If one is good, two is BETTER!

Guess who now has two of these?That makes for twice as many of these in half the time.
Did I tell you that I taught Jimmie to make sourdough bread this weekend? Yep! He made a loaf for his mom without my help and it turned out beautifully. ;)

New Gadgets

My poor husband.
Last Friday night he said, "What do you want to do tonight?"
I replied, "I'm making my first loaf of sourdough!"
Saturday evening he asked if there was anything I wanted to do.
I said, "I need about an hour to get my dough proofing and then...."
"Oh, it's a BREAD night....," he lamented.
But, he hasn't complained about eating it all week. :)
We shared the last two slices over dinner tonight.

Good thing for him he has flight training all weekend...now he won't feel ignored and neglected while I experiment with my new gadgets!

Favorite Tools

What's not to love?

I was making dinner tonight and realized that EVERYTHING in front of me represented my favorites. I love lime, onion and garlic as much as the next girl, but what I REALLY love are my TJMaxx lemon squeezer (I used it because this lime is too big for my lime squeezer), my Pampered Chef garlic press and my new Kitchenaid paring knives.

As with any project, cooking is definitely more fun with the right tools.

Kitchen Weapons

Looks like a weapon, doesn't it?

Meet my new favorite tool.

I've been on the hunt for a meat tenderizer for the past several weeks. I found some pretty good deals on Amazon, but they all had one flaw noted in fine print: Do Not Place In Dishwasher. This would apparently ruin their shiny finish.

REALLY?? Why would I want a tool made for pounding raw meat that is not dishwasher safe? I'm not going to pound chicken with ANYthing that can't be tossed into the dishwasher.

Others at Target and Walmart that were dishwasher safe seemed light and inadequate.

So, I finally decided to splurge for this little beauty at Williams Sonoma.

Nice and heavy. Big surface for even flattening. No more falling-apart-chicken breasts from pounding them unevenly with a can.

With a simple twist of the handle, you can flip over the surface and use the tenderizing side.

Tough meat, no more!

I see more chicken parmigiana and grilled chicken in my immediate future!

Kasey Likes It! [Lime Squeezer]

I used to live somewhere that did a segment on the news every week, where they tested out a new gadget and gave it a rating on whether or not it really did what it claimed to do. Many of the gadgets were of the 'As Seen On TV' variety. I can't remember the clever name for the segment, but they had one. I'm not that clever, so until I think of something better, I'm going to call this 'Kasey Likes It.' Because I like things often enough to share them with you on a regular basis. At least, I think about sharing things I like, whether or not I actually get around to sharing them. And if I don't like it.....hmm. Maybe I 'leave' it. What do you think?

Tonight I tested out my new lime squeezer, purchased at TJ Maxx about a week ago for $6.99. Maybe it's a lime 'juicer,' but I prefer lime 'squeezer.' Squeeze is such a visual word.

Another visual word is leverage. Let me just say that LEVERAGE is a wonderful thing. Nevah, nevah, nevah, have I squeezed so much juice out of one lime. Sonic should be concerned about their stock price.

I also LOVE that a ton of the pulp went in with the juice. Look, there's practically nothing left of that lime!

Kasey likes it!

LIME is not just a pretty color

'Hey, Raymond, club soda with a lime, please.

And would you get me a towel?'

Extra points if you can name that movie.

My roommates and I used to crack up at this actress' accent,

and repeat this line over and over and over.

Have you ever noticed that a Diet Coke with Lime is never better than when Sonic makes it? That's because they have an amazing little tool, similar to this one. It squeezes the life (and juice) out of the lime wedge before they drop it into your drink. That's amazing to my, because I usually find it quite difficult to get much juice out of any lime.

So, when I saw this little steel beauty at TJMaxx the other day, it was love at first sight. They had a yellow one (slightly larger) for lemons, too. But, I figured if I bought smaller lemons, I could make it work for both!

Does your annual usage of saran wrap determine your worth in the kitchen?

When we moved away from "Costco Country" five years ago I was missing the good saran wrap. On a trip to visit my folks my Mom handed me a two-pack of the good 'ol streth-tite saran wrap in the yellow box. 500 sq ft per roll x 2.

I got to the end of the box the other night while trying to cover the frog eye salad I'd made. Although, I wasn't positive, I had a hunch that this was only the 1st of the 2 boxes. Sure enough, I was up at the other house today and found the 2nd box in the pantry.

Who knew that 500 ft of saran was a 5 year supply?

I'm pretty sure this is only an inidication of how little I cook. Sad.

The funny thing is they now sell this at Sam's Club, but I'm sure I'm still set for another 5 years.

EAT ME CRUNCHY

Here's a shout out to my sister Sara for finding the perfect gift for me, which was not easy to find. She said she'd been looking for something like this for 2 or 3 years, since the 'incident.' I was visiting her family in Ohio once and we'd all just sat down at the breakfast table. I think I had just poured milk over my cereal when someone said, 'Did somebody say the prayer?' I think I said something very polite and gracious, like, 'Are you kidding me? I just poured milk on my cereal and now it's going to get totally soggy!' Sara laughed and laughed [for years, apparently!] at my response to the thought of soggyfying my cereal. Okay, I know I'm not normal. I get hung-up on some of the most random things. A little OCD, maybe? Just a few tendencies! I actually prefer to pour just a little cereal into my bowl at a time, so it's still crunchy when I eat it. Then I'll add a little bit more, until it eventually equals about 1 bowl's worth. And sometimes, I don't even bother with a bowl. If it's large frosted shredded wheat, I'll just dip them into a glass of milk, like you would an Oreo...one at a time. So, Sara found the greatest thing ever invented for people who like crunchy cereal - the Eat Me Crunchy bowl! It has a little shelf that keeps most of the cereal sitting ABOVE the milk until you're ready to dunk it! How cool is that?! Cool enough to be patented! And so it's only available in the UK. Good find! If you are wierd like me, you can find them here: http://www.eatmecrunchy.com/. I used it for the first time today and love it. I'm glad I have a pair, so one can be in the dishwasher at all times! Thanks Sara! For more on the eatmecrunchy invention, see below nobel prize nomination, taken from www.eatmecrunchy.blogspot.com. Eatmecrunchy nominated for nobel prize... Mac website Macworld have reviewed eatmecrunchy... here's what they said... "There are a lot of tragedies in the world: underfunded education, rising energy costs, and the preponderance of reality television. But among the worst problems confronted by every man, woman, and child is the all-too serious issue of cereal that gets soggy in milk. Yes, even after the development of the so-called Crispix Matrix Technology, sogginess is still a very real predicament for cereal-lovers everywhere. And so, my nomination for the Nobel Prize in Physics—never mind those spintronics guys—the inventors of the eatmecrunchy bowl. The clever engineering secret behind the bowl involves a revolutionary shelf that covers roughly 70 percent of the bowl’s base. Pour your cereal of choice—I'm a Cheerios traditionalist—and milk into the bowl. The milk filters down into the bottom compartment, keeping the two separated and letting you decide your own rate of cereal-milk mixture. That’s right: the eatmecrunchy bowl puts control of breakfast back into your hands." Read there review here...