The life of a housewife, contrary to what any television show could have you think, has nothing to do with airbrushing up your makeup first thing in the morning and be trying to pull someone’s hair out by the afternoon. It has much more to do with cleverness and having your hands smelling like food (or dirt) on daily basis and then sneaking in some five minutes to do your hair and slap some blush on.
Among my favorite kitchen tricks, maybe because I use it so much, is the fast beet peeling. To peel a raw beet you need a great peeler (or knife skills) and tons of patience. I lack both of those. So manfriend, in his great wisdom, taught me to clean the beet very well, cut both ends (one will be the leaves) and then boil them done. You drain them of all hot water and let them refresh. I then like to fill a little bowl with fresh water and have another clean one to store the beets. You wet the beet in the fresh water and then just push the skin off with your fingers. It will slid right off like magic. This makes it easy to prepare a lot of beet at once, which you can then freeze in ziplock baggies and easily turn into a side salad later.
Ta da.
beet
All this food-preparing can make your hands super dry and we already established that normal people don’t have six hours for a manicure and pedicure everyday. One of the beauty tricks that did wonders for me this winter was one I came up with by accident. I have super dry and sensitive skin so I usually stock up on oils and lotions to slather on as many times as I can. That ends up being far too little and although I have the tools, I end up not using them because I don’t have time to rub on five different things on my pre-sleep routine. So one day I found myself with a botle of Almond oil (which smells a bit like heaven), liquid Vitamin E (which usually comes in a base of natural oils like Lemon Oil, which jackpot, smells awesome too) and Cetaphil which is my main go-to body lotion. Eureka: lets mix them all together.
Use your regular body lotion and mix in your favorite body oils. Shake it, put it on; you have a durable, great smelling, super nutricious lotion to soothe dry skin.
I hope one of those tricks gave you at least five extra minutes to do more important thing during the day like going outside with a coffee mug and sip it very slowly.
Have a great week!
de monte y mar 
Wonderful tips! I actually have never prepared beets, but I’m feeling a little inspired after reading this post. Do you have a recipe you would recommend by chance?
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Glad to share Vicky! Actually, I should come clean and say we like to eat them on their own. Just cooked with olive oil and balsamic vinegar on top. Which makes it perfectly worthy to have them cooked and frozen and practically ready to eat. I saw Barefoot Contessa talking about addind a bit of salt and roasting them… I think it was roasting them. In case I recommend to try them on their own to see if you like their sweet taste, maybe taste canned ones first and that will tell you how you want them in your plate. (I like them so much I can eat my meat with them alone.)
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TGAW, you’ve never prepared beets? You’re missing out!
I know a lot of people who don’t like beets, but I never understood why. They’re delicious!
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