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Welcome to Mom's Red Kitchen!

Mom's Red Kitchen reviews red kitchen accessories and cookbooks, and offers family style recipes your family will love. Articles concerning food preparation and food safety will be posted to the home page regularly, and added to the archives page when new articles are uploaded. If you have suggestions or questions concerning family meal recipes, please email us at Mom's Red Kitchen.

Slow Cooker Tips

The crock pot, or slow cooker, is a wonderful time saving kitchen appliance. Using this appliance takes only a few minutes of preparation time, and the meal cooks while you are away at work or play. Here are a few slow cooker tips that will help ensure satisfaction with your slow cooker appliance.

If you prepare your food the night before, keep vegetables and meats separated to prevent possible bacterial contamination.
Do not use the crock or insert in the oven or on the stove top unless the manufacturer certifies it for that use.
Left over food should be transferred to another container before storing in the refrigerator. The crock can crack or break if moved from one temperature extreme to another.
Do not take the crock from the refrigerator and place in the cooking unit. Even if the crock does not crack due to temperature differences, the food will take much longer to cook. Also, the extra time it takes to get the food to cooking temperature may allow bacterial growth to occur.
Use a thermometer when cooking meat and poultry to ensure the temperature is high enough to keep your food safe. Poultry should reach 180 degrees F, beef and pork should reach 160 to 170 degrees F, and meatloaf should reach 165 degrees F.
Fill your crock or slow cooker to at least 1/2 full. If less than 1/2 full, the pot cannot cook properly.
Never put your crock in the freezer.
Wash a new ceramic crock with warm sudsy water before first use to remove manufacturing oils.
When removing stuck on food, let the crock soak briefly in warm, sudsy water, then scrub with a nylon or plastic scrubbie. Never use a metal scrubbie or steel wool on your crock.

For some great bulk cooking recipes, visit http://bulk-cooking.blogspot.com!

Featured Family Style Recipes:

Melt in Your Mouth Snow Ice Cream

When I was a child, every winter the kids in the family prayed for snow so we could enjoy the wonder of snow ice cream. Here is one recipe you can try for yourself. For more recipes, visit Around Mom's Kitchen Table for more recipes by guest blogger Susan Elliott.

Ingredients:

1 gallon of clean snow
4 cups of powdered milk
2 cups of sugar
2 tablespoons of vanilla

Mix one gallon of clean snow with four cups of powdered milk, two cups of sugar and two tablespoons of vanilla. Mix the ingredients until they are thoroughly incorporated. For this particular ice cream, the snow should still resemble its natural state. Serve the melt in your mouth snow ice cream immediately. Serves five.

Easy Print Recipe

Cookbook Review: Better Homes and Gardens Snack Attack: fun recipes for kids to make

My granchildren are always wanting to cook or make a snack for themselves. This cookbook includes some recipes where there will need to be adult supervision (especially for using knives, stove tops, and ovens), but there are quite a few that do not require dangerous utencils or use of the kitchen range. From Nacho Melters, to Slam Dunk Veggies, to Pretzle Paddles, to Totally Trick Tacos, kids will have a wide range of recipes from which to choose when making that perfect quick meal or snack. The colorful artwork is fantastic, and every recipe has a full color photo so that young cooks can see what their creation should be when finished.

Recommendation: (5 of 5 red plates)
Highly Recommended: The school aged children in your life will enjoy this cookbook. With so many non-cooking recipes to choose from, they can even whip up a snack when you are not home to help and supervise.

Red Kitchen Accessories Review: Rubbermaid Easy Find Lids 24-Piece Food Storage Containers

I have been trying to locate some good storage containers for a while. Most of the Tupperware I have has seen its better days, and it just costs too much to replace. I have bowls without lids and lids without bowls. So I really needed this set of storage containers. I have two favorite features in this set: 1) the lids are red, so they match my kitchen (however, they do come in blue), and 2) the lids snap to each other and snap to the bottom of the container. No more lost lids! With two each of 1/2-, 1-1/4-, 2-, 3-, 5-, and 7-cup containers, I won't often need any other storage containers. Both dishwasher safe and microwave safe, these containers will provide good service for the busy cook.

Occasionally, as with most plastics, tomato based products can stain these plastic bowls. I have been told spraying the bowls with cooking spray before using them with tomato based foods will prevent this, but I have not yet tried it.

Recommendation: (5 of 5 red plates)
Highly recommended: For people like me, who can't keep up with lids that go on pots and pans or storage containers, the snap to the bottom feature of these bowls will not only save storage space in kitchen cabinets, it will ensure that when I need a bowl, the lid will be easily located. I am really excited about this product.