Thai Waffle Knife

This stainless steel knife from Thailand is used to decorate fruits and vegetables and desserts, to give them a waffle pattern. We got this from Thailand, and have not seen it for sale in Canada (or, at least not the Thai version).

Kiwi Pro Slice

This instrument from Thailand is used to make fruits and vegetables into small strips; it has a zigzag pattern on the stainless steel blade to accomplish this. You can use this best (very easy!) to make Som Tam (papaya sour salad), or for decoration, by slicing the surface in strips. We got this from Thailand, but I've also seen it for sale here in Canada, in various Chinese or Vietnamese supermarkets.

Our new Breadmaker

We got a surprise gift for our first wedding anniversary from my brother and his wife, a breadmaking machine. Thanks!

For our first attempt at fresh bread, we chose the Seeded Whole Wheat bread from the recipe provided (we added flax and chia seeds, and used 12 grain whole wheat instead of just whole wheat bread flour). It produced a dense, flavourful, tasty, huuuge loaf of bread (which rose too high and threatened to pop the lid right open, likely because of the high humidity in the air). We enjoyed it all week. Here's the recipe we used.

Seeded Whole Wheat Bread
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup water
2 Tbsp butter, cut into pieces
2 Tbsp maple syrup
1 Tbsp grated orange peel (I did not add this)
2 tsp salt
2 cups 12 grain whole wheat flour
4 cups white bread flour
3 tsp active dry or bread machine yeast
2 tsp vital wheat gluten (optional) (I did not add this)
1/2 cup flax seeds
2 Tbsp chia seeds

Add all ingredients, first liquid, then dry (make sure yeast is added last) except for last two (added at "Add ingredient" stage). Make on Whole Grain setting or according to manufacturer's instructions.

The Glamorizer

We were at Zeller's last Saturday, and were intrigued, well, I was intrigued, by the offer of a free gift for a new item for sale at Zeller's. Knowing there was likely to be a sales pitch, we went anyway. The sales pitch was for US Jesco's new knives, what they call Master Cut, they are the makers of the Ginsu knives, the ever-sharp knives which we've all seen on infomericials.

The gift for listening to the spiel, the offer at the end of we considered for a minute before deciding we didn't need any more knives, was what they called the Glamorizer.

The tab on the end you can use to score the rind of an orange, making it easier to peel. The other end has a serrated edge with a channel, that will allow you to cut apples or other fruit into decorative shapes easily.

All in all, what they offered, seemed like a good deal, two knives, four steak knives, some more, like any of their informercials, but we decided against it.

Rose Silicon Baking Form

Silicon baking forms work well in some respects, and not so well in others. To be sure, you need to grease them in some way in order for them to release well. They are not good conductors of heat, thus have good application used like parchment paper on baking sheets or when taking hot things out of an oven, but you also need to increase the amount of cooking time. Too, they are kind of wobbly, and you need to put them on a baking sheet to give them stability, otherwise, you might end up with some of your batter in the oven (he said having had personal experience with this). This particular silicon form makes the baked good look like a rose, the possibilities are endless.

This is what the finished product could look like.

Xi Yue Pot

I was over at my brother-in-law's the other day, and he had a neat pot for making tea. I was intrigued, as I'm always on the lookout for better ways of making tea. The problem with loose tea, while it produces a superior flavour, the tea leaves, whatever is loose, often tends to float on the surface and interferes with the enjoyment of the drink, you're always spitting out something. With green tea, you can chew on the leaves, many people do, often to get the last of the goodness out. He gladly demonstrated the teapot, and I was further intrigued. I asked him where he had got it, and he told me that he had got it from a friend, who had bought it in China.

The other day I was in this Chinese supermarket, and I was finally able to locate one. I bought it, got it home, and had to bring it back to exchange, as it was broken (and learned a lesson about Chinese business people, they were suspicious that I had broken it and was lying that it was broken when I bought it - I guess I looked honest enough that they allowed me to exchange it).

The Xi Yue pot has three distinct parts to it, an outer glass pot, where the steeped tea goes once it is ready; and inner plastic pot, with fine screen and water-stop ball, where the tea steeps; and a plastic lid, to cover the tea while it is steeping.

Here is the inner pot, without the lid, with some green tea, waiting for the hot water.

Here is the steeping tea in the inner pot.

When the tea is ready, there is a water-release button, that, when pressed, lifts the water-stop ball (a ball bearing), releasing the tea into the outer pot, the screen filtering the tea leaves.

Here is the tea in the outer pot.

The tea pot works great, I find, you can add more hot water to the inner pot, to steep the tea a second, or third, time, but it makes only a small amount of tea, enough for half a mug of tea. Fine for one person, I guess, but for larger number of people, I would say that you need a much bigger one. I wonder if they do.

Chocolate Chipper

If a recipe calls for chopped chocolate, the best instrument to have in your kitchen to accomplish this easily and quickly is a chocolate chipper. The slightly sharpened prongs not only easily slide through chocolate, it causes the chocolate to break up in little chunks. Not very expensive, this one cost under ten dollars, and can be found in specialty kitchen stores.

Dr. Oetker Measuring Cup

We've had one of these old-style measuring cups in our cupboard for years, I can't even say how long, it's even starting to rust, so I was pleased to see that it is still available in Germany. My dear aunt sent me one for Christmas. Within, it has ways to measure cocoa, rice, flour, raisins, sugar, salt, peas or beans or lentils, and liquid measures, but it also has the old-fashioned way of measuring butter, which is to fill the container with water to a certain level, then add butter till it achieves the level you want; this will give you the desired weight of butter that you need according to the recipe. It's much easier now, with scales and measurements on the butter chart, I know, but I find it interesting the way that people figured out how to do this.

Cookie Press

I bought this cookie press, it's made by the Swiss company Kuhn Rikon, specifically to make this particular hazelnut cookie, which I'm planning on making in the next week or so. I like that the tube of this press is stainless steel, it seems a little more sturdy than the plastic ones I've seen. The whole unit comes apart for fairly easy cleaning, and the unit is fairly easy to switch pattern discs. The concept of a cookie press, is to have a disc at the bottom of a tube filled with dough, pressing the top forces the dough through the pattern, making a cookie of a certain shape. There are many different shapes included with the press, wreathes, pumpkins, christmas trees and differently shaped stars, I haven't used them all. There is also the ability to fill the tube with icing and have a tip at the end in order to pipe icing onto cakes.

My second new gadget

I had bought this second gadget, the Ronco Rotisserie, from the Shopping Channel a couple of weeks ago, and had not been able to use it, as I had been very busy at work. This weekend, I decided to try and make my first rotisserie chicken, and even bought the whole chicken mid-week, so as to force my hand, so to speak. I had always been intrigued by this machine, as I thought that it would make a better meal than cooking in the oven. This particular chicken took about 55 minutes to make, and browned nicely, as you can see in the picture below. The meat turned out quite juicy, and you could some of the fat drip off of the chicken as it roasted. I was not pleased by it setting off one of my smoke alarms several times, I'm not sure whether it was smoke, which I couldn't really see, or the heat coming off of it, which also activates the alarm. There was very little cleanup, the parts cleaned off nicely in soap and water. Next, I'll try to make a pork roast, my favourite. And then combine that roasted pork with my panini grill, to make an excellent sandwich. Now, I'll just have to find a place for this, there's a lot of things fighting for the limited space.

My new set of knives

This set of knives, with a kitchen scissors too, came with the second gadget I bought myself this last week. They look to be fairly good, sharp even. It'll be interesting to see how they perform.

The first of my new gadgets

I bought two things last weekend from the Shopping Channel, the first of these is this panini grill from the renowned chef Wolfgang Puck. I had been searching for a way to grill meat, and sandwiches, in my condo, I don't like frying things really, the flavour of a burger or chicken is vastly different grilled than fried, far better in my opinion. This is one of the appliances that Wolfgang Puck has for sale in his Bistro Collection. It comes too with a bunch of recipes that should be interesting to try out and tweak to my tastes. Too, what I like about this, is that it grills from both sides, so it's quick to grill almost anything. You can usually have something cooked and ready to eat in a little over 12 minutes. Couple this with the other gadget I bought this week, which I will talk about later, I should not be lacking for things to eat.

Green Bags

On one hand, having fruit and vegetables last more than a month is very tempting, often I've taken food home, only to have it go bad in three or four days, on the other hand, having food last that long makes me think that there's something not natural about it. And, given that during the summer months, there is always a surplus of delicious goods available at the market, more than you can usually eat, you almost have to gorge yourself sometimes, the amount that the farmers give for the small amount of coin you hand over, having that food last more than a week or two is great. So, I was intrigued by the idea of these new kind of bags, Debbie Meyer's EvertFresh Green Bags™, they were on sale on The Shopping Channel, which are made of a natural mineral that absorb and remove the ethylene gases responsible for ripening, and ultimately rotting, fruits and vegetables and flowers. Apples give off the most ethylene, you can put an apple in with your other fruit, and they will ripen quickly; too, bananas naturally ripen because they are dosed with ethylene gas. Just wrap your fruit in a bag, and keep it on your counter, or in the crisper, and it will keep much longer than normal. The bags are also re-usable, up to eight times. Now, I've had mixed results so far, the bananas I put in, seemed to collect water and could have gone bad faster; but I was able to keep farm fresh tomatoes for several weeks, they tasted pretty good still when I ate them today. The list of fruits and vegetables that you can put in these bags is quite long, you can also put cut flowers in there, and they'll stay fresh much longer. I'll have to experiment more, to find out just how effective they are.

My new pepper grinder

My sister-in-law has one of these, at least the salt-grinder version, and I thought it was kind of cool, and I was looking for a pepper grinder, so I bought one. It's designed to be a one-handed pepper grinder, and works quite well.