Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Manuel Cachão Tojal - House renovation, Trafaria 2016. Photos ©...

Manuel Cachão Tojal - House renovation, Chanca 2015. Photos...

Paintings by Tran Nguyen Tran Nguyen is an illustrator... crss



















Paintings by Tran Nguyen

Tran Nguyen is an illustrator from Savannah, GA, USA. Born in Vietnam and raised in the States, she received a BFA in Illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design. Growing up in a more developed country, she was able to pursue her passion for the arts and is currently working as a freelancer.

Artist website.


Our blog is on many platforms - keep up with us on FB.

posted by Margaret

crss

Paintings by Tran Nguyen Tran Nguyen is an illustrator...



















Paintings by Tran Nguyen

Tran Nguyen is an illustrator from Savannah, GA, USA. Born in Vietnam and raised in the States, she received a BFA in Illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design. Growing up in a more developed country, she was able to pursue her passion for the arts and is currently working as a freelancer.

Artist website.


Our blog is on many platforms - keep up with us on FB.

posted by Margaret

Put Them in and Leave It! 7 Slow Cookers For Busy People To Cook Healthy Meals At Home

You’ve had a long, hard day at work, and a tiring and unpleasant commute home.

When you finally get back to your place, you have your heart set on eating a healthy, substantial meal – but you can’t find the strength or motivation to begin cooking. Instead, you take the easy way out, and pick up your phone and order a takeout.

I’m sure you can relate to the above scenario as it’s very common nowadays. Preparing and cooking a decent meal usually takes at least an hour. So, if you’ve arrived home from work, and it’s already late (and you’re exhausted), then cooking a meal is probably the last thing you’d like to do.

The problem is, eating out and ordering takeout is expensive, and in most cases an unhealthy choice.

Luckily, there is a way out of this dilemma, in the shape and form of a slow cooker. Also known as crock pots, slow cookers have become popular in recent years with people who are too busy to spend time cooking – but still want to enjoy healthy, homemade meals.

7 Slow Cookers That Can Transform Your Diet and Life

Slow cookers offer you the chance to enjoy a delicious, wholesome meal when you arrive home from work. They do this by slowly cooking your food for a long period of time at a low temperature.

This ‘slow cooking’ approach brings out the flavours in most foods, including: casseroles, pot meals, soups and stews.

Most slow cookers have Low, Medium and High settings. The Low setting will cook food about 6 to 10 hours. The High setting will cook food in 4 to 6 hours. One hour in a conventional oven at 350 F is equivalent to about 4 hours on High, or 8 hours on Low.

If you prepare your meal the evening before, or in the morning, all you need to do is switch on the cooker (at Low setting) before you head out for work. However, all the cookers we list below also have digital timers, and these will allow you to precisely choose when your cooker comes on, at what temperature setting, and for how long.

Hopefully, I’ve given you just enough information on slow cookers to whet your appetite

1. Crock-Pot 6-Quart Programmable Slow Cooker

This slow cooker features a digital countdown control that allows you to program cook times anywhere from 30 minutes to 20 hours. It also shifts to Warm setting automatically once your specified cook time has completed.

The Crock-Pot keeps food safe on the go with robust carrying handles and hinged locking lids.

Crock-Pot 6-Quart Programmable Slow Cooker, $49.50

2. Hamilton Beach Set ‘n Forget Programmable Slow Cooker

Stylish and easy-to-use, this slow cooker is equipped with protection against brief power outages, so when you come home your digital clocks might have lost their time – but your meal will still be hot and ready to eat.

It’s perfect for cooking large cuts of meat. You just need to set the desired meat temperature, and the cooker automatically shifts to keep warm when the temperature is reached.

Hamilton Beach Set ‘n Forget Programmable Slow Cooker, $49

3. Instant Pot 7-in-1 Multi-Use Programmable Pressure Cooker

If you want more features than slow cooking, then Instant Pot could be a good choice for you.

This top-selling multi-cooker combines 7 kitchen appliances in 1. These are: pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, steamer, sauté, yogurt maker and warmer.

There are also 14 Smart Programs to choose from. These programs allow you to easily make, heat or treat the following: soup, meat/stew, bean/chilli, poultry, rice, multigrains, porridge, yogurt, etc.

Instant Pot 7-in-1 Multi-Use Programmable Pressure Cooker, $129.99

4. Cuisinart MSC-600 3-In-1 Cook Central 6-Quart Multi-Cooker

This slow cooker features Cuisinart’s brushed stainless steel housing and a 6-quart nonstick cooking pot that lets you brown or sauté directly in the unit.

Three fully programmable cooking functions let you sauté vegetables, brown meats and slow cook your favorite comfort foods right in the unit.

Cuisinart MSC-600 3-In-1 Cook Central 6-Quart Multi-Cooker, $140.76

5. Cuisinart PSC-650 Stainless Steel 6-1/2-Quart Programmable Slow Cooker

This programmable slow cooker offers a removable round-shaped ceramic cooking pot, brushed stainless-steel housing, glass lid with stainless-steel rim, and cool-touch chrome-plated handles. The 24-hour programmable digital timer has Simmer, Low and High modes – all which feature an auto keep-warm function. it also comes with a cooking rack and recipe book.

Cuisinart PSC-650 Stainless Steel 6-1/2-Quart Programmable Slow Cooker, $46.43

6. KitchenAid KSC6223SS 6-Quart. Slow Cooker

This slow cooker features an easy-to-read digital display, that ensures comfortable viewing of the remaining cook time and temperature while the cooker is in use.

The generous 6-quart capacity is perfect for small and large recipes from soups to roasts.

KitchenAid KSC6223SS 6-Quart. Slow Cooker, $99

7. BLACK+DECKER 7-Quart Digital Slow Cooker

To finish on, how about something a little different. The exterior of this slow cooker is a chalkboard, which makes it perfect for drawing on and for writing down recipes or allergy concerns. This neat feature is also great for getting the kids involved in the kitchen! With its inbuilt digital time, you can simply choose the time and heat, and let the slow cooker do the rest. (The cooker automatically switches into Warm mode when cooking is complete.)

And in case you’re wondering, the box includes two chalk sticks, so you can start writing on the cooker from day one.

BLACK+DECKER 7-Quart Digital Slow Cooker, $49.99

On a final note, you may be surprised to learn that slow cookers use less electricity than conventional ovens. So, now you have no excuses for not having tasty and nutritious food waiting for you each evening when you come home.

The post Put Them in and Leave It! 7 Slow Cookers For Busy People To Cook Healthy Meals At Home appeared first on Lifehack.



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Aires Mateus - House extension, Grandola 2014. Via, photos...



















Aires Mateus - House extension, Grandola 2014. Via, photos © Juan Rodriguez.

Aires Mateus - House on the Alentejo Coast, Grândola 2013....

Put Down Your Pizza and Find Your Healthy Diet Challenge Buddy By Using "Foodstand"

What do you think when you hear the word ‘habit’? A habit is usually either something that’s hard to break or hard to start. How many times have you wanted to start a positive habit? It probably started well but after a while you found it hard to maintain. Perhaps it’s doing something proactive each day towards a new career goal. Perhaps it’s a new exercise regime to lose weight or the ultimate habit for a lot of people – changing our diets.

The problem with establishing and maintaining healthy positive habits is lack of motivation.

One solution we often hear to keep motivation going is to get an accountability buddy. The most common example is with exercise. Having a training buddy can be an important tool to keep ourselves accountable to turning up at the gym or the running track. However, when it comes to diet changes, we don’t always think of getting someone to do this important lifestyle change with us and help us keep on track.

You don’t only need a workout buddy, you need an eating partner too!

We all like to believe we’re strong and determined enough to make a positive change in our diet. Often this works if we’ve had, say, a major health scare but when it’s a decision we’ve made without a fearful condition in place to motivate us, motivation can dwindle pretty quickly.

We are human after all. We like falling back into our comfort zones and old ways of living. We can start to convince ourselves we can always start again next week even if we know next week will never come.

Bringing in another person with the same goals as you will not only give you extra motivation (see how people get more successful with their fitness goal by getting a workout buddy.) and push you harder, but it will also tap into our fear of letting others – and ourselves – down. In other words, if we give up on our new habit, our failures aren’t just known by us but also another person. They are essentially out in the open and we don’t like to be seen by others as unsuccessful.

When it comes to a big diet change, an accountability buddy is the perfect way to keep our new habit going and ultimately improve our life.

Need Accountability? This is The Perfect App For You and Your Healthy Eating Regime

When it comes to our diet, it’s harder to keep track of what you and your new accountability buddy is up to. After all, it’s not as easy as establishing an exercise routine that you show up to together.

This is where Foodstand comes in. Foodstand is a community-lead app that encourages you to keep to your new healthy diet by using food challenges alongside thousands of other people as well as friends and family. Perfect if you’re struggling to find an accountability buddy in the first place!

The main focus of this app is making healthy eating fun instead of hard to maintain. There are several different challenges: eating less sugar, cooking dinner more often, or eating 3 portions of fruit and vegetables a day. You gain points for every challenge you pass taking you up to the next level.

           

These challenges have been designed alongside several top dietician experts from Centre for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and Johns Hopkins Centre for a Liveable Future. The fun and relatable challenges help you progress, keeps you accountable, and helps you along your journey by providing daily motivation, tips, recipes, and explains why each habit is so positive for your lifestyle.

The best part is that you’re ‘competing’ against other people by being able to see your buddy’s progress. It matches people specifically to you who can then become your accountability buddy if you wish. You’re able to see how many days they’ve managed to keep on track and their overall success rate – and they, in turn, can see how you’re progressing. With a supportive and motivational community on hand to share experiences, questions and tips that help you, it’s the ultimate aid to keeping you on track.

So, if you’re like so many who fall off the healthy-eating bandwagon after a week or two, find like-minded people with Foodstand to help keep you accountable and raise your chances of success as well as a happier and healthier you.

The post Put Down Your Pizza and Find Your Healthy Diet Challenge Buddy By Using “Foodstand” appeared first on Lifehack.



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