Confessions of a Gadget Junkie

 
Given that I don't really like to cook and solidly claim that I've already cooked my lifetime quota of meals and am therefore DONE, I'm a total sucker for interesting kitchen gadgets. Like this one.



Know what it is?

Here's a clue.



Here's the actual clue, if you haven't seen one before.



It's a spiral cutter. You can use it on any vegetable over about an inch in diameter. So far I've made cute carrot spirals on my salad, and tonight I did this with a zucchini. Pretty good. I boiled the zucchini spirals for a couple of minutes and added some sauce from a jar. Very like pasta texture but all veggies.



I suppose you could do a fairly green banana or a hunk of melon. How about green melon spirals with blueberries and cherries.

I think the cooked zucchini spirals would dehydrate well for backpacking.

I particularly like that there is no electricity or battery power required, just a twist of the wrist. Fun!

	See A Different New Kitchen Toy
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Garden, Eggs, Muffins, and a New Toy

I did it all today, and I'm going to drag you along rather than pick one thing.



I spent about three hours in my flower beds. I know... it really doesn't look like much of a garden. But I am enjoying finding what's still alive. There will be another story eventually about the bare stalks in the middle.

While I was working out there, I also found these:



I've spent a lot of time hunting for what they might be. My best guess is the eggs of the milkweed bugs that I showed you last summer. If so, they are close to hatching. They start out more yellow and become deeper orange as they approach hatching. Maybe I can take a picture every day and figure it out.



My next goal was to make a double batch of rhubarb muffins, and Om helped with that project. It looks like they have frosting. It's only a little butter-sugar crumbly topping, but it really reflected the light, I guess. Most of them are already in the freezer. To accomplish that storage feat, I had to get a new toy.



My vacuum sealer was really and truly dead. The hot sealing bar no longer would heat. As we were getting ready to make the muffins, I discovered that we were out of brown sugar and that Om had just drunk the last of the milk! So I made a run to Meijer, and hopefully got all my groceries for the week too (I HATE shopping). I decided that I'd get a new sealer. I use it all the time, and we like to seal the muffins in cheap sandwich bags before stacking in a Tupperware box. It keeps them from drying out so much.

Who knew! They now make a deluxe model as well as the regular one. I stood there and read the boxes and wondered if it was worth the extra money. In the end, I bought the one with more features. I really use this gadget a lot, so perhaps more options will be worth it. I'm sure I'll do a review on Shared Reviews after I use it a little more.

Not a very focused post, but a very productive day! Thanks for coming along.

See Another Orange Bug for the Milkweed Bug