangerous situation in our tub, as we bought yet another new product. It’s not that the products we have are bad; it is more that we LOVE to buy/try new stuff.

So when we saw the oatmeal soap I knew we would have to make room for one more product.

This soap is a nice big bar that produces lots of thick white lather. It also has nubby bits of oatmeal studded in the bar, so there is almost a “scrubby” thing going on when you use the soap. And the smell…. the combination of oatmeal, ginger and almost… yum! But the best part is that the scent is pleasant and NOT strong or overwhelming in the least.

Also, we like that this bar is firm. We do not like those soap bars that feel soft and almost dent or break apart after only a couple of uses. Or those fancy soaps that seem to “melt” away after the first week.

Because of the oatmeal (or despite the oatmeal who really knows) this soap is gentle on our skin and is not drying it out like some soap can.

Have you tried this product? What did you think?