What I’m Trying – Fusionbrands Poachpods
August 22, 2012 - Written by DianaPoaching is one of lower fat ways to prepare eggs. I love eggs over medium, cooked in olive oil but left still runny. I like poaching, but they’re always messy when I do it, leaving little trails of egg floating around and sometimes sticking. Forget cooking a bunch of eggs at once. I’ve been eyeing Fusionbrands Poachpods wondering if they work. When I was offered a chance to try them out, I went for it.
The poachpods are food safe silicon cups – that you place the uncooked egg in before dropping it in the pan to poach. So no swirling tentacles of egg all over the pan, it’s all contained in the poachpod. You boil the water, drop the poach pod with the egg into the pan, top with a lid and when it’s poached, pull it out of the pan, turn it over and flip the egg out.
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I’ve been playing with it a little, and these are my observations.
- It takes a little longer to use the poach pod – but you have to keep an …
Genius Choppers – Great Tools When You Have a Lot of Chopping To Do
January 25, 2012 - Written by DianaRecently I came home to baked fries, that my son made and put into the toaster oven. No oil, not deep frying, just baking and they were fantastic tasting. He decided to use the Genius Nicer Dicer to cut the potatoes into uniform size – and I think it did the trick. Since the potatoes were uniform in size, they took the same amount of time to cook and were perfect. Because he used herbs, salt and pepper, they were tasty even without the oil.
We’ve been trying out the Genius Salad Chopper and the Genius Nicer Dicer, two chopping tools that are sold on QVC. They’re mostly self contained because you can store the blades, and slicers inside the container the Chopper sits on top of. It’s both a work and serving station.
The salad chopper bowl is huge, which will come in handy when you have a really big gathering and want to serve a big group though, t’s a bit oversized for a family of four. The Salad Chopper comes with two different sized blade inserts, an insert with two graters and a cleaning tool. The …
Cook N’ Stir – My Son’s New Favorite Cooking Tool
July 12, 2011 - Written by Diana
I was sent a Cook N’ Stir by Beka - to try out. It’s a 2 1/2 Quart measuring pot with a pour spout. When my daughter and I saw it, we both immediately thought of her alfredo sauce. I think it’s deep enough that her sauce won’t splatter all over – that’s always a problem when my kids cook. The splatter goes everywhere. This is less wide and more tall, so maybe less splatter – one can hope.What neither of us expected, is that my son has decided that it’s a great pot for using to make dinner. He first tried it with a spaghetti meat sauce. I thought it was a good idea (and hey no sauce splatter). he cooked the meat in the microwave and prepared the sauce in the Cook N’ Stir, then added the meat to the sauce. We loved pouring the sauce over top of the spaghetti. Then another day he did macaroni and cheese. One of the features I love about the Cook N’ Stir is the thick bottom. Not only did we not have splatter, but …
Cool Kitchen Tools
August 20, 2010 - Written by DianaI’ve been using these kitchen tools, and I’m ready to share what I think about them. When I do a review, I usually try to use it for a while to get used to it and to make sure it’s durable. I would hate to talk about something and find out later it was useless, but I recommended it because I didn’t spend enough time with it. In fact, recently I tried out this great looking shiny peppermill. I loved the weight of it, the look of it, but in reality, it’s useless. The kosher salt dropped through the mill without stopping. I thought it would be different for the peppercorns because I knew they wouldn’t fall through. Well, no, they didn’t, but they weren’t ground down either, they spit out in chunks. I am so disappointed. My poor college student daughter who will be moving in to a house with 5 other girls didn’t even want it.
The tools you see on Cookerati, are the ones I recommend, some highly, some are better than good, and others are just good but I won’t recommend something I’ve tried out and didn’t like. Today’s list is pretty good, …
NuWave Infrared Oven – Takes Getting Used To, But Worth It
May 17, 2010 - Written by DianaI’ve been trying out the NuWave Infrared Oven lately. The difficulty with reviewing, is that you then have to set your dinnertime or dinner prep time around a review product. While in some cases it’s easy to do, when it comes to cooking with a new gadget, you may need a little extra time and leeway. That’s the case with the NuWave. I thought I would like it after all I’ve seen the infomercials. It’s easy to use, right, and cooks it perfectly, right. Well, kind of. The first time, I underestimated how long it would take to cook the meat, and over estimated the asparagus. So I ended up with meat that I kept putting on longer and longer, which dehydrated the asparagus. Really, it tasted like dried asparagus – a little on the weird side if you ask me. Pizza turned out well though it took a little longer to bake than I thought it should, plus flipping it over. However, summer pizza might be worth it, because the kitchen won’t heat up.
The next time I cooked lamb chops – and that worked out really well. …
Pourfectly Wonderful Pourfect Bowls, Measuring Cups and Spoons
July 26, 2009 - Written by DianaBefore Pourfect I had a mishmash of all different size and style measuring cups and spoons. I packed those up because now I have a really nice set that is pretty darn perfect. I love the pour spouts, the stability of the larger cups due to the rubber rings on the bottom. The measuring spoons have a nice range of sizes, all the way down to a smidgen and a pinch and all the way up to 2 tbs. The spoons all clip easily on and off a ring, and the set comes with a leveler. The cups nestle so nicely inside each other. The cup set fits down into my kitchen drawer, which is a big plus. The Pourfect measuring cups and spoons are also very sturdy another plus.
I also have different size Pourfect spillproof bowls with lots of great features.- Gull wings – Nothing drips over the sides – no overspill.
- Dripless spout …
What Do You Need For Your Favorite Grill Meister?
June 8, 2009 - Written by DianaWe’re not Grill Masters yet. We’re working on it, slowly trying to improve our technique. We saw some classes we wanted to try, but we had conflicts (probably track) and couldn’t go. I watch Bobby Flay and the others when I can (Alton too) to learn and we’re getting better. Our grilled chicken was really delicious. I love that the grill doesn’t heat up the kitchen – someday I’d like to try solar cooking, too. Though we’ve cooked over our firepit and a propane stove when we go camping, the grill is the one I want to master now.
Grill Daddy – My husband usually wants to wrap everything in foil and seal it up good when he grills. I’ve been trying to get him to grill the meat right on the grill, but he hates the clean up. The Grill Daddy takes care of that. It has a wire brush, plus a reservoir for water. You squirt the water onto the grill and use the wire brush to clean off any residual stuck meat …
Kyocera Advanced Ceramics – Cool knives with a really sharp edge.
February 8, 2009 - Written by Diana
Recently I’ve had the opportunity to try out some Kyocera Ceramic Kitchen Knives, peelers and mandolin. If you are looking for something really cool, beautiful, great to handle, then this is the knife for you. Ceramic knives are really really sharp and keep their sharpness ten times longer than a regular metal blade. The handle on these tools are ergonomic and fit so well, they’re a pleasure to hold. They’re really lightweight too since the blade is a lighter weight than the metal ones, the handles don’t need to counter balance the blade weight and so the whole knife is light. They’re good for cutting fruits, vegetables, and boneless meats.
These knives are meant to compliment your collection, not take it over. It has limitations due to the hardness of the ceramic blade. You can’t cut really hard things, because if you twist the blade, you are liable to break some of the teeth. However, if you slice an …
Pressure Cooker Pot Roast
January 6, 2009 - Written by Diana
Sunday was a busy day. It was the last day of our winter break. My husband and I took the time off to spend it with the kids and each other, but this was our last day before work started up again. It was the day my daughter was leaving to go back to college, catching a ride with a friend. We went to church, but we never do hit the early mass, it’s the nooner for us, so we can have a leisurely brunch together first. Then food shopping and stock up for college girl since she was going back. I bought a roast in the store, but forgot that I should start early with all of the commotion going on. When I remembered, time was too short to go the slow simmer route, so I kicked it into high gear with the pressure cooker. We never owned one growing up, and I never saw one in use until my mother in law did a pot roast for dinner one night years back. If you don’t have a lot of time …
Cooking Projects
December 7, 2008 - Written by Diana
I think that some days cooking should be the project of the day. I know we think of gardening as a project, or changing the oil, or cleaning the gutters, but some days need to be set aside to accomplish a cooking project. While me may also think of Thanksgiving, or Christmas as a project, and it is, but I’m not referring to that in particular. Making Salsa was one of our projects this year. This weekend my kids are gone, which makes it a little easier. It’s snowing outside and that helps to reinforce that today is a good indoor project day. Turkey Soup
I have a turkey carcass (my sister in law didn’t want it – can you believe my luck). It had some meat on it so I cooked everything in a pot of water. Then strained the broth into another pot, put everything out on pans to cool and removed all the meat. Then I stuck the bones, and skin and everything except the meat, along with onion – quartered, peels and all, plus …
