More Kitchen Gadgets - Part 3

Can there be more? Oh yes, there can. I suppose my kitchen is to me as any man's garage and toolbox is to him.

These are miscellaneous kitchen items from which I get a lot of satisfaction. (Hey! I didn't end that sentence in a preposition. I'm trying!)

Here you see some lovely strainers. Nice strainers are just so...nice. I have the large and the medium. I'd love the small one. Happy-ness is rinsing my rice in this strainer.

Since I mentioned rice -- here is a picture of my rice cooker. It's a Zojirushi and I'm in love with it. It even plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star when the rice is done, you gize. No more boiling over on my stove. No more kind of done or over done. Set it, listen for the little song. It will keep it warm. You can set it to start at a certain time during the day. Although I haven't tried that yet. Might just have to, just so I can say I tried.

Now, Landee - I truly didn't mean any disrespect when I was making fun of your little old pizza cutter. It was cute. This really is my own obsession and I will try not to shove it on you. I'm proud of you for getting a new one tho. Here's a picture of one I've never seen. Clear? Hmmmmmm. Right now I'm using a pizza cutter we bought at the Papa Murphy's store. I love it more than my Pampered Chef one. Sorry, but I do.

Kitchen Shears are a beautiful thing. They separate into two pieces for easy cleaning. I can cut meat, the plastic off the package of bacon, twine, paper, fingers... Ok just kidding. However, they are quite sharp.

I can't tell you how many years I went with some dinky little potato peeler that was flimsy and dull and I HATED peeling potatoes (cause instant mashed are ew). Then, I got mad one day and decided it was time to upgrade. I just love peeling things now. It's all about the tools, girls.

Doesn't that look lovely? I couldn't find a picture of just the ladle I got at Walmart. It's small. Perfect for gravy or sauces. I can't STAND big huge utensils that completely overwhelm the bowl your food is in. Another Walmart purchase. Inexpensive and yet so satisfying.

Santa loves me, you gize. When I graduated from high school, my parents gave me a toaster and a hand mixer from Walmart. Super cheap ones. Yes that was my graduation gift. I don't know why. I thought it was lame too. About 4-5 years ago, 'Santa' got me a new hand mixer. It's powerful, has nine speeds and can whip fresh cream into frothy heaven. Nice, nice, nice.

The hand blender. My favorite use is for mixing eggs before I scramble them. I also enjoy drizzling butter into the eggs while their whipping (that's called an emulsion, btw). The melted butter into the raw eggs before scrambling keeps your scrambled eggs moist.

Don't you hate it when you have to cut into the chicken or the steak on the grill because you don't know if it's done yet? Nevermore. We use this fabulous temp fork, see the temp and know it's exactly where we want it to be. I'm not the griller at our house, of course. Honey gets that job. We grill all year long, but in the summer - we grill A LOT!

I just love the feel of those taught little wires slicing through a fresh hard-boiled egg. I like the little sound they make when I open the egg cutter. The one Santa gave me is really heavy and really nice. It has two cutters. One for slicing and one for wedges.

This is purely superfluous. I know it is. I have a hand mixer, stand mixer, blender and then this. Why? You can turn large amounts of onion into teeny dices very easily. It's great for grating cheese. In fact, I'm getting the itch to make my super from scratch homemade lasagna which takes all day long and I have to use my food processor to grate all of that cheese or my arm would fall off. I don't care if you can buy it pre-grated. It has that weird powdery stuff on it. Can't be good. Do we know what that's made of? Is it really necessary that each and every piece of grated cheese not stick to another one? Ew. Anyway, I've seen cooking shows where they use these to make peanut butter, complicated emulsions with fresh herbs and olive oil or pulverizing croutons into bread crumbs to be mixed into a meatloaf.

Can't say that I'll be doing another kitchen gadget post. You're prollie relieved. I'll let you know when 'Santa' brings me something else. I do think we're due for another recipe tho. If you have any requests for a certain kind, i.e. a main dish, something with flank steak, a super good dessert, homemade syrup...let me know. I'll see what I can dig up. Keep your eyes peeled and I'll get a recipe out there for ya in a few days.

And I will eat instant mashed potatoes. But I choose not to.