Kitchen Gadgets

Since we're talking Crock Pots, here's a pic of the bread steamer insert I mailed away for many years ago:



You pour your batter into it, put a metal trivet in the Crock Pot to keep the steamer off of the bottom, pour maybe a cup of hot water in the Crock Pot, set the steamer on the trivet, put on the lid, and let your bread steam for a few hours. My original Rival cookbook has recipes in it for this.

You can also use a large coffee can and fashion an aluminum foil lid with steam holes punched in the top. I've used veggie cans to make individual steamed banana breads, date & nut breads, and brown breads as gifts.

The flavors are great when the breads have steamed for hours.

 

I hear ya.

I only use the large one for pot lucks, a Feed-My-Sheep thing we did several times a year pre-COVID, and a chili contest my church does annually.

 

I just took a look. My old Crock Pot cookbook has a small section on baking breads & cakes in it (steamed and dry.) It shows using a Springform pan and an angel food cake pan.

I've never done anything other than steamed breads in it. I would never have thought to put the thing on high for hours with no liquid in it...for some of the recipes it calls for keeping the lid cracked to let the steam escape.

 

So I received my grooved pasta paddle for making the shaped semolina pastas and for gnocchi, should I ever decide to do those. The veggie can is to give a sense of size:



I've won nicer things at the carnival ring toss, and they cost me a lot less than $7.50. Daggone balsa wood.
If I had a better method of holding and accurately adjusting my router, I would have made my own.

Oh, well. It will do the job.
Sometimes the edge gets taken off of my fondness of capitalism.

 

I've watched videos of those women cranking shapes out faster than a factory, sitting out in the street in front of their houses, making enough to supply the local restaurants. There's one where the woman never breaks eye contact with the camera, and she doesn't miss a beat. The pastas just keep on flowing...each one perfect.

I shall never attain such levels.
And I'm OK with that.

There are shapes that are only done with a dinner knife. We'll see how good I am.

 

So I've started a cascade of buying kitchen stuff I've been on the fence about for years. Probably all the "sheltering"

-I bought a Breville combination oven a couple of months ago, and use the dehydrator function so much that I ordered a dedicated dehydrator so I don't burn out the Breville. I've wanted a dehydrator for a very long time. I'll find room for it somewhere. Should be here by next Monday.

-Lon's shrimp scampi meal pics inspired me to make a batch of it, so I bought high-quality refrigerated linguine, which pushed me over the edge to buy a pasta machine so I can make my own. Been getting tons of use out of it.

-I precook some of the homemade ravioli I make before freezing it, and reheat it in a hot water bath (while babysitting the temp) so as to not overcook it, so I just bought a sous vide machine to make this process easier, and for normal sous vide use. There are lots of really intriguing recipes out there. I've been looking at these for a few years, and finally found one with a low enough number of negative reviews ("Stopped working after a few months" is common) at a price I'm willing to pay. Amazon is currently $50 lower than everyone else (I understand that they sometimes run deals on this machine.) Scheduled to arrive by Friday.

-I've purchased thermometers (kitchen, BBQ and Infra Red) from ThermoWorks in the past, and received an email offering Open Box deals on the insta-read kitchen thermometer used on America's Test Kitchen. Should get it in a few days.

The only remaining kitchen thing I've not purchased is a pressure canner. Cooking as much as I do, it would be nice to have fresher ingredients. It's just that being single, I don't go through any large quantity of stuff. It's just that learning how to can is sort of a bucket list item for me.

 

That is GREAT!!!!
Obviously invented by someone without a large family, 'cause we never had pie leftovers growing up.

I'd find a way to install a spring so it would shove itself over automatically as you removed slices. Bonus points for developing an app that tells you when you're down to the final slices (WARNING!! Angle Exceeds Your Set Limit of 270°)

I keep saying that I could live in a tent in the yard, convert every room in my house to Appliance Storage, and still not have enough room for all the gadgets I want! I got my sous vide machine today (do they really need to have postal workers deliver on Sunday?) and am trying to figure out where I'm gonna store it. I might have to take a Crock Pot to Goodwill, and just get by with 2. That dehydrator I bought found a home on my washing machine for now...got fresh pineapple dehydrating even as we speak (only $2 for a whole pineapple!!!) I can see how something like this can change dietary habits for the better. The dehydrating community speaks of "raw & living food" diets.