Get Your (gadget) Freak On!

I was with a friend not long ago and we drove past a Bed, Bath, and Beyond store.  He says, "I'm such a kitchen gadget freak!", to which I responded:

Do you have a melon baller?" ...No
Do you have an asparagus peeler? ...No
Do you have a cherry pitter? ...No
Do you have a strawberry huller? ...No
Do you have a mango slicer? ...No
Do you have a shrimp de-veiner? ...No

Hmmmm?  I guess he isn't as big a kitchen gadget freak as I am.  The thing to ask yourself before you buy a "kitchen gadget" is...will I use it more that once?  In my case the strawberry huller and the cherry pitter allow me to cook both sweet and savory dishes with beautiful fruit.  I was too lazy before to deal with the preparation of berries and cherries.  The melon baller I use mostly for putting a few shallow holes in my zucchini  before I barbecue them.  I fill the holes with butter and garlic.  The mango slicer was meant for Africa but when I got there I realized that their mangos are twice the size of ours...wasted purchase.

The best gadget I have by far is probably the most obscure...the asparagus peeler.  If you're like me you're always looking for the smallest (around) asparagus because it's the most tender.  With an asparagus peeler you no longer have to worry about that.  You'll be looking for the bigger (around) asparagus because (a) they're tender and tasty after you've peeled them and (b) they are usually less expensive in the stores.  Peel some asparagus, salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil, put on the BBQ grill and enjoy.  Make a salad with them if you want by adding hardboiled egg, bacon, and a nice sherry vinaigrette dressing.

Some gadgets can make cooking even more fun.  Remember, if there's something you DON'T enjoy doing in the kitchen, there's probably a gadget to make it easier...except for doing the dishes.  "Hey kids?  Wanna play kitchen gadget after dinner?"  LOL

Red-Eye Crock Butt?

Don’t throw out that unused coffee in your pot! Ever had a really good pulled pork sandwich? It’s expensive to buy one at a place like Armadillo Willy’s. I love smoking my own pork butt (shoulder roast) but since returning to the U.S. I haven’t replaced my smoker. The other day I had an idea. Want to get that pulled pork butt flavor without going to the trouble of smoking it all day long? Maybe it’s too cold to deal with the outdoors? I have a great recipe from a book called "Smoke and Spice" by Jamison called “Red-Eye Butt”.

The recipe is made for smoking but I discovered that you can take the same recipe using strong coffee, molasses, and cider vinegar and convert it to a very easy crock pot recipe. Put the exact same ingredients inside the crock pot set it for 10 hours before you go to work and come home to a tender pork shoulder roast that will fall off the bone and be ready for shredding with a fork. Just spread the shredded pork out on a cutting board, salt and pepper and serve on buns with barbecue sauce. It’s a super easy meal for about the price of one pulled pork plate at Armadillo Willy's or Dickeys.

Old Spice?...Scatter It Like Grandpa’s Ashes

Did you know that spices expire?  Yes…after months on a shelf, spices will lose their flavor and become not much more than edible dust.  Put it in your meals and you’ll have…well…dusty meals. LOL  McCormick has a great web page called “How Old Are Your Spices?”  It’s worth a quick glance.  I especially liked #4…If it’s a tin, it’s at least 15 years old.  I can’t tell you how many tins I dug out of my Mom and Dad’s pantry the other day.  But my rule of late has been, “If it won’t kill them, I won’t throw it away.”  So those tins are still sitting in the pantry, albeit out of reach.

My advice, go out and buy new bottles of the spices you use on a regular basis.  If you need to, do it over time.  When you use a spice that looks old, leave it on your counter to remind you for your next shopping trip.

The absolute best way to do spices is always in seed/pod/whole form.  It takes a lot longer for these to go flavorless.  So cinnamon sticks are better than ground cinnamon, coriander seeds better than ground coriander, cumin seeds better than ground cumin, whole cloves…  Well you get the idea.

“What do I do with cinnamon sticks when I need ground cinnamon?”, you ask?  Well…you grind them…and the easiest way I‘ve found to do this is to buy a separate coffee grinder just for spices.  Throw the whole form spice in and hit the grinder button and you have the freshest ground cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, etc. you can get.  You’ll need to experiment a bit with volume…like how much stick cinnamon makes a teaspoon?  You will however, be surprised at the strong, aromatic spice that results.


So toss those old spice tins...but check eBay first.  If they're really old, they may be worth something. Ha Ha