The Kitchen Swaps I'm Making Before Soup Season Really Kicks In
Once it's soup and slow cooker weather, I'm basically living in my kitchen so this felt like the right time to actually deal with the stuff I'd been putting off replacing.
Once soup season hits, my kitchen basically doesn't turn off, something's always simmering, the kettle's going, there's usually five containers of leftovers in the fridge by Wednesday. Which means whatever's in constant contact with heat and food for hours at a time is the stuff I actually care about getting right. My old slow cooker had a liner I never fully trusted, so it was the first thing to go, I've been using a HOUSNAT stainless one for meal prep the last few weeks and it's honestly made me use it more, not less.
WHAT'S NEW IN MY KITCHEN
My go-to nonstick pot got swapped for this cast iron one from Caraway around the same time, mostly because I noticed the coating wearing down and figured it was time. Leftovers have been living in a stainless container instead of plastic too. After that lunch box roundup I did, I can't unsee how much of our stuff (and the kids') was holding onto smells and probably leaching more than I wanted to think about.
WHY IT WAS WORTH THE SWITCH
The short version: heat and plastic don't mix well, and fall cooking involves a lot more prolonged heat than summer does. Nonstick coatings and old slow cooker liners can leach more under sustained high heat, which is exactly what a slow cooker is doing for hours at a time. It's not about panicking over every plastic item in your kitchen, it's specifically the stuff that's in constant contact with hot liquid or food for long stretches that's worth prioritizing first.
HOW TO START YOUR OWN SWAPS
Start with whatever touches hot food or liquid the longest (slow cooker, daily-use pots).
Replace nonstick with stainless or cast iron as pieces wear out, no need to toss everything at once.
Check what your slow cooker insert is actually made of.
Save plastic for cold storage only, not for anything reheated or cooked.
BEFORE YOU TOSS EVERYTHING OUT
Honestly the slow cooker was the one that made the biggest difference for us, since it's the thing running the longest and the most often once soup season hits. The pot and the container were more "while I'm at it" swaps than urgent ones. If you're only going to fix one thing in your kitchen this fall, that's the one I'd point you to first.
If you're into this kind of thing, I've also got my gut-friendly fudgsicle recipe if you want to put that new cookware to use, and it doubles as a good reminder of why store-bought "ice cream" isn't really ice cream at all.
Thanks for being here, friends!
Bree