Saturday, February 13, 2010

Gadgets R Great - and me hatin' on Rachael Ray


Hey, food eaters. I know it's been awhile, but here I am. Even though I haven't been in the foodblog circuit lately, I've still been eating on a regular basis -- and that means cooking! I've got lots of photos and videos that need to be posted, so forgive me that we'll be mucking around in the past for a little while. To start, here's something actually pretty recent!!

A couple of weeks ago, I made a mushy dip from some delicious stuff: yam, yellow onion, yellow curry, cumin seed, black beans, lemon juice and waterchestnuts. Once it was all cooked through, I whipped it all up in my trusty Magic Bullet to make a paste. I ate it with tortilla chips, but I'd imagine it would be awesome on pita or fancy crackers. It was SO GOOD -- a dip you don't have to feel bad about pigging out on because it's all vegetables!

This is a video of me talking about how much I love my citrus juicer, with the crazy yam dip featured in it.

Citrus Juicer v. Rachael Ray: Experimental Cookery miniVideoBlog from Molly O on Vimeo.



I found another video from when I first heard Rachael Ray say she didn't like kitchen gadgets = a long time ago. My husband Nate (who in this video I refer to as my fiancé) holds the camera while I talk about garlic gadgets:

Gadgets R Great ep.1: Garlic Tools -- Experimental Cookery miniVideoBlog from Molly O on Vimeo.



The point of all this bad video blogging -- (How awkward can I be?! Yeah, let's record it on video and post it on the internet so the whole world can see. Great idea!) -- is that I love kitchen gadgets! Since I've started cooking and started blogging about it, my parents have really gone out of their way to make sure I get the top of the line in kitchen gadgets every Christmas. This year I got a ball whisk!! You know how when you're whisking in a bowl and only the very top of the whisk touches the bottom? This whisk stills whisks but actually touches the bottom of the bowl. Mixes much better.


Now why would I waste my time with an inferior whisk when I have this bad boy? My other favorite specialty gadget is the Microplane -- the KATANA OF THE KITCHEN. I use it for nutmeg, cinnamon, chunks of parmesan cheese. I also sleep with it under my pillow.


Gadgets R Great. I'm not talking LETTUCE KNIVES or anything ridiculous like that. I'm with Rachael Ray on that one -- just use a freaking real knife, weirdo. But there are some gadgets that are just exactly perfect for the task you need to do. It's in any good cook's best interest to have a small arsenal of tools so that you can conquer any food that may be on sale when you go to the grocery store and have the afternoon to experiment.

In a related thought, I have a pretty decent apron collection that I'll have to share sometime in the future. I wear aprons purely for practical reasons, but I do color coordinate them to what I'm wearing. Maybe it's the narcissistic cooking blog, maybe it's that I'm just naturally really domestic and like looking like a 50s housewife -- but it's probably that I'm really messy.

... I also kept this video of Nate's mouth burning from eating a whole garlic clove. Enjoy!

Nate Bites It: Full Clove of Garlic -- Experimental Cookery Outtake from Molly O on Vimeo.