Nobody wants life to be hard.  With all the things life gives us – a career, kids, a house with bills to pay, the last thing we want is to have to worry about cooking a healthy meal every once in a while.

But time ultimately gets in the way and tries to thwart any of our good efforts.

It’s true, we are all extremely busy these days.  Our kids, our jobs, getting in time to exercise, and don’t even get me started on the after school driving for sports.  Suddenly trying to put healthy eating into practice is a far off dream.  It’s one thing to consider adding quinoa into our dinners.  But when? How?

That is where your kitchen comes in. Your kitchen is really where all healthy eating begins and ends. Not having the right appliances and utensils will ultimately lead you to frustration and always leads to time wasted – and who wants that?  It’s like trying to finish a puzzle and realizing you are missing the last three pieces. So frustrating.

So here are five very useful, time saving,  pieces of kitchen equipment that  I absolutely can’t live without:

Vitamix. I hesitated buying this high powered blender for a long time.  The price seemed too high and my crotchety old blender was still sputtering along.  Boy, was I wrong about this one.  Interested in making healthy green smoothies, herb pestos or vegetable soups in a flash? You can even make your own peanut butter and mill your own flour if you like.  What the heck, you could grind rocks in here if you wish. It’s that powerful. Whips up food in seconds.

Rice Cooker. You want to talk about the ultimate “walk away and forget about it” piece of equipment?  This is it.  It doesn’t just cook rice, it cooks all grains. Perfectly.  Throw the quinoa, brown rice, or whatever whole grain you are wanting to eat that night, into the cooker with the right amount of liquid, turn it on and walk away. Go drop a kid at lacrosse, come back, and voila! A perfectly cooked side dish waiting for you. No watching, no wondering if the pot is boiling over. Perfect.

A Good Quality Kitchen Knife. You don’t need to buy the whole set that comes with the butcher block holder.  You just need one 8” chefs knife.  You’ll see what I mean when you start using your brand new, heavy handled knife instead of the one you got as a wedding gift in the set of eighteen (and when’s the last time you sharpened it anyway?).  It cuts faster, more precisely, and trust me, you need a good knife to produce healthy meals.

A Knife Sharpener. No use having a good knife if you don’t keep it sharp.  Dull knives are actually more dangerous than sharp ones; they can slip easier when trying to cut fruits or vegetables.  Just a note: the long silver thing that comes with knife sets?  That is a honer, not a sharpener, and it is to be used after sharpening. You don’t need an expensive sharpener either.  Mine comes from the hardware store, I think it cost $10.  I don’t care how you sharpen your knives, just make sure they are sharp.

Food Processor. This is not a “when do I use this?” but a how “often do I use” this appliance.  My 20-year old food processor gets an honorary place right on my kitchen counter. People in my cooking classes look at me oddly, as I often refer to my food processor as my BFF.  Slice peppers, dice onions, grate carrots, puree soups, grind oats into flour; food processors are an indispensable, time saving kitchen tool that I can’t live without.

Now I want to hear from you. What do you use in your kitchen to save time, or what do you wish you had as a best friend on the counter? Leave me a comment below, I would love to know!

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