More Kitchen Valentine’s items to tug at your sweetie’s heartstrings. These RSVP heart-shaped measuring spoons from Cooking.com are similar to the heart measuring cups posted earlier.

They’re stainless steel and have handles that look like arrow shafts running into the spoons. It comes with 4 measuring spoons: 1/4 tsp, 1/2 tsp, 1 tsp and 1 tbsp. Get these for your special chef so they can bake you up a little love!

Seeing as Valentine’s Day is around the corner, I’m going to feature some related kitchen items on here the next couple of weeks. These interesting stainless steel heart-shaped measuring cups might be a nice V-day present for your favorite baker.

They come in 1, 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4 cup sizes and have an arrow handle attached to the heart shaped cup. They could also probably double as cookie cutters, as evidenced by the stock photo for the item.

For those folks who’ve been looking to get a KitchenAid Blender and can’t afford the high price tag, if you are willing to live with slightly used accessories then you might want to look into a “reconditioned” KitchenAid Blender on Amazon.com.

The price cut will generally be about 50% off, since new models go for around $100 and the reconditioned ones can be found for $50. That is, when you can find them. Most of the reconditioned stock varies in color and availablility is actually sold by third party vendors… the best advice is to keep checking to see when the color you want becomes available.

Continue reading “Reconditioned KitchenAid Blender” …

I’ve always thought that “Griddler” was sort of a funny name for this portable grill line by Cuisinart. It just reminds me too much of Batman’s “Riddler”, hehe.

The George Foreman notwithstanding, the Riddler is one of the most popular portable clamshell-type grills. You can just read all the amazon comments to see the fans that it has. One of the most important things about this model is that it has removeable plates which is a reason in itself to get this over its lower priced siblings (GR-2, etc..) Not being able to remove the grills could get extremely tiresome after awhile.

Continue reading “Cuisinart GR-4 Griddler” …

This is a very attractive wooden salad bowl set by Pomerantz. It’s actually a full set unlike many other wooden bowls being sold that are just the bowl plus tongs: with a twelve inch serving bowl and four smaller seven inch bowls, plus the wooden fork and spoon, it can be used for either family or entertaining.

The bowls and tongs are made out of “cherry-colored” wood, which I wish would have been clarified more. In other words, this doesn’t necessarily mean the bowl is made out of Cherry Wood. Just that the reddish finish looks like it. Still, it does look like a rather handsome set of wooden salad servers. I’m not sure why they call the smaller bowls “Nappie”.

Continue reading “Pomerantz Cherry 7-Piece Salad Set” …

We’ve had our OXO Potato Ricer for a good number of years now and are pretty satisfied with the overall quality and performance of the device. In addition to making short work of potatoes, it can also be used to squeeze out excess water from cooked veggies like spinach and mash up fruit into pulp for toppings, desserts or baby food. I haven’t tried it, but apparently it makes pretty decent applesauce as well.

The handles have a nonslip soft rubber handles for extra comfort when squeezing. One thing to keep in mind is that because the output holes on the bottom are so tiny, you can’t really crush up uncooked or harder vegetables very well without using an inordinate amount of force. It just wasn’t made for that type of work.

Continue reading “OXO Good Grips Potato Ricer” …

So maybe Fall has already shiften over to Winter. But these classy KitchenAid Mixing Bowls in Fall colors will leave some lingering memories of autumn leaves and turkey days.

This three bowl set features muted earthtone colored plastic to bring your kitchen back to life. There are olive, butterscotch and pumpkin/brick colors to spice up your mixing in sizes of 2 1/2, 3 1/2 and 4 1/2 quart sizes. The bottoms have a secure base so that the bowls don’t wander away from you while mixing up a storm. Each bowl has a nice dripless pouring spout and handle on the back.

KitchenAid 3pc. Mixing Bowl Set Fall Colors - $24.99
Available at Target.com

This is a pretty standard looking baster made by KitchenAid but I like it because it’s more sturdy yet flexible than some other models. Featuring a silicone bulb that’s resistant to heat, it’ll fit in nice with your other cooking gadgets from KitchenAid if you’ve been buying blue items.

You simply use the suction bulb to scoop up enough liquid to baste your turkey, chicken, pork or beef and then release it on the ingredient to be basted. What’s nice is it also comes with a cleaning bristle brush so that you don’t have to use a toothbrush to clean the inside of the glass tube in case you’re working with oily basting liquids.

Riedel makes a large variety of these stemless wine glasses or tumblers. This is again in their “O” line of Austrian glass. The ones shown are meant for tannic red wines like Cabernet or Merlot, and are taller than glasses, say, for Chardonnay.

It can take some getting used to having wine right out of these stemless glasses - you sort of just cup it in your hand. These dishwasher safe glasses are completely rounded except for the bottoms and stand about 5 inches tall.

I’ve often wondered about the viability of vegetable chopping gadgets like this one. I sort of wonder if by labeling it an “onion” chopper instead of a “vegetable” chopper they’re dooming it to “unitasker” status. However, I read a lot of people use it for other things like celery, bell peppers and even tomatoes (inserted cut side up).

I dunno though. I’ve got decent knife skills so if you add the time in that it takes to wash it and the storage space needed to keep it out of they way until needed, I think I would pass for myself. I’ve also heard that it takes a good amount of arm strength to force the vegetables down through the blade. If you can use that much force, then you can probably use a knife to chop reliably, right?

Continue reading “Progressive Onion Chopper” …