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Get The Professional Chef Look In Your Kitchen!

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If you love cooking and are always whipping up recipes designed by your favorite chefs, or concoctions of your own design, then chances are you have high standards when it comes to your kitchen at home. Whether it is having the very best in knives and other cooking tools, the freshest ingredients or the latest and best gadgets, cooking enthusiasts relish the chance to fit out their kitchens with the best in professional quality gear. But, when it comes to the layout of the kitchen itself, you may find yourself working with something that is a little more cluttered and homely than your Michelin starred heroes might have to use. If you are a serious cook in your own home and are thinking about remodeling your kitchen, why not take some kitchen design ideas from the professionals and get that pristine, efficient top chef look?

Maximum Room to Work

In a professional kitchen, one of the most vital concerns is keeping everything extremely clean and avoiding cross contamination. While in your own kitchen you will usually not be preparing as diverse a menu on a given day as a restaurant, cross contamination between different types of food and raw and cooked food is still an issue, so one thing to make sure of is that you have plenty of work space. Don’t waste counter space on things that are purely decorative or which can go somewhere else, like wine racks or bread bins, and give yourself as much room to work with when it comes to cutting, mixing and preparing as your kitchen can afford you.

Counter Tops

When it comes to counter tops and other work surfaces, in a professional kitchen stainless steel is normally used because it is very easy to keep clean and is resilient and long lasting. If you want this look in your own home then go for it, however most people prefer the more domestic look or granite or marble. These can take a bit more work to clean, however they do look good and also offer a strong surface to work on – just make sure you are always using clean cutting boards rather than putting food directly on the counter.

A stainless steel sink is always the best sort to have in a kitchen, however, and even if you use a dishwasher for the main washing up work, it is good to have a large one where you can quickly rinse off knives and other tools between uses for the same meal. A large sink is also a good place to defrost things and do various other food prep tasks, and will also give your kitchen more of the professional look you want.

Storing Equipment

Storing all your pots and pans in cupboards is the obvious way to keep the kitchen looking tidy, but you can create a cool ‘chef’ look by having some of your most used things out in the open, hanging on hooks over your oven for pots and pans or standing, ready to be used in a nice knife block for some of your other utensils. This not only makes the kitchen look like it belongs to a serious cook, but also makes it easier for you to grab the things you need as you prepare food.

Featured images:

Richard Maxwell works for AB Restaurant Equipment, a restaurant supply store. He enjoys interacting with people and helping them out with his useful tips and suggestions.

My husbands favorite dinner – lately

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This evening we’re having what’s quickly becoming one of my husband’s favorite dinners. It’s pretty easy to make too.

We’re having a mix of long grain and wild rice, peas and chicken. I tend to eat these three food items separately but my husband likes to cut up his chicken and then he mixes the peas, rice and chicken together and he swears that it tastes like chicken fried rice. I’ve tasted his mix and it’s true – it does tasted like chicken fried rice … maybe I should mix mine up too.

This evening I think I’m going to pull out one of the desserts that I made two weeks ago – Zucchinni bread – perhaps cut some up and put it in the center of the table on a glass tile and we’ll have it for dessert after dinner. Yum.

Speaking of dinner … it’s after 8 pm … I’d better get cooking!

Reviewing Cuisinart’s 14-Cup Food Processors

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Whether you have a small army to sustain  or you just like to save time, you can benefit from the Cuisinart food processor 14 cup appliance.  the Cuisinart 14 Cup is a generously proportioned food processor that is meant to contain a large amount of vegetables, fruits, or anything else you would like to process. There are so many uses for this super sized food processor.  One of them is that you can cook your family nutrition-packed meals while watching your budget.


When you bring home fresh vegetables and add them to your dishes, you are offering  your family good quality food.  When you purchase bagged or canned vegetables from a supermarket, they often  contain sodium and preservatives.  Packaged vegetables are not as good for you as fresh vegetables.  But not many of us can take time to cut up fresh vegetables for each meal. 

One way to work around this is to cut up your vegetables for your next week’s menus with help from the Cuisinart 14-cups food processor unit.  It gives you quite a bit of capacity for seven or eight meal’s worth of vegetables, which you could put in freezer containers and thaw and use during the week.  This can save you time after a busy day and you can then include your fresh frozen vegetables in your recipes. Unlike commercially frozen vegetables, these will not contain preservatives.

Yet another task that can be done using the Cuisinart food processor 14 cup unit is preparing entire meals. You could use it in order to stir together sauces or gravy and while you’re at it, grind meat directly into the mix.  If you want to make homemade spaghetti sauce and want to blend everything together, you can do so by inserting fresh tomatoes and meat into your Cuisinart.  After that, you transfer it to a saucepan and simmer it, then freeze the leftovers for later use. 

Shredded and grated cheese is more expensive than a cheese wheel or wedge. You can save plenty of money by making fresh shredded and grated cheeses which require just moments in the Cuisinart food processor 14 cup unit. Shredding cheese by hand is neither quick nor easy, but when you shred cheese with the food processor, it takes a minute. 

Are you a salad lover? You can create a meal-sized salad by shredding lettuce tomatoes and more straight into the Cuisinart 14-cup food processor.  A salad that is undressed will stay fresh in an air tight container for a week. You can incorporate this into your meals for the week and serve the whole family their daily recommended allowance of vegetables. 

Whether you cook in large batches or just want to save time so that you can have more fresh food to eat, you can do so by using the Cuisinart food processor 14 cup unit. When you are finished saving time and money and enjoying great food, you can place nearly all the pieces into the dishwasher for easy cleaning.

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