A Drain I Can Get Behind
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18 Apr A Drain I Can Get Behind

Posted at 13:21h in fitness and nutrition, Fruits and Veggies, meal planning, quick meals by

When the good people of Healthy Steps contacted me about doing some work with them, they sent me a few of their top selling kitchen gadgets that their customers love to help with portion control.  I was really excited about the individual pasta portion basket. Great idea-taken from kitchen restaurants-for those who have trouble eye balling an actual serving of pasta.  Proper portion, holes for drainage, easy to handle, dishwasher safe and it collapsed–perfect. But I had another idea.

We eat a lot of beans in this house–and I mean a lot. It seems like not a day goes by when I’m not opening up a can of beans, draining them to remove the sodium and popping them into a salad, topping tacos, mixing into a Tex-Mex dish or serving them as is-with a touch of cumin-to my son. You can imagine how frustrating it got to take out the medium sized colander every single time to drain my beans. I was so tired of washing it-over and over and over. It got old-quick. I have two sizes of colanders-big and bigger and a steamer basket that I will sometimes use when my frustration gets he best of me. In reality, I just get more frustrated when I take out that steamer basket to drain my beans because-let’s face it-it’s not meant to strain liquid out of beans.

Enter the individual pasta portion basket. It’s a perfect size for draining 1 can of beans-easy to rinse, drain, hold and-simple to wash. It hides nicely in my sink if it needs to-unlike the big, bulky colander. I find myself using it all the time as a colander-rinsing berries, measuring out veggies after chopping and, occasionally, portioning out pasta!

I love the duality of a kitchen utensil-especially when its unintentional. Tell me, what kitchen tool or utensil does double duty at your house? 

1 Comment
  • Regan - The Professional Palate
    Posted at 17:38h, 18 April

    Oh I love the idea of this. Measurement and functionality!

    My double duty gadget, believe it or not, is my potato ricer. It was a gift… but I use it to juice lemons, squeeze roasted garlic, etc. And it makes a mean mashed potato.