Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Gadget Girl

Kitchen gadgets make life easier.  A good sharp knife is critically important.  This year, an anonymous gift arrived from Amazon - much to my delight - someone sent me a brand new Globe knife!  Wow!  What a great gift.  I tried to identify the sender but he/she is being very coy.  Thank you for this amazing gift.  I have already drawn blood due to its sharpness!  I wish I was a bit better at sharpening these important gadgets,. but for now, my new knife is razor-sharp!  

Diana gave me a battery-operated pepper mill a long, long time ago.  Made by Puget.  It's really really great and we still use it and love it.  I think the batteries have been replaced once. 

My newest gadget arrived yesterday and was triggered from my first attempt at home made ravioli (see earlier blog post).  It was a success, but rolling out that pasta by hand was rather exhausting.  Just got the pasta maker attachment for my Kitchen Aid and it ROCKS!  I used it to make crackers last night and it was sooooo much easier!  Pasta making next.  I only got the pasta one; I think I can cut to make noodles.....


There is a recipe for poppy seed lime bundt cake with a hibiscus frosting that I found the other day.  I fell in love immediately.  Recipes can hit you that way.  You see a picture of the final creation and you know you MUST make it!!  Of course, I don't have a bundt pan shaped like that, so one is now on its way from Amazon!  

A well-equipped kitchen must have a food processor, a Kitchen Aid, a blender, a good scooper (for ice cream or cookies), a hand can opener (why, tell me, would anyone need an electric can opener??), a carrot/potato peeler, various cookie sheets and pans, mixing bowls, measuring cups and measuring spoons, and a kitchen scale. I have become a huge believe in a kitchen scale!  I have a cold press juicer that cost a few days of work which I really love too.  The apples off our tree in Freedom make a delicious jice 

Some gadgets I have not been that thrilled about would be the spiralizer.  I've used it a few times but overall, it takes up more space that it's worth.  I got a herb grinder from Food 52 that I thought would be awesome.  It's cast iron, really heavy thing.  Thought it would work great on grinding things up.  It did not.  It's a heavy paper weight and I don't even use it for that!!  

Of course, for jam making, I am especially proud and pleased with my copper pot.  It was outrageously expensive - made an impressive gift from Mike.  Even he was impressed when I told him he had bought it for me!!  A bit of magic goes into every batch of jam I simmer in that orange piece of artwork.  It is lovely, at rest or at work. 

Now that I am in the manic-sourdough bread-making mode, having two proofing baskets and a good scoring lame with, of course, that kitchen scale mentioned above, have been pivotal in making consistent good loaves of bread.  Last week, I sold 13 loaves through our local Slow Foods in the Tetons   This neat marketing online source has given me a way to sell my bread and it sells out right away!  Clearly, Jackson needs a bread shop!!  



What is your favorite gadget?  What do I still need that I don't even know about.....???


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