Another kitchen gadget

America's Test Kitchen is offering a 28% discount at Amazon on their top-rated Paderno Tri-Blade Plastic Spiral Vegetable Slicer. The code is ATKSPIRAL.  I saw it on Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/23/special-spiralizer-deal_n_7087924.html  and the offer at Amazon is: .

While I was at Amazon, I also pre-ordered a new cookbook Deep South Dish cookbook. I am seriously addicted to cookbooks.

I love kitchen gadgets and I was intrigued by the slicer. I like the idea of spiralizing veggies . Thought somebody might be interested.

Oh, wow!  I really like that.  I bet you will make some interesting and pretty things.

Oh that looks cool!  I like the idea of making my own curly fries.    I'd love to see pictures of your creations with it!

I would love an apple peeler/corer.  That would make my fall/holiday baking so much easier on my hands!  

My mother just had a Pampered Chef party and I'm waiting for the order to come (tomorrow or Saturday they said ).  I see all those gadgets and make a wish list a mile long!  I brought DD to the party with me (she's 5) and she was fascinated!  She paid attention the whole time!  At the end she even sat own and made her own list: a brownie pan and a strawberry huller.    My wonderful, amazing mother bought DD/me the brownie pan as one of her hostess discounted items. 

Thanks, Pam! :bigthumb: I ordered one.

I'm glad you guys liked it. Karen, that's cool that you bought one! I'm intrigued because yeah, I'm interested in the curly fries. I'm also interested in spiralizing zucchini to have with a meat sauce. It just really looked interesting and, for that price, well, 

Mooch, my sister has an apple peeler/corer/slicer thingy. Now hers is pretty old and I don't know that she ever really used it. Mom and I tried it a long time ago, but I had issues with it. Maybe yours will go faster than ours did.   

Ooh, Pampered Chef. Mom used to have a lot of PC parties. I loved their stoneware and still have a lot of it. I still use their stone loaf pans when I make loaves of bread. I liked their pizza stones and, somehow, ended up with three of them. Their stone pie dishes are really nice, too; I still use them. One of the gadgets I still use is their crimping thingy. I don't remember the name for it (cut & seal?), but you can roll out dough, then spoon filling over the dough, lay another layer of dough over the filling and then crimp it together. I have the large and small one and, for a long time, that was how I made my ravioli (they were gigantic ravioli!). I have their bread tubes, too, and they really do make nice loaves of bread. So many PC items that are really nice. (No knives, though. I don't like their knives and I think you can buy better knives for a cheaper prices. I'm pretty particular about my knives. I'm not real crazy about their cookware either.)

After one of my mom's PC parties, the consultant took me aside and asked me if I'd consider being a PC consultant. I thought about it because I love kitchen stuff, but I didn't have the time.

My DIL now has PC parties every once in a while and I can always find something. One thing that I just love is a 6-piece set of glass prep bowls with the lids. OMGosh, those little bowls are so handy! I fill them with pizza toppings, then put the bowls on a tray and take the tray to the grill for when we're grilling pizza. Each person makes their own pizza with their own toppings.Those little bowls are wonderful. Dishwasher safe, too, even the lids on the top rack.

I am seriously addicted to kitchen gadgets! Mooch, looks like your daughter is going to love kitchen gadgets, too! 

I want a pizza stone but that'll have to wait.  They come with handles now so they looked so much easier to use!  A stone loaf pan might get some use around here too.    As I was sitting at the party I realized how much of their stuff I have.  More than I thought!  I like that they have things in all price ranges; so I can always find things to order (useful things) even when I don't plan to spend much.

I really like their micro-plane grater.  It folds in half and has the holder so you don't risk grating your fingers.    I use that for zesting things.  I want the larger one for grating cheese.  It looks easy and it also has a guard.  I have a cheap hand grater; but it's difficult to use.  I end up breaking out the food processor and all it's parts if I'm doing a lot of grating.  I do have a mandolin; but the food processor just makes quick work of it.  It just wastes space in the dishwasher.  

This time I bought a slicer.  You lay your bagel/chicken breast/etc between the 2 side and it holds it while you run the knife through.  Chicken breasts seem to be SO huge anymore that I hate buying them; this should get A LOT of use here!!  That was my requirement; that whatever I get be useful!  I wanted the garlic press too; but that can wait.  My mother also ordered me a knife.  She has a few of the green ones.  I didn't like the price of their higher end ones.  But her green ones have worked well.  I have an Oneida chef knife that I LOVE!  But I wanted a bigger one because sometimes it's just not quite big enough.  I really stink when it comes to using a knife and I've found a good quality knife makes a world of difference!   

(Now I want to make some lime chicken because I talked about zesting...lol)

Be careful with handles. They get hot and can burn your hands. Trust me on that. You're better off with just a regular stone.

As for the chicken breasts, yeah, they're gigantic anymore. I freeze them one at a time and then Rick and I will split one breast.

Winchester said:

I used to have a bagel slicer, one of those clear acrylic things.  I got rid of it. I don't eat bagels very often, and most bagels that you guy in the store don't fit into the holder.  I got rid of it because it was taking up space.

I have way too many knives. I need to find new homes for some of them.  I only use my 2 paring knives, my chef's knife, my cleaver and bread knife.  There are many more just taking up space.

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Oh that's a great idea for keeping things warm!  I think my Mom bought one of the stones.  I'll suggest it for our next family holiday! 

I really like the Pampered chef microplane because I can adjust it and it's comfortable to hold.  I have a vague memory of my Grandma's finger being bandaged because it slipped when she was grating some nutmeg.

When I was narrowing down my list I really tried to think of how often I'd use the item.  They had some really cool other things; but I don't need things collecting dust.  The slicer seemed versatile enough for us.  They have a tool for ground beef that I'm anxious to try out!  And we try to buy fruit in season; so the strawberry huller should get it's use.  I think the back end of it can be used for melon balls.  I'm trying to be practical like that with all my shopping.   I suppose certain things really are seasonal; like  my silicone pastry mat; but it gets a lot of us at that time, so it was still a good purchase.  It still has a specific purpose I guess. 

We have 2 kitchen outlet stores near us.  My Mom and I have to browse in both when we go down that way to shop.     I've found some cool things down there too! 

The reason I mentioned the heat of the handles is because while I'm forming my pizza, I have the stone preheating in the oven. I form the pizza on a wooden peel, then put it on the preheated stone. And that stone is hot (which means the handles would be hot, too). But I preheat my stone because then the crust is going onto the hot stone and it will brown better and more quickly. Preheating the stone is a way of trying to simulate those hot ovens at your neighborhood pizza place. So if you preheat the stone (and the handles), you need to be very careful. You can bake your free-form breads and rolls on a pizza stone. I do that. I like to make a lot of circular breads and such and they bake nicely on stones.

Rick got me my first microplane years ago. I love the microplane because I hate the Kraft grated Parmesan stuff. I'll buy a hunk of Parmesan Reggiano and grate as I need it. A nice-size hunk will see me through a good month or so. And I grate my own nutmeg, too, as I need it. I've been known to grate my finger every so often....it happens. My sister grated her finger one time and we needed to bandage it. She's never let me forget it. 

I could probably use a strawberry huller. We have the strawberry bed up in the garden and I cut the hulls out now. 

My take on kitchen stuff (and it's hard for me to narrow things down) is that I don't want a one-trick pony if I can help it. In the immortal words of Alton Brown, the only single-tasker that should be in anyone's kitchen is a fire extinguisher. I've tried to keep to that as much as I can. But there are some things that, even if I only use them once a year, if it makes a task easier, I'll buy it. I have a KA grinder for my mixer....I use it to make cranberry relish for the holidays. But when our parents passed away, they had a wonderful Oster food grinder that they used for relish and such. I took it and stored it in the basement; everybody knows it's there and if anybody wants to use it, it's available. I only use my food dehydrator in the summer, but I can't be without it now. I have an electric juicer that I don't use often, but I do use it for lemonade and fresh lemon/lime juice for recipes.

As for knives, I'm a Shun girl....love my Shun paring knife and my Shun chef's knife. That being said, I wouldn't recommend them. The only way to sharpen them is to send them away and, had I known that at the time, I wouldn't have bought them. I like Rada knives. Seriously. They're made in the USA and they're really nice knives. A lot of churches sell them as a fundraiser. But there's a local kitchen store that sells them, too. We have a set of Rada steak knives and I keep several of their paring knives on hand, too. Their bread knife is very nice and I have a serrated Rada, too. They're not overly expensive and they get the job done. (I gave my sister a Rada paring knife as a small part of her Christmas present last year.....and she promptly cut her thumb with the thing. And she had to call me right away to tell me.They are sharp.)

I think I've mentioned this before....Rick's mother gave me a Cuisinart coffee grinder a few years ago. Now I don't use it for coffee at all, but I use it for spices and herbs. I make a lot of my own herb/spice blends and the coffee grinder is wonderful for quickly grinding seeds and larger spices down the the size I want.

Winchester said:

And we try to buy fruit in season; so the strawberry huller should get it's use.  I think the back end of it can be used for melon balls.

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You don't need a strawberry huller! Use a simple drinking straw! That's what I do. Very simple and very fast!  Works great!

MoochNNoodles said:

my silicone pastry mat; but it gets a lot of us at that time, so it was still a good purchase.  It still has a specific purpose I guess.

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I use clear table vinyl purchased from a fabric store.  I buy a metre for less than $5 and cut it into 4.  This way I can roll pastry or fondant or cookie dough between 2 of them.  When not in use I roll them over an empty paper towel roll and put them on a closet shelf.

OMGosh, easy peasey! Thanks, Linda! That's a nifty idea about the clear table vinyl, too. 

Winchester said:

 
OMGosh, easy peasey! Thanks, Linda! That's a nifty idea about the clear table vinyl, too. 

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You're welcome.  The straw actually has less waste than the huller.  I used to have a huller, and you lose a lot of strawberry.  

I finally used mine yesterday!


We had never had zucchini noodles before and we really liked them. We're having them again tonight. I learned overgrown zucchini don't work that well when you get to the middle because the seeds get in the way. I just used a smaller one and it worked great.

We tried our new spiralizer out tonight for dinner. It was interesting. And kind of fun! I happened to be online back in May and Amazon was selling this at a discount, in conjunction with America's Test Kitchen. We've been wondering about spiralizers and this seemed like a good chance to try it out. We've been waiting for the zucchini to be picked in the garden. And so tonight was the night.


We got it together; the blades are quite sharp and you need to be very careful. I'm serious. Caution!


While Rick was putting it together, I washed and cut off the ends of three zucchini. Then we put a zucchini on the end of the spiralizer. You have to keep the mechanism pressed tightly against the blade end so that the zucchini will be spiralized without a lot of hassle. Oh, and there's a  zucchini "core". What happens is that while you're turning the knob, it's turning the zucchini and spiralizing it, leaving a bit of a core. I guess you can eat the core, if you want....it's just zucchini. But it looks a little weird. 


Here the zucchini is coming out of the end into a bowl. Man, some of those zucchini strands are L-O-N-G! Really long!


I sliced an onion and sauteed the onion slices in a bit of olive oil. Added some fresh, pressed garlic cloves, and some sliced banana peppers. Sauteed until the onion and peppers were tender. Then threw the zucchini into the pan and continued to saute. I wanted the zucchini strands at the crisp-tender stage. I made some marina sauce and Rick had his with sauce and a sprinkling of fresh Parmesan. I had mine plain. It was good!

This would be good for somebody who's on a low-carb diet or for somebody who's gluten-free. 

I want to try it with potatoes next. Maybe some carrots. They say you can use it with cabbage, but I have an old Mouli for when I want to make coleslaw.  We'll use this; I want to try to make something with salad stuff. It's really interesting.

Nice, Karen! We used ours tonight. I posted it separately; didn't realize that you had found the original thread. Can you move my post down into this thread? Thank you!

We liked the noodles, too. We thought they had a good flavor. And they're filling. You wouldn't think they would be because it's zucchini. But it was quite filling. Yum.

I have to get one of those! Only two problems - I have a tendency towards ingenious ways of maiming myself in the kitchen, and I have a chronic lack of space (so nowhere to store it).

Sooo jealous right now Pam That zucchini looks good

I know, Columbine, and if anybody is going to cut themselves, it would be me. Whenever I bake, I burn myself; whenever I cook, I cut myself. It always happens.

I'm running out of storage space in the kitchen myself. Right now, I keep it in the bottom of one of the lazy Susans. 

But it's a neat little gadget and we'll get use out of it. Stay tuned!

Winchester said:

 
I know, Columbine, and if anybody is going to cut themselves, it would be me. Whenever I bake, I burn myself; whenever I cook, I cut myself. It always happens.

I'm running out of storage space in the kitchen myself. Right now, I keep it in the bottom of one of the lazy Susans. 

But it's a neat little gadget and we'll get use out of it. Stay tuned!

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I have a mandolin that has an attachment that makes a similar cut. I almost took a fingertip off with it. 

That looks delicious. I would have had it plain too. Maybe a little parmesan and some crushed red pepper though. I love zucchini