Recipes Reviews and Gadgets

If anyone has a Foodsaver this is a new product they have come out with for their sealer. I bought my husband one a couple years ago and he loves it. I have never used it! He uses it for meats mostly, but I have made up cookie dough ahead of time before the holidays and it works great on that, so I am not mixing up dozens of cookies at the last minute.

His favorite thing to use it for is to marinade meat in it. He thinks it works great in that. I am guessing the Freeze N Steam Bags will be best for vegetables especially in the months where we have our own garden.

We have the hand sealer also which is used just for the cylinders to keep items fresh in the fridge longer, and he uses it for marinades also.

Here is the link for the free bags which are available until May 31, 2009 or until supplies last https://secure.foodsaver.com/freegift.aspx

We love fresh herbs and have a great outdoor herb garden in the summer. This Christmas I bought my husband and mom each a herb AeroGarden for Christmas. My moms did great, but my husbands did not make it very long. The people at AeroGarden were great, they sent us all new kits and suggested we use distilled water from the store instead of tap water or the filtered water from our fridge. So far so good with our second batch.  The only thing that did not grow is the Italian basil, and again the company is sending us new seeds. They guarantgee their product and will continue sending seeds until it grows. We have used fresh basil and dill after four weeks already (above picture). I admit it is a bit expensive, but it is wonderful to have fresh herbs year round! My Mom got so many herbs she had to freeze them, and she is now ready to turn her AeroGarden over to my sister.

We have not decided if we are going to stick with herbs or move on to something else next winter.

Besides his Grind and Brew, my husbands favorite kitchen gadget is his Kitchenaid French Fry cutter. He loves making homemade french fries and sweet potato fries in his little fryolator. He will not by the frozen ones anymore. Cutting them was a chore, they always looked funny and never came out the same size. Some were crispy, some did not cut, he just could not get them the right size. I looked for quite awhile before I found this little fry cutter. It has  interchangeable blades, so you can regular size fries, small ones, and even julienne vegetables. What I like is that it has an apple corer too. He is very happy all of his fries are now the same size. The only issue he has with it, is that the sweet potatoes still are a bit difficult to cut, but he is surviving.

I love tea! I drink about three cups a day and I have gone through many tea pots. My favorites were my Pfaltgraff in the pretty designs to match my different dish patterns. When we moved to our new house three years ago slowly I realized the gas stove was burning the bottoms of my teapots . One by one I was throwing them away.  I even tried lowering the heat to medium, but it was still burning them.

While browsing Amazon for Christmas gifts this past season, I noticed the Proctor Silex Eletric Tea Pot. I figured for under $15 I could not go wrong, and I was right. I have been using it every day since. It boils water fast, it shuts off by itself (if I wander away inadvertently some times). I do not know how I have lived without it! I could probably travel with it if I had to.

Of course it will not do me any good if we lose power, so I still have a regular on the stove teapot as a backup also, and it is pretty!