Kitchen Gadgets

Yesterday my rice cooker got a little bit of blog attention, but it's not the first fancy kitchen gadget I've discovered I absolutely love, nor will it be the last!  Here are some others that I've come across, since I started cooking for myself while having a real paycheque, to the joy of the kitchen store owners.

on Rubber-Ended Cutting Boards
As a rule in this household, our plastic cutting boards are used for meat, and the bamboo ones are used for vegetables only.  In a pinch, since we frequently live more slovenly than I would like to admit, the plastic cutting boards are dual-purpose, here-this-board-is-clean-just-use-it backups, but generally not.  When we moved down and were setting up, we basically lived in an IKEA showroom, and nearly all of our cooking utensils were gloriously "Swede."  But cheap plastic cutting boards warp a lot when used and washed over and over, and we ended up with a convex board which would spin and leave trails of chicken juice all over the counter, whenever I tried to prepare dinner.  This irritated me to no end; I broke down into countless swearing fits while trying to chop chicken.  Since I picked up an OXO Good Grips cutting board with rubber on the ends, this has not happened.  The plastic is thick enough that it won't warp for a much longer time, and the rubber on the ends keep the board still.  I probably still swear while cooking ("Ahhhh shit I burned my chicken!"), but at least not at the cutting board.

on 3-cup Food Processors
I forget why I bought my Cuisinart 3-cup Mini Prep food processor, as I got it a very long time ago, and rarely used it.  But then we started doing "Nom Bowls," which is a variant of the home-made Yumm Bowl, and I also started experimenting with chicken marinades.  Now I use it so often that the lettering on the buttons are completely worn off, and unlike many other items in the kitchen, it never has enough time to let dust settle on it.  Mostly, I use it for chopping up nuts and beans, and the 3-cup size is perfect for the 2 of us; very likely I will break it down long before there are 3 of us.  I had been toying with the idea of getting a larger one, so that I could also grind up vegetables for yummy soups, but the last time we visited Vancouver, I made some Nom Sauce in my mother's 14-cup food processor, and it is seriously a pain to clean all the parts involved.  Not so with the 3-cup!  We're literally bonded by blood, those little blades and I.

on Citrus Juicers
My mother also has an electric citrus juicer which is apparently older than both my brother and me, which is extremely easy to use, and very efficient.  I think it's similar to this one, only it was made in the 70's and therefore will last much longer than that one will.  But if I had not picked up my manual Chef’n FreshForce Citrus Juicer, I would definitely consider getting one anyway.  As it is, I love that citrus juicer.  Lemon halves go in, juice comes out, and the things that remain are unrecognizable as anything but plant matter.

on Silicone Spatulas
Though I used to only use them for baking, silicone spatulas are fantastic for everything else, too.  Plastic cooking tools have been one of many banes in my few years thus far, and the prospect of eating little plastic bits in my scrambled eggs is never appealing.  There are many silicone spatulas around in my kitchen, in various sizes (little silicone spatulas are better in my food processor than the tiny plastic scraper it comes with), and my current favourite has a very nice stainless steel handle.  Some day I am going to add this silicone-coated thin metal spatula to my collection, and perhaps I will know nirvana.

on Cherry Pitters
My most recent acquisition was this OXO cherry pitter, which I used on Sunday to bake a yummy cherry pie. As a side note, said pie was made in a glass pie plate, which I also required recently, and though this is no revelation to me, it is a far cry from the metal pie tins that come with the frozen shells I buy (I am lazy, okay).  Given that I can't ever have fresh cherries, even organic, pesticide-free ones, without having my lips, tongue, throat, and occasionally gums (??) swell up, cherry preparation requires cooking, which generally includes pitting.  But until this weekend, pitting cherries meant cutting them in half and digging the pits out with my fingernails, resulting in itchy, red fingers.  It finally dawned on me that I could buy a specialized tool to help me with this, and what a difference!  A pound or so of cherries, minus fresh ones set aside for Ben to steal, pitted in no time.  Mmm, pie.

There are likely others I could add to this list, like my rice spatula, which is perfectly shaped for fluffing and serving, and there are more I have my sights set on, like the cookie dough scoop I always look at and invariably decide against buying. But doubtless I could continue on in this vein for a very, very long time.

Miso Chicken

Miso Chicken is an experiment I tried out a long time ago, which didn't turn out quite so well.  I thought I might have posted it anyway, but obviously I am wrong, since I can't seem to find it in my archives.  I tried it again today, with some modifications, and the results were significantly better.

Miso Chicken for 2:
- 1 chicken breast, cubed
- 1 heaping tablespoon of miso paste
- 2-3 tbsp rice vinegar
- dash of salt
- dash of mirin
- water
- 2 fresh green onions
- 1-2 garlic cloves
- olive oil for cooking
- pinch of powdered ginger
*If fresh ginger is your thing, then I'd do that instead--we never have any around, and I doubt I would use it fast enough to warrant buying a whole root, so it would be rather wasteful for us to buy some. 

Mix the miso and vinegar together, until there are no clumps of miso paste left.  Shake in salt, mirin, and add water so that there is just enough to cover the chicken. Let marinate for a while.
Wash and chop the green onions, yum.  Crush the garlic, then heat up the oil and garlic together.  Pour in the entire miso+chicken, add the green onions, and sprinkle the powdered ginger on top.  Cook until the chicken is done, and the water is evaporated enough for the miso to be paste-like once again.  Serve over rice, with steamed green beans.

Speaking of rice! I got this little baby a few weeks ago, and I am completely in love. It was a present to me, from me, using up an Amazon gift card I redeemed with my Aeroplan miles--it only took a mere ~5 round trip flights between YVR and SFO to get a $50 gift card. But I love my rice cooker! We've done white and brown rice, I've made congee in it, and it all turned out beautifully. It has a fantastic timer function, especially wonderful since brown rice takes a million years to cook, and we aren't usually home until 7pm as it is.  Now I set it up in the morning, and by the time I'm home and preparing dinner, rice is already done! Rice consumption has doubled, if not tripled, since we got one.

Ben commented that it is very Asian of me to have the apartment smelling of rice, which it was when we got back from running errands this afternoon.  I guess the miso chicken recipe adds to that thought! All I need now is to start cooking Chinese soup (I think it's a broth?) all the time, and I'm sure my grandparents would be very proud of me.

Mother's Day Craft Carnival

I submitted my post from yesterday on my Mother's Day card + towel roll cover to the Craft Critique Mother's Day Craft Carnival, and it's currently listed there amongst some very cool Mother's Day projects.  Check it out!

Here are some of my favourites from a quick glance: a very cute little hat (and a more stylish card than mine), a dish towel tutorial that seems like a good reason to finally use my gathering foot, tea and a card--which is what I did the first time I made a Mother's Day card, and a purse made with fabric and crochet--now that's a combination I could get into!  Not that I need more projects...

Happy Mother's Day to moms everywhere!

Goodbye, Olympics

After years of preparations, two weeks of city-wide madness, and 14 gold medals (!), the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver have come to a close.  It felt like an age in coming, and it went by in a blip.  It was surreal seeing shots of my hometown splashed about on NBC, and I daresay I will miss seeing TourismBC commercials between now and our next trip to Canada.  But this is not what I want to say.

Blogs are about opinions, so here is mine: the closing ceremony was hilarious, and I loved it.

Being not only a Canadian, but also a Vancouverite, I may be predisposed to approve of whatever shenanigans they decided to come up with for the "less formal" ceremony--especially in the heady wake of what was a fantastic, well-fought hockey game (what else would we expect from a game of NHL all-stars divided only by the 49th Parallel?), which was won by Team Canada. (Wooo!)

But, from the mime "fixing" the fourth column, to the amusing monologues mid-ceremony, to the crazy "WTF?" dance of inflatable Mounties, giant beavers, floating moose, two-man "canoes", plaid-clad lumberjacks, and "fluttering" maple leaves, the underlying theme of it all seemed to be about poking fun at Canadian stereotypes, and playfulness.  Rather fitting, after the "come play with us" theme during the closing ceremonies of the Torino games in 2006.

Really, that last part of the ceremony was worth the wait, despite delayed coverage on NBC, and despite having to listen to the grating presentations from various NBC commentators.  I really got a good laugh--and I'm sure many other Canadians did, too.  We are proud of our amusing stereotypes! And anybody who might be appalled or unimpressed by the seemingly comical display (especially after Beijing, which, we were told numerous times, was amazing, so amazing, oh my so amazing!--I am looking at you, Costas) perhaps needs to be told, "Don't take yourself too seriously, eh?"

Accidental Yarn Review

I am totally obsessed with making bowls! And felting them!  I meant for this post to be just a photo that I uploaded yesterday, but I got distracted.  So if you're interested in reading about me geeking out on yarn, then you're in the right place.

Crocheted bowls are super easy, very fast to make, and I've been testing out different types of wool yarn for the felting process.  I have an awesome spreadsheet tracking yards per ounce of wool and cost per yard, because I am a total geek!  And I love spreadsheets!

Here's my current list of wool, all in worsted weight:

• Merino wool
• O-Wool Classic (7 cents/yard)
• Shepherd's Wool, from Stonehedge Fiber Mill (4 cents/yard)
• Highland wool
• Cascade 220 (3 cents/yard)
• New England Highland, from Harrisville (5 cents/yard)
• Wool
• Nordique, from St. Denis (5 cents/yard)
• Classic Wool, from Patons (2 cents/yard)

My least favourite was the Harrisville New England Highland.  It was a nice colour, and it looked nice when I crocheted it into a bowl, but it smelled funny and felt coarse.  Then, after felting, it went completely shaggy--that was the first time I've ever had to clean my washing machine after using it.

Cascade 220 was the other highland wool--excuse me, Peruvian highland--and I had a similar post-felting cleanup experience.  I'm certain that I didn't get all of it out, since the next batch I felted had little red bits floating around.  But despite the cleanup, it barely took 20 minutes to felt (most of my tests required at least 40 minutes for felting, though I wasn't timing very religiously).  Overall I was actually impressed with the final product, as the bowls have a nice weight to them.

Nordique from St. Denis was my first non-Michaels/non-Jo-Ann wool purchase, so I am rather partial to it.  It took forever to felt, however, and I'm not even sure it felted entirely, since the stitches are still visibly separate.  I bought a couple of balls in the Aubergine colorway which was a beautiful amethyst shade, but I'm not sure I would pick up much that line again.

Since I started going to a bunch of smaller yarn shops, I have become something of a yarn snob.  I refuse to buy anything that has a lot of acrylic in the mix, because I think it feels too crunchy.  I love working with yarns made from natural fibres, because not only do they feel better and they look better.  And I like the idea of supporting a local yarn shop--my current favourite being Green Planet Yarn, in historic downtown Campbell.  I could never see them carrying Patons Classic Wool, but I have to be honest: it felts really easily, and the bowls look great.  I have no idea where the wool comes from, and I have no idea if their manufacturing process is ethical or whatnot, but it's a pretty decent yarn for felting, and I actually quite like it.  But I am trying to be snobby!  Oh, what a dilemma.

The merino wools I listed first, but have left for the last, because I liked those two the most.  The O-Wool took about an hour to felt to my liking, but the bowls looked great.  It didn't shrink as much as the Cascade 220 or the Shepherd's Wool, but the felted wool is nicer to the touch than the Cascade 220.  At $14/hank, it was definitely the most expensive, so although I like it very much, I'm not sure if I would buy it very often.
(As a side story, the first skein of O-Wool I bought was from the DK weight Balance line, which is 50% Merino, and 50% Cotton.  Only, I didn't realize that fact until much later, and I eventually gave up trying to felt it.  "Ben, this wool refuses to felt!  I don't know what's going on!")

Last but certainly not least is the Shepherd's Wool.  This has got to be the softest wool I have ever felt. Ever.  I just felted the bowls from that test, so they're still drying on the counter--we'll see if they actually make sturdy bowls (my comparison point is currently the Patons Classic Wool), but I'm not sure if I care.  The first time I worked with a carefully wound ball of Shepherd's Wool, I was cuddling it up to my cheeks.  The Pacifist Knight is made of Shepherd's Wool (not including his face, which is actually SWTC Yin in Harmony, the only skin-coloured yarn I could find), and he is pretty cuddly too.  Green Planet Yarn has a "sale" where for any one purchase during your birthday month, you can get between 20%-100% off of that purchase; I fully intend on going as soon as I can in March, to build up a Shepherd's Wool stash.  Then it will be bowl-a-bonanza. 

Apple Chicken

Here is one of my classic dishes: apple chicken.  I've been making this delicious one for a while, and as usual, I, er, never have the sense of mind to write it down, but it needs to be posted all the same!  Works great with rice or bread.

Ingredients:
 - 1 chicken breast
 - 1 apple (washed but not peeled)
 - 1/2 onion (I prefer sweet onion, though yellow or white are both fine)
 - ~2 cups apple juice
 - ~1 tsp dried basil (honestly, I just shake it in until it looks good)
 - ~1 tsp vinegar (I use rice vinegar, although vinegar can be left out entirely)
 - salt, to taste

Directions:
1. Cut the chicken into cube or strips, whichever you prefer.  Allow chicken to marinate in 1 cup apple juice, salt, basil, and vinegar.

2. Cut the half onion into 8.  For the apple, cut into very thin slices.  I usually use an apple corer (dropping in some lemon juice when the corer is halfway in will help keep it from browning), then cut the apple into fourths, and slice each quarter carefully.

3. Cook the onion and apple in ~1/2 cup of juice, until partially tender and the juice is evaporated. Remove from heat (placing it into a temporary holding plate works).

4. Warm the remaining juice, add chicken and marinade, and cook until mostly done. Add in the onion and apple, and continue cooking until chicken is well done, and juice is mostly evaporated.

5. Serve, and nom!

Today I'm trying out a new mango chicken marinade, one that involves red wine and orange juice. We'll see how it turns out.  

Upcycled Shims

According to the e-mail my manager received recently, I've been working for exactly one year as of today!  That means it's been just over a year since I moved south, having left my cozy, rainy homeland for near-daily sunshine.  Although it's odd to be wearing only two layers instead of three (plus a water-resistant shell), I don't regret moving because of the weather.

And most certainly, I don't regret moving because of the shopping.  Not only is Amazon.com far superior to Amazon.ca, but there are so many stores here I love to visit!  It took me a while, however, to discover the Paper Source.  <3  Their stores are always full of fun things to look at, and of little crafty knick knacks that make me want to drain my bank account.  In short: an effective business model.

The most recent thing I discovered from the Paper Source, however, that I absolutely love, actually cost me no money at all: a Paper Source brochure!

Ta-da!

Here it is, disassembled.  As fun as it is to browse through, I'm not going to order personalized cards, and I'm not getting married yet so I'm not interested in ordering invitations.  However, I do love flipping through it.  And when I'm done with it, apart from making mini envelopes (which will have to be another post on its own, some day), the intact pages are the perfect size to use as Cuttlebug shims.

And once again, ta-da!

I shan't deny that I absolutely love my Cuttlebug.  That's probably slightly because of brand loyalty ("My PlayStation can kick your GameCube's butt any day!"), and I have to admit that the only other manual die cutting machine I've tried is the Epic Six.  But my Cuttlebug (and its suction rubber bottom) can kick your Epic Six's butt any day!  But I've had a lot of fun with it, and I fully intend on continuing this trend.  So to find perfectly sized paper shims that look nice was a very exciting discovery for me.  As the picture above shows, they're just the right width.

Any time I'm doing something that doesn't involve the standard embossing folders or dies, which is actually pretty often now, I grab my pile of brochure leaves and slip them in as necessary.  They're thin enough to give a little bit of extra pressure, but can get fairly thick when piled together--I don't think I've used an entire brochure yet!

Cuttlebug Letterpress

Recently, while shopping online for a Cuttlebug storage binder, I discovered the L Letterpress from Quickutz--it's basically DIY letterpress, at home, with just a die cutter/embosser.  It looks very impressive! (har har, I wonder how many other craft bloggers have made that pun)  The kit itself isn't out yet, though it should be soon, as "late October/early November" is basically now.

My ProvoCraft Cuttlebug, however, is not an Epic Six, so I'm dying to find out if I can get the L and use it without having to buy another die cutting machine.  I really love my Cuttlebug; I've had it for a couple of years now and it's very reliable.  Considering that I can use nearly any brand of die in my Cuttlebug, I'm going to guess that it's compatible--all that really matters is, will it be too wide, or too tall?


Very likely, I will end up getting one of these, although I will probably wait until it's actually released so that I can read reviews by real crafters.  I couldn't help but do some frantic online searching, however, and I did come across the idea of using the Cuttlebug and embossing folders as a makeshift letterpress, however, and I wanted to try it myself.  Combined with the fact that I recently took over Ben's abandoned camera, my endeavours required some bloggin'.



There's a video available on instructables.com, which involves cutting the embossing folder, but I didn't feel that was necessary--most of my embossing folders are the A2 size, so they're patterned, and it works just to flatten the folder.

For a shim, I used some felt, cut to size.  I started with 2, which provided adequate cushioning for a couple of presses, but I had to add 1 after that, and ended up with four sheets of felt underneath.

You can kind of see my layers:

B - cutting
paper
inked embossing folder
B - cutting
felt (just scraps in that photo above, though, from testing)
A - block

For ink, I just used some stamp ink that I've had around forever.  Not being much of a stamper, I don't have much ink.

Yeah, that's about it.  There's a black pigmented ink pad that I found when I was moving things around, but I didn't get around to trying that one.  I also tried out my Marvy Wet Looks markers, but that didn't turn out too well:

The ColorBox inks weren't bad, especially the little Chalk cat eyes.  The dye ink was okay, but not great--I used it for the present, below:

Overall, I think it worked out fairly well.  I could definitely see myself trying it again, although I think I need to pick up a rubber roller, and some more ink, or some paints.  The ink came off fairly easily with stamp ink remover and a paper towel.  The paints for the L Letterpress are more oil-based, though, so I'm not sure how that would make for cleaning the embossing folders.

Don't be surprised if I end up getting the L, assuming it works with the Cuttlebug, or at least some of their printing plates and inks.  I would be extremely surprised, though, if the L wasn't compatible with the Cuttlebug and the Sizzix, or any other basic die cutter/embosser on the market.

delicious_club

Two years ago, Ben started the "Delicious Club", which was basically a method of marking good restaurants in different areas, done through Google Maps reviews.  There was a whole categorization scheme that he set up based on price and dress for each restaurant, which he outlined in a Google Doc, but right now it seems like Im the only person actively marking restaurants.  I'm trying to mark all of the restaurants I can remember that I love, but that basically means that there are only places down the west coast.  There are a few old ones on the east coast, from one of his friends, but not many.

Doing a search for "delicious_club" will point out delicious restaurants on Google maps:


View Larger Map

Brushes

I've been meaning to post about the Brushes app (http://brushesapp.com/) available for the iPhone and iPod touch.  At $5, it's a bit more expensive than the normal app available on the iTunes store, but it's well worth it.  It's a fairly lightweight application that seems like a simple finger painting application on the surface, but it has many interesting features.

1. Different brushes
There are 3 brushes that are available to "paint" with, and I'm not sure if it's merely a different brush type or if it's supposed to simulate a different paint type, but I can tell that they're different.  I won't pretend to know a lot about art mediums, so I will leave it alone.  You can also change the size of your brush, from 1px in diameter to 64px.  The same goes for the eraser.

2. Colours
That's right, "colours", with a 'u'.  The app uses "Color", but I'll forgive the author since he includes the entire spectrum of RGB colour choices, with varying transparencies to choose from.  A little colour picker lets you find a colour you've already got on the canvas.

3. Layers!
How awesome is that?  Four little layers to choose from, to move around, fill with colour, merge, or delete.  You can also import one of your photos as a layer, even awesomer!

4. Zoom
Just like any other iPhone/iPod Touch application, pinch to zoom in or out.  I discovered this after a few paintings, and it makes a big difference.  This is very obvious.

5. Brush stroke log
You can undo and redo nearly any brush stroke you've painted during the session, and even better, you can download the image as a Brushes filetype, and use the viewer available on their website to turn it into a movie of your painting, from start to finish.  I imagine this could make for some very interesting movie art.

6. "Connect"
In the corner of the Gallery, they give you a little wireless/RSS-type icon, which gives you a URL to try, if you're connected to a wifi network.  This is how you download your paintings either as .png or whatever format the Brushes file is in (I haven't tried it yet).

My paintings, so far, are in my Picasa album, and I hope to add more to my fine portfolio.  Here are a couple of my favourites:

From Brushes

The left is the first painting I did, the right is one I did after I discovered you could zoom in.  It makes a suitable iPhone background image.

Police Blotter

Occasionally I like reading the police blotter notes that the San Jose Mercury News posts online.  I found them by accident in one of my Google Reader feeds, but occasionally they can be somewhat entertaining.  Normally most of them seem fairly tame.  Out of this past weekend's, however, I found this:

3500 block of De La Cruz Boulevard, Sept. 13 A man broke into a church on two occasions. The first time, he took cash and the second time, a Bible. Both thefts were caught on video. The pastor confronted the man and he was arrested.

Who steals a bible?

Another one I remember reading was much earlier in the year--somebody grabbed a couple bags of groceries out of some lady's car while she was unloading it.  That's got to say something about the economy.

Beatlemania!

I have a multitude of Beatles songs stuck in my hea.

Last Wednesday (09/09/09), the entire Beatles collection was re-released, having been digitally remastered.  To coincide with this eventful day, The Beatles Rock Band was also released.  Ben and I got a chance to try one of the earlier games at a friend's place, and found it extremely entertaining.  Living in an 800sqft apartment, however, with only one bedroom and two small closets, however, have made daunting the idea of purchasing a video game that required at least one plastic guitar and a plastic drum set.  We already have one real guitar out (plus another under the bed), and a real piano.  But who could possibly resist the Beatles?

We found ourselves at our local, western-themed Fry's, standing in front of the "special edition" set ($250) and the "value edition" set ($140).  Having a "Beatles" drum set and a plastic replica of Paul McCartney's guitar has always been one of my life goals--alas, we have the simple set and $100 still in our pockets.

Since we picked it up on Thursday, we've played at least once every day.  This includes our trip up to visit Ben's parents in Berkeley, where we got both of them to try it. ("I can play this on a real guitar!")  I've discovered that I pretty much suck at "guitar playing", my singing is passable, and the drum set is fun.  My next experiment is to see how well I can play without drumsticks--bongo style?

Sitting in an English garden, waiting for the sun
If the sun don't come you get a tan from standing in the English rain

(Edit: bongo Rock Band doesn't work so well.)