I know we already have an item on bread machines [and I think I saw one on food dehydrators]... But I'd like to start an item on other food gadgets/machines/things-to-help- us-cook-and/or-eat item. So what kind of gizmos or gadgets wouldn't you live without??205 responses total.
I saw an infomercial for a pasta machine. It's really neat! Just dump in the ingredients, turn it on, and 2 minutes later, PASTA... The only thing that really bugs me is that it was invented by Ron Popeil.
Back during Marriage #1, I had a pasta machine. Used it about three times. It was one of those hand cranked ones, and as I remember, the consistency of the dough was absolutely critical to success (and it was very hard to obtain a proper consistency). Even so, the idea of making one's own spaghetti and lasagna was awfully neat (and fun). Two of my current favorite most-needed gadgets are a can opener and a garlic press.
I have a pasta machine. It's a set of attachments to my Cuisinart. I make pasta in it about 6 or 8 times a year. It extrudes about 5 different types of noodles.
The crockpot, unless we turn vegetarian -- about once a month it provides the first cooking of pot roast, and about twice a year it makes carcass soup.
"carcass soup"? Sounds yummy...
She has such a way with words. ;-) Appliances in the order they'd be thrown overboard if the wagon was overloaded and we needed to cross the wide Missouri: 1. The hand-held mixer 2. The toaster 3. The electric drip coffee maker 4. The heavy duty Kitchen Aid mixer 5. The bread machine (sniffles heard) 6. The Cuisinart (hysterical sobs)
ah, but would you through the appliances overboard *first* or *last* when you needed to lighten the wagon to cross the wide Missouri? these days my favorite kitchen gadget is a big strainer. no moving parts, easy to clean, useful in practically every meal (eg.: for washing beans, draining pasta, washing salad ingredients, squeezing the liquid out of newly thawed frozen spinach, etc.) and it's reasonably minimalistic. Gratuitous Food Tip That Doesn't Belong In This Item: A great way to beat the lines at Kroger's is to go there when everyone else is busy mobbing the shopping malls to finish up their Christmas shopping.
Hey - I noticed the tip at the end of response #7 and realized it's that time of the year again.
I just inherited a pasta maker. Haven't had a chance to use it though.
Coolness! Please keep us posted!
Hmmm, could be part of the makings of a party ....
We also have a hand-crank pasta maker, and never used it after the first few times. We recently got an electric one (yes, the Popiel machine) and it's first-rate. We use it all the time. I couldn't live without our juice extracters. The citrus one we've had forever and it just keeps going and going... The other one we use for making apple juice, carrot juice, grape juice, etc. Washing and preparing the fruits and veggies beforehand is time-consuming, and cleaning the thing is a nightmare, but it's all worth it. We have one of those hand-crank devices that cores, peels and spiral slices an apple in ten seconds. The kids love it more than the adults. I prefer the two-dollar metal gizmo you press down on the apple and it cores it and slices it into a dozen segments. Works on pears, too. For $40 at Williams-Sonoma I picked up a big stainless steel pot with a steamer insert and a pasta cooking insert. The latter is basically a stainless-steel colander made to fit inside the big pot. You cook the pasta in it and then lift the whole thing out to drain when al dente perfection has been achieved. It's the best (and curiously satisfying) method for cooking pasta I know of.
Michael, I bought that same pot about six months ago. I love it. I also paid about fifteen dollars more. ;-( I've wondered if extruded pasta comes out with anything near the same texture as that made by rollers and cutters. Whenever I've watched demos the raw pasta looked somewhat gummy and fused. I have an Atlas hand-crank pasta machine I seldom use because I no longer have a wide enough lip on the kitchen counter to clamp it securely in place. So instead I've been trying different imported dry pastas. All cooked in this great stainless steel pasta pot.
Well, my mom used to make pasta by forming a kind of volcanic atoll out of flour and breaking some egges into the middle of it. Then she'd hand-knead the mess, adding more flour as required, until it reached the desired consistency. Then she'd roll it into a flat sheet with a special thin rolling pin, and put the flat sheet on her "guitar," as she called it - a wooden frame with about fifty steel wires stretched across it - and press in down through with the rolling pin. She'd hang the resulting pasta on a rack to dry, or just toss it straight into the boiling water. (Ravioli and tortellini were a whole different process.) The pasta produced by our machine tastes very much like what la mia mama used to serve us. Re the W&S pasta cooker: I bought ours a couple of years ago. The ones I see in their store now have heavier handles and are more expensive, which I assume is the one you have. Anyway, great pasta-minds think more or less alike is what this proves.
I make homemade noodles every holiday...just mix flour, eggs, a pinch of salt and about 2 tsps of hot water...roll as thin as you can...lay on a towel covered table to dry (only until slightly brittle on edges), roll dough into a tight tube and thinly slice...voila...ready for cooking! No fancy machines or ingredients...just good homemade noodles!
Last weekend, my sister bought me a salad spinner as an early gift for Chanukah. She showed me the important salad spinner feature to look for: a hole in the top where water from the faucet can go into the salad spinner and reach the stuff inside. Now I'm all excited about making lots of salad. This should make it easier to feed clean green stuff to my guinea pigs, too. I'd been under the impression that salad spinners were expensive electronic gadgets. This one isn't: it cost less than $10, and you crank it manually, no electronics involved. Cool!
I'm steadily less and less impressed by my new Air Bake cookie sheets. 1) They don't have good edges, so it's hard to get a grip on them with a pot holder. Also, cookies could easily drip off the edges. 2) They're not non-stick. In fact, they behave like they have a "stick" coating: the opposite of non-stick. 3) I worry about putting sticky aluminum right next to foods, because aluminum may be associated with Alzheimer's. 4) They're non-standard sized, so they don't fit my oven very well. 5) Tried-and-true recipes are failing. This might be part of the process of me adapting to a new oven, I'm not sure. But stuff is needing to bake at a higher temperature for a much longer time than the recipe calls for, and even then it's coming out underbaked. Does anybody out there have an oven thermometer I could borrow to check my oven with?
I thought aluminum had been absolved?
the air-bake pans are good for things that would normally burn....shortbread, lebkuechen, and the like...for the rest, they are no good....(at least that what i've noticed...:)
Re 18: I think the aluminum question is still under debate. Nobody knows what causes Alzheimers. Patients with Alzheimer's also tend to have a lot of aluminum in their brains. Evidence says that the aluminum in their brains isn't the *cause* of Alzheimer's. So presumably something else is both causing Alzheimer's and also leaving aluminum in their brains. But, 'til someone figures out *what* causes Alzheimer's, I'm just as happy to stay away from eating aluminum.
I got an Air Bake sheet not too long ago. Haven't burned anything on it, but it is a bit sticky. For butter-laden cookies, no prob, but it definitely needs lubricants for drier foods...I had to chisel a pizza off it! Anybody have recommendations for more general-purpose baking sheets?
Mrs. McPoz does pizza on a flat stone sheet about 1/2" thick. Great crusts.
You can borrow my oven thermometer, Valerie. Every apartment has had a different oven temperature problem...
I guess i am going to try and revitalize this item. My favorite is the crock pot (pop in your meat right before worka nd then dinner is ready when you get home!), the Kitchen Aide (sob) - how i yearn for my own!!!!
Heh, one year I began a list of *useless* electric appliances. I was wondering how many perfectly good had appliances had been converted to electricity. Lets see, there was the electric vegetable peeler, the electric can opener, the electric carving knife, the electric french fry cutter, the electric mixer (the kind you use in a glass to mix up diet powders), the electric frying pan, the electric toaster (yes kiddies, toast can be made range-top with this cute little pyramid deally), the electric wok, the electric deep fryer (3 sizes), the electric toaster-oven, the electric coffee maker, the electric tea-kettle, the electric ice-tea maker, the electric ice-cream maker, the electric juicer...... What got me was the sheer number of single-use gadgets that took space on your counter, as opposed to the manual versions that fit nicely into a drawer. I think it was the vegetable peeler that set me off. Anybody else spotted new and unusually conversions to electricity?
heck, you can make toast over a burner or a fire with a toasting fork (my mother gathered a somewhat impressive collection of them when we lived in england). electric coffee grinders strike me as being somewhat silly, even though coffee grinders themeselves are single-use gadgets which don't exactly fit in drawers.
I've actually seen those electric mixers that you dip into a glass to mix up diet powders, used to a useful purpose. A busy mom whose kids I used to babysit for, used to take a piece of food from the family's dinner, drop it into a plastic glass, dip a hand-held blender into it, and voila -- instant home cooked baby food. This worked especially well with things like yams. Ya, it could all be done by hand, but it did actually help make things easier when dealing with a baby and a toddler underfoot.
For that matter, there are plenty of occasions when many of those electric appliances are pretty reasonable. I hate electric can openers, myself, but people with arthritis can have trouble with hand-operated ones, just as an example.
I use my immersion blender far more often than I use my Cuisinart. If my food processor broke tomorrow I wouldn't replace it. I would replace my bread machine, my Braun immersion blender, the coffee maker, the toaster, the waffle maker, the microwave, and the crockpot. Kitchen Aid mixers *never* die so what's to discuss.
My sister's pride & joy is a battery-powered pepper grinder - just press the button, and... I think it's the depth of decadence.
Re 29: I wanna have a kid, just so I have an excuse to go out and buy an immersion blender. Those are sooooo cool! My mom once bought her parents one of those gizmos that scrambles an egg while it's still inside its shell. The idea was that you could then make hard boiled scrambled eggs. But it never worked very well: The egg would come oozing out the hole where the scrambler had gone in, long before it solidified enough to stay where it belonged.
Immersion blenders are inexpensive (my Braun was just under $20) and worth it for soup preparation alone. I'm also fond of fruit-whipped summer drinks. Anyhow, then you'll already have it when any babies arrive and you'll be free to buy other things like strollers and car seats and diapers and toys and babysitters and Seuss books and so on. ;-)
Re #30: we have a battery-powered pepper mill, a black one holding black peppercorns. They plan is to get a second (white one) for white peppercorns.
(Anyone have a couple-month-old baby that valerie could take care of for a week? It sounds like it would be a *VERY* educational experience for her...)
I have no doubts that Valerie would be an excellent mother. I think she >would handle it well, like she does everything else.
Yea, but cool household gadgets would drop down her priority list like bricks off the Royal Gorge Bridge.
(Valerie did vast amounts of babysitting back when she was a teenager, so she does actually have some idea about what parenthood would be like.) (Jim, you're a sweet person!)
I see that since this item was alive, valerie became a parent twice over. resp:31 Another Ron Popeil invention, which leads me to ask, re: resp:1 -- what the hell is wrong with Ron Popeil inventions? I've seen the infomercial for the pasta/sausage maker, and I think it's pretty good. For meat lovers, I think his Showtime Rotisserie looks pretty good. I had a chance to look it over at Target, and I think it seems pretty handy for cooking small meats. It's very small and compact, it doesn't use much energy, and you can steam veggies on top. Seems like it would be a great addition to an apartment. resp:24 For some reason, I never did get hooked on a crock pot, maybe because I don't like to add ingredients and come back later. I like to cook fast and be done, so-- My pressure cooker (item:191) and my veggie/rice steamer are two *big* appliances I just cannot do without. Pressure cooking is just the bomb, since it's so efficient. I can cook small meats easily, such as a small whole chicken, a beef roast, or some cuts of pork. Small whole chickens can go as low as 59 cents a pound on sale here, and it's easy for me to cook them down this way. I can do chicken curry easy with the pressure cooker and the veggie/rice steamer. I love juice, so I'd have to keep my Juiceman Jr. juicer, and my steamer juicer. I use the latter when Concord grapes are in season, and then I go harvest them at my in-laws and my folks.
To pressure cook brown rice, add 1.3 cups water per cup rice, bring to 15 pounds, and turn off. Wait about 20 minutes. I have seen the steamer juicers in use. We use a squeezo or victoria gadget for raw juice. Lucky you to have family with grapes!
I have about 20 concord grape vines in my backyard which you are welcome to come raid in the late summer when the grapes come in. But you have to get here in a gas guzzling SUV. HAHAHA. Just kidding. I have way more grapes than I can pick so if anyone wants some, just let me know.
We had a Ronco rotisserie, which my wife kept when I moved out. She used it once in a while for chicken. It was very good chicken, every time. Since I've had to learn to survive again on my own cooking, I'd have to say my slow cooker is the best thing I have. I'm eating leftover beef stew right now. I've made the best chili I ever made in it, too. My son loves the waffles from our electric waffle maker. We have them for breakfast about half of all of our breakfasts.
Slynne, thanks for the offer and if we do show up we can look at your cordless phone and bike and put in a basement phone jack. Perhaps Jim can design and build a bike trailer first to cart home grapes.
resp:39 I do count myself lucky, because I just love home bottled grape juice. I do several large bottles and drink them through about half the year. I've been doing it for a number of years now, and now that I'm truly on my own, it's great. Trouble is just storage. Only thing with a steamer is you can't get a strong concentration. However, it is much easier than boiling it and straining it through cheesecloth/pillow case.
Our little machines do not require boiling or cheesecloth. We just feed the grapes in the top, turn the crank, and juice comes out the holes in a metal strainer while pulp/seeds come out the end. We freeze the raw juice. Boiling might increase the yield.
Well, the grapes dont come in until August so if Jim wants to build a cart for hauling grapes, he has lots of time.
I thought it was actually September and they hang on until October. Maybe you have early grapes - are they purple Concord? We have a few vines but the raccoons knock off the grapes while they are green.
resp:44 You said you used a Victoria strainer? Interesting.. my mom used to use it all the time for tomatoes, but never thought of it for grapes. resp:46 for purple Concord, yes, the grapes come in September and generally ripen to their fullest in October.
The Victoria has different inserts for grapes or tomatoes (I think it may be a different spiral on the inside).
mmmm. Maybe it was September. I remember that my friend Shannon and her family picked a lot of them and her daughter really liked them. Normally they live in California. They were at my house in early August but they were also staying with me again during the middle two weeks of September so maybe I just have my times mixed up.
Reading this item all at once, I'm struck by the difference four years make, comparing #6 and #29. So has the pendulum swung back?
me, i like 31
Oh, my, things have changed. I seldom use the food processor anymore. The bread machine went in the great garage sale of 2000 (after a switch to a lower carbohydrate diet). The immersion blender has moved up a few notches as I've started making more soups. The Foreman grill has come on the scene and proved very useful. The big mixer gets hauled out for big production dinners and is still very helpful so it makes the cut. And the unglamorous toaster does it's thing on a daily basis, without much recognition. (Mary makes a mental note to thank the toaster.) I think what would top my list at this point is a nice sharp knife. I guess this reflects the subtle shift to more fresh, simply prepared foods in our diet.
s/its/it's
Thank you, Mary.
Follow-up question - does valerie now have an immersion blender? :) I've still got (and use and need) the microwave & bread machine. The sub-micro "food processer" (chopper) & small hand mixer are stuffed away somewhere. The folks got the nice toaster i never used when their old one died. I make little things in the oven often enough to occasionally think about a toaster oven. Recent purchases have been of heat-proof rubber spatulas, iron fry pans, a serving bowl, etc. - but i did buy one of those electronic timer/thermometers with the long-enough-to-snake-into-the-roast- in-the-oven probe. I need a soft plastic cutting board for meat. Years of idle thoughts have not translated into a heavy-duty mixer and the biggest lack is that my apartment lacks a dishwasher. I could stand to unload some of the dozen little juice glasses, extra fry pans, etc. at a garage sale, Kiwanis, Treasure Mart, or something.
Let's see... I don't use the bread machine as much either, partially because I don't need to make sandwiches for lunch everyday, and partially because I don't eat as much carbs as I used to either. Rice cooker is rarely used. I probably make a loaf a bread a week, and it lasts 2-3 days. Toaster gets used on days 2 and 3 of that loaf. ;) What else? The beer brewing stuff has seen a lot of use lately; I'm presently sitting on about 5 cases of beer! I've been baking more, and using my stove a fair amount.
I have been thinking about getting a bread maker because I really like fresh bread plus I want to start eating more whole grains. I figure that having fresh whole wheat bread will be nice.
They are convenient. I would love waking up on Sunday mornings to the smell of baking cinnamon raisin bread.
The bread machine is about cost and control for me. Seriously healthy bread (low fat/sodium/sugar, heavily fiber enriched, low refined flour, etc.) that i can tweak for the cost of ingredients (vs. healthy=expensive store prices).
We buy bulk baking yeast - would you like some (much cheaper than the little packets from the store)? Why are you adding fiber to unrefined flour?
I get my yeast at By the Pound (the bulk store in the S. Main Market) and use only 1/2 t per loaf. I don't recall the cost per pound - any idea what you pay? Experiments with my machine and no-bread-flour loaves never worked out. There's more fiber in the 2C bread flour / 1C wheat bran that i'm using now than in 3C of whole wheat flour. (I use the fine-cut bran, so it's not mostly air in the cup.) Occasionally I see whole wheat bread flour and use that with good results. There's also a limit to how many things i can reasonably stock in my feeding-just-one-person-&-no-chest-freezer pantry.
So you are mixing white flour and bran? But then you don't get the germ, which has a lot of vitamins and minerals. And most of the taste. We get our yeast and flour through a buying club. The flour is about 40 cents per pound. The food coop charges something like $1.35 for it. Organic whole wheat bread flour in both cases, from the same supplier. We are sharing the flour with three other people and we buy it fresh nearly every month now. If you have other business in the downtown area and want to stop by with a milk jug or other container we can sell you about 7 pounds (one gallon). I presume our baking yeast costs about half what the coop charges. We also have rye flour and cornmeal, both organic. They are probably fresher than supermarket whole wheat flour, which can be pretty rancid after sitting onthe shelves for a few months. We have also tried adding to bread part durum flour from the Indian food store, which is yellow and claims to be 'whole' (entiere), and is higher gluten.
If a person is thinking about getting a bread machine for baking whole wheat bread, does the brand matter?
I dimly recall that some bread machines have a "whole wheat" setting... which is *NOT* to say that this setting is good for anything but sales. Brand certainly matters in the sense that it does with any gadget - some are better performing, more reliable, cheaper, etc. than others. Are you familiar with bread machines to know of any features that you want to have? I don't think they've reviewed bread machines for a while, but i recall a suggestion or two in a recent Consumer Reports magazine that's around here somewhere.
I am totally clueless about bread machines. I do want to get one, primarily because I want to start baking whole wheat bread so it is important that I get one that can handle that. What kind do you have, i?
I had a Panasonic (sold at Williams-Sonoma) and it did a very good job with whole wheat bread. But that was eons ago, don't know anything about the latest models. Buy it from somewhere that will take it back, used, if you don't like it.
That is good advice.
Ours has a whole wheat setting (also about 10 other settings such as sweet bread) but I don't know what it does. Perhaps it allows a longer rise. I would like one that you could program for as long a rise as you want, and choose between 1 and 2 rises. Our first machine was only able to do one standard setting - short rise - and the bread always came out rather heavy. We have two machines now with timers that in theory should allow you to make breads that require first rising the sponge and then adding the rest of the flour (mix up the sponge, add to the machine, dump flour on top, set on a timer to start the next morning after the sponge has risen for a while.)
That sounds complicated. I dont even know what sponge is. haha.
Along with whole wheat and sweet bread, it has rapid and quick breads, so I suspect these settings are in fact only different timings. I wonder how rapid and quick differ. Sponge is a wet dough that rises for a while and falls back on itself and then you add more flour to get it to rise again. It supposedly gives things a different texture and taste.
My machine is a Regal from early '96. I bought a replacement pan & paddle for it a year or two ago. My impression is that many bread machines are bought with good intentions, then fall into disuse fairly soon. Depending on your budget, it could be good to borrow one or buy second-hand. Consumer Reports briefly lists a few favored models in their Xmas gift issue - they go for $75 to $100 new. It's certainly possible to make fancy stuff with a bread machine (if you have time to burn & itchy fingers), but regular use of one with a proven recipe pretty much amounts to (1) measure & dump stuff into machine, (2) plug in machine & push buttons to start it, and (3) remember to remove finished bread semi-promptly & leave it out to cool for a while. You'll probably need to add a few standard bread ingredients to your pantry. Yeast and bread flour almost certainly. Probably oil. Whole wheat flour in your case. There's no need for lots of ingredients; but somebody somewhere has found & bought & grated & measured 15 different kinds of cheeses because they just *had* to bake 15-cheese bread.
Item 3 has a lot of stuf about bread machines
We do not put any oil in our bread, just flour, water, yeast. Jim has been experimenting with how much rye flour can be added to the wheat before the machine overloads and he has to take it apart and replace the thermal cutout. He is up to about 1/4 now, I think.
I used mine 2-3 times a week for almost 5 years. It is in disuse at the moment because the power set up in this house can't handle it. As soon as the house is repaired/remodeled it will go back into regular use.
Re #73: That's pretty funny. How many times has he blown the cutout?
I think I will try to borrow my mom's bread machine. I'll bet she cant remember the last time she used it! :) I guess if I break it with my whole wheat flour, I'll buy her a new one.
Jim has, at present, three bread machines. The one into which he is putting rye flour has not 'broken' yet. One of the others arrived with blown cutout, which he replaced. First time he made bread it blew again so he tried a smaller batch or more water. Then his housemate blew the cutout on the third machine. So the answer is three. Some of these machines are really not well designed for non-fluffy type bread. Another friend with another machine also had problems with whole wheat bread - it would start moving and then stop every time until Jim gave him an adjusted recipe. Until then he would always take the unkneaded dough out and bake it (without waiting for it to rise) and eat a hard lump. He does not quite understand how bread is made. Two of the three problem machines are Wellbuilt. The one which always works well is a Regal, so you might try a Regal for heavier breads. We actually paid $20 for it used (at Miller Manor thrift shop). Kiwanis often has bread machines for $10-25. If Slynne's mother's bread machine stops working Jim will be happy to fix it. Ask him for a recipe suggestion for whole wheat bread. He did a lot of experimenting and discovered that it helps to preheat the pan and the water so it will rise faster.
My Panasonic is a tank - I've had it for 7-8 years, and had to replace the drive belt after 7 years. Worth the $160, certainly.
(er, worth the $160 to buy the machine, not to replace the belt. The new belt cost something like $10-15 with shipping)
I definately will ask Jim (and others) for nice whole grain bread recipes!
Note that most bread recipes probably need to be tweaked (adjust yeast, sugar, liquids, etc.) to your machine (which has slightly different times, temps, pan shape, etc. than the recipe-writer's machine).
I see. That just might end up being a challenge for me. I am not the best cook in the world. Oh well, it will be fun anyways.
I'm thinking more about a toaster oven. Cooking for one, there are a fair number of times when turning on the stove's oven just seems silly (making 6 muffins or some such). I don't make toast, so the "can also reheat pizza" bottom-end models are out. I want something that'll do a loaf of banana bread, small casserole, etc. Measuring tape, etc. will tell me if it would fit in & not blow fuses - but how useful are such things? Are good ones really a smaller version of a "real" oven, or just glorified TV dinner heaters? Is "convection" a real feature or a noisy price-hike?
I made my first loaf of bread in my bread machine! It didnt rise as much as I would have liked but it was edible!
Toaster ovens are Great for small batches. I even have a set of baking pans that fit toaster ovens. It includes a jelly roll pan (the cookie pan with 3/8 in sides), a 9 1/4 by 6 1/2 by 2 in baking pan that is a great lasagne size, a 7 1/2 by 3/3/4 by 2 1/4 in loaf pan, three mini pie pans, and four mini loaf pans. Made by Mirro. I don't remember the last time I saw them on sale, but check the (fake) hardware store on Stadium, next to Big George's. [We all know that Stadium Hardware is the REAL hardware store on Stadium}. Over the years I've collected a couple 6-hole muffin pans, a springform pan with both a flat bottom and center-hole insert, 7 inch pie pans, two small round cake pans, and numerous tart pans of various shapes. I make biscuits, muffins, cookies, cornbread, and just about everything else in my toaster oven. The Jiffy mix single layer cake mixes make the cutest little layer cakes. For mixing small batches of cookies, my Cuisinart Little Pro Plus is a whizz. (It also whips egg whites, juices limes, lemons and oranges, and doubles as a salad shooter, with a side-directed, continuous feed shredder or slicer.) That said, I don't bake much, compared to many people here. If I ate baked goods very often, I'd probably go the big oven, big freezer route.
Wow. that does sound like something a single person could use.
I have not used my stove oven for over a year, since we got the bread machine. I have a small round Nesco electric oven (insulated walls) that works for potatoes. Congrats on mastering the bread machine. Whole wheat bread never rises enough in those. I wonder if the Nesco would bake bread.
I really wish I had a toaster oven myself. I don't eat toast as much as I used to, and so I really think a slot toaster alone is somewhat useless. It's hard to cook everything on the stove top and I don't always like waiting for a large oven to heat. resp:85 thanks for the tip, even though I must hunt among my own local stores. hehe
Hmm... We probably should replace our four-slot toaster; one of the handles won't stay down, so only two of the slots are useable. A toaster oven would be easier for some of the larger things, like bagels. Hmm...
We're talking about getting a two-slot toaster that can accept wider items (like bagels). There are several of them out there and they all seem to have a pair of wire grids in the slot that adjust to the thickness of the item and keep it centered between the heating elements. Does anyone have any recommendations on this sort of toaster? Do they work okay for regular bread? Do they wear out quickly? Any particular brand?
I have one like that and it works ok. I think it is Proctor-Silex or soemthing. I bought mine for a dollar at a garage sale 2 years ago.
A few years ago I purchased a Cuisinart toaster much like what kentn described in #90. Works great on both really thin toast and thick english muffins and specialty breads. Plus, it had a line of lights to show the darkness setting. These lights are always on. So it's yet one more thing to glow in the dark come nightime. I love that.
You can get Hello Kitty toasters at Tsai Grocery. They even toast a picture of Hello Kitty on the bread.
Heh, but will they toast a picture of Hello Kitty on an English muffin?
Probably screw up the resolution, but what the hell... ;-)
Oh man. I might have to get that Hello Kitty toaster.
I only saw one more there.
I've got the latest CR report & ratings on toasters & toaster ovens here if anyone's interested...
Sure. I'm interested.
From Consumer Reports (usual disclaimers here, i own none of these):
(Defaults - slot-type toasters take thick stuff, everything has one-
year warranties, and toaster ovens rates at least "good" for baking &
broiling while holding at least 4 large slices of toast.)
4-slot Toasters:
Only 2 of the 15 toasters reviewed were 4-slotters -
Proctor-Silex 2444[5] (similar were Hamilton-Beach 24505, 24507, & 24508)
Toastmaster T2050[W]
CR paid $24 for the P-S & $27 for the Tm. They liked the P-S's overall
performance better & it has a 2-year warranty. The Tm's shade dial is
"mostly unmarked". On specifics, they rated the P-S better for ease of
use and the Tm better for producing a full color range.
At the top (ignoring a $100 Kitchenaid) are Philips HD2533 (Target, $30)
and GE 106641 (106691) (WalMart, $20). Only an average ease of use kept
the P from taking the gold medal, the GE is above average everywhere &
has a 2-year warranty.
Toaster Ovens:
...really ain't built to be toasters (is CR's conclusion). Only 2 of the
10 reviewed are as good at toasting as any of the "slot machines" i listed
above:
Cuisinart TOB-175 (TOB-165, TOB-160) $205
Delonghi XU120 $53
The C is as good a toaster as the $20 GE 2-slotter, but with better ease of
use. It's also a large convection/broiler/oven with digital controls & a
3-year warranty. The D is weak at toasting consistent (color) successive
or full batches, but is a bit easier to use than the ToastMaster.
A notch down at toasting ("very good preformance", but its weakness is
limited color range) is the Sears Kenmore KTES8 at $70.
The GE & Kenmore units got "CR Best Buy" (based mostly on price/performance).
They didn't look at any Cuisinart slot-type toasters.
FWIW, the toaster oven i'm thinking about is the paint-instead-of-cool- polished-metal-outside Cuisinart TOB-165; i'd hope to get it for under $160 at Big Georges (in Ann Arbor). I don't make toast, so that stuff mostly doesn't matter.
Electric appliances I currently use: Microwave oven, toaster oven,drip coffee maker, small electric chopper, and amazingly a new George Forman Grill which is turning out to be extremely handy. small appliances I do not use: bread machine, cuisinart mixer, electric knife, immersion blender. blender (for smoothies.
Do you want to sell your bread machine (I think you are implying that you have one)? Or trade it for a repair of something electrical or mechanical? (Assuming you live within a few miles or us or come this way occasionally).
I have been using my bread machine a lot since I got it. My whole wheat bread keeps coming out funny though. I mean it looks funny but it tastes ok so that is what is important. I have been experimenting with adjusting the recipe. I have found that the 1 lb loaf suits my needs best.
What kind of funny? Does it maybe rise and then fall again, making the top look sort of depressed?
I remember wheat bread as being difficult. No matter what I did it was always a bit dense and gummy. Then I bought some gluten and started adding a teaspoon or two for each loaf. What a difference. I purchased it at Fireside, in Ann Arbor, but they're gone now. Maybe the Ypsi food co-op would carry it?
You can get it at Hiller's, too.
re#105 - Yeah, that is exactly what is happening. The bread *tastes* great except that it is kind of dense. But that is ok. It is very filling which has helped me not eat bad things before lunch since a couple of slices of that for breakfast really keeps me full. I might try adding some gluten though. I mean, it cant hurt. Is it in the baking goods section at Hillers?
Is there some way to set your machine for a longer rise (or for one long rise instead of two short ones)?
Usually not, but it may depend on the machine. Certainly some machines come with various cycles, some of which have longer rise times. Usually the details are not documented. (In fact, due to our Zojirushi's having died after 7 years of heavy use, we opened the Wellbilt which we bought (around 1/2 price, when Best went out of business) to have as a backup. Its documentation of exactly how long each stage is in each possible cycle is very complete; if there are temp differences they don't say, though. The chart is impressive & likely to be useful.)
When did Best go out of business?
The one on Carpenter closed in . . . '92, I think it was. Maybe earlier.
Gluten's also available at By The Pound (S. Main Mkt.), probably People's Food Coop (Kerrytown), and (guess) at most big supermarkets.
There is a food coop in Ypsi, where Slynne lives. I got my first fax machine at Best. It was a come-on special (for only $300, took special half-size rolls that you had to roll yourself, and had no paper feed or cutter) and they tried to talk me into something else. I did not realize I got it so long ago.
The Ann Arbor People's Food Coop doesn't carry gluten, we also got ours at Fireside. Whole Foods sometimes has it in 1/2 - 1 lb packages.
Yeah, the Ypsi food coop is just a few blocks from my house and I am even a member and everything. I'll bet *they* have gluten. My bread machine will not allow for a longer rise. It isnt a big deal. I have found that if I make the 1 lb loaf, it comes out ok but a little over done. The solution might be to make the 1 lb loaf and then just take it out early. That works better for me anyway because the 1 1/2 lb loaf gets stale before I finish it.
I bought a griddle/grill for Julie at Christmas and we seem to use it all the time now. It's one of those metal things that fits over the burners on your stove-- a griddle surface on one side, and a grill surface on the other. It's not as great as an appliance; I have noticed that heating is a little uneven as it comes right from the stove coil burners. Hotter in some places than others, I guess? But we needed to save space and it works reasonably well.
You can get gluten from Buy The Pound on Main Street in Ann Arbor. So I'm back working part time at Williams-Sonoma.....lots of toys there. I want them all.
Are there any new cool gadgets out there these days? There's been a lot of talk in this item about bread machines. Are people still using them?
Jim uses his as an oven, after mixing the bread by hand. The machines don't deal well with sticky rye flour.
My bread machine makes great rye bread, but the recipe uses about half white flour. It makes WONDERFUl whole wheat, with nothing but whole wheat flour. It's an old Toastmaster. Don't think they make them anymore.
And those that have one, what's the difference in rice that is cooked in a rice cooker vs making some on the stove?
When I used a rice cooker I noticed no difference. Except that you didn't have to watch it so it wouldn't get burnt. Apart from that, I didn't notice any difference.
I've never noticed any difference either. The main reason I don't use one is that it is simple to use a saucepan. If you put in any amount of rice, and fill the pan until the water is 1 inch above the surface of the rice, you can make perfect rice that doesn't burn. Bring the rice and water to a hard boil, and boil until the water is reduced to the level of the rice, usually 5 - 7 minutes. Do not stir during this process. When the water is at the top of the rice, you will see small "volcanos" forming. Turn off the electric burner or turn the gas burner down to the lowest possible flame. Put a close fitting lid on the pan. Let the rice steam 15 - 20 minutes or longer. After 15 minutes you can turn off the flame, and the rice will remain hot for another half an hour or so.
Hmm, ok... And thanks for the instructions. I have a SIL [who is Japanese] who, I think] still has a rice cooker. They eat a lot of rice. I did like the rice I had over there awhile back [I think it was the 'sticky' rice with a bit of seasoning added to it.] What's added, does anyone know, to make sticky rice? Though I'm sure I can find out from Kazuko or Mike next time I see them.
Actually, it is more likely to be the type of rice you buy. Sticky rice, brown rice, white rice, sushi rice, these are all varieties of rice that give different dishes. Sushi rice will also have a vinegar dressing on it. BTW, the method above came from my childhood, when the lady from Osaka who lived next door to us in Hawaii taught my mother to make Japanese rice. My mother was a southerner who traditionally put sugar and milk on rice for a breakfast dish.
Rice cookers work by being leaky and losing most of the water as steam. When enough water has left, the temperature rises and they shut off. This wastes a lot of energy as well as steaming up the kitchen. I think you need to put in at least two cups of water per cup of rice. We use a pressure cooker with 1 1/3 cups of water per cup of rice, which heats up quickly to 15 lb pressure, then you turn it off and wait 5-10 minutes for it to finish cooking as it cools down (for brown rice, which would otherwise take 45 minutes). We tried a microwave pressure cooker but that was slower and quite small. There is short, long, and medium grain white and brown rice, and white or brown sticky (glutinous) rice. Sushi used to be fermented rice, now it is imitated with vinegar (like vinegar pickles instead of salt pickles).
My rice cooker does not steam up my kitchen. We like it. Using it means that a burner (and pan, pans seem to be a limited resource for some reason) is not being taken up by the rice and can be used for another dish. It keeps the rice warm longer than the pan method which is useful when we have varied schedules. It means no more burned rice. Damon does most of the cooking since I am either covering or taking evening classes and STeve often doesn't get home until quite late. Damon has a tendancy to game while cooking, hence he often forgets to check on things. If we use the rice cooker and he burns the chicken or pork chops and veggies, we can at least have buttered rice or the above mentioned with milk, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Our rice cooker can also do slow cooked soups and stews.
How much water goes into your rice cooker per cup of rice? You probably have a relatively leaky house and don't mind some extra steam in it.
Hah, I got you all beat. My rice only takes ONE MINUTE! Which means I have more time to develop my plan for world peace and I can save precious energy resources at the same time.
World Peace! You planning on becoming a beauty contestant?
I use the knuckle medthod of measuring rice and water - rice to the depth of the first knuckle, water to the depth of the second. Works in the rice cooker or in a saucepan.
Actually, mine is the knuckle method as well. However, you can fill the pan with any amount of rice. The only measurement is the 1 knuckle between the top of the rice and the top of the water.
*grins* and here I use measuring cups...
A knuckly method would only work if you use the same pot and cook the same amount of rice every time.
It has worked every time in every pot I have used it. It is basically the same as Colleen's - about 1 inch of water above the level of the rice. The second knuckle on my index finger is close enough to an inch that I use it for measuring while stitching. It is the easiest measuring device for this purpose as it is always available, is easy to wash before using, and doesn't matter if it gets wet. I have made rice for 1 person to 8-10 people using it. I don't know how you came to your conclusion above, especially if you haven't used the method.
Yes, the knuckle method has worked for my mom and me for over 50 years. I have never in my life made rice by measuring either the rice or the water. Many pots, many stoves, infinite amounts of rice. It works the same way for brown rice and white. I probably err on the "more" side of the joint when adding water for brown rice. I just pour rice into a pot until it looks like the right amount for the number of people I'm feeding and how hungry they are. It's worked for 1-8 people, routinely, for dinner, even when 3 of the 8 people were hungry teenaged athletes. I too don't understand how Sindi can tell those of us who use the method that it doesn't work.
I can't believe this would work, unless you put in too much water every time and cook it without a cover and boil it until the water is gone. If you cover the pot, and use the same pot for 1 or 8 cups of rice, either the 1 cup will come out much too wet or the 8 cups will burn.
Do you really think that your belief that it wouldn't work is a more compelling argument than our years of experience feeding people with this method?
Really. I put the lid on EVERY time. When cooking on the stove and not in the rice cooker, it is brought to a boil and either turned off or down to the lowest temp on the burner and left alone for 15-20 minutes for white rice, 35-45 minutes for brown. No boiling until the water is gone. Doesn't matter what pot or how much rice. The magic is in the inch of water above the level of the rice. That is just enough water for the rice to come out light and fluffy every time. It is the instructions for cooking rice that is in all my Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian, Persian, and Mid-eastern cookbooks. It is also the instructions I got from Chinese and Indian friends. (I asked just to confirm how they were taught.) Since most of them have rice for almost every meal, and the fact that it has always worked for me, I trust them. Try it and see.
Actually, the water isn't gone. You only boil until the water level reaches the rice level. Any more than that and you get burned rice.
Re 141, that means you are putting in more water than you need, if you boil off some of it. If 1" of water above 8" of rice is enough, then it is too much above 1" of rice, unless you like added heat and humidity in your kitchen. We pressure cook brown rice by just bringing it to 15 lb and turning it off. Some time I will measure how much water is above 2 cups of rice when we add 2.6 cups of water to it.
If I put in less water, I get burned rice.
Your pot is probably losing a lot of water to the air.
Well, it's one of those waterless stainless pots, that has a lid that floats on the steam. I have butter-steamed new potatoes in it without using any water at all. Works just fine with tiny potatoes and butter. Without having an seal that withstands multiple atmospheres of pressure, it's one of the best designed lid and pan sets I've ever seen. It was designed in the 50s, and has a cast iron core in the bottom, sandwiched between layers of stainless steel. It uses very little fuel to cook with, and because of the cast iron core, can finish cooking a dish with the heat turned off. I have a set my mother gave me when I went to college, and have collected all the other pieces over the years. The company went out of business in the 70s, and the pieces are gourmet collectors items because of their fuel efficiency. It self-seals when used correctly, and the lids are precisely weighted to provide waterless cooking of vegetables and other foods that contain a fair amount of natural moisture. It does not create a pressure vessel, but short of a pressure cooker, it does the best job of any professional pans I've ever used.
Those sound cool; I've never heard of them before. too bad they don't make them any more...
They are cool. However, the rice technique works in ANY kind of pan, not just these way cool ones. I've cooked in a lot of kitchens, and clearly other people have used this technique for years without my super cool pans.
Something I'm going to have to pick up when I can is a basic mixer... My old one has disappeared, apparently not having survived my move back to MI. There's been a few times recently where I've wanted to use one.
Back to rice: Do y'all tend to season your rice with anything to keep it from being bland, and if so, what kinds of things do you use? I know one time, my SIL added some kind of seasoning that included sesame seeds and salt that I thought was good. And at a restaurant that included rice, it tasted like it had some herbs of some sort [at a middle eastern place] and maybe some Italian dressing or oil of some sort. And almonds which were good. I also know of that asian stuff [liquid form] that I can't think of the name of right now [I'm not really crazy about that one, it tastes salty to me, and the flavor doesn't do much for me--though I know a lot of other people that do like it].
It depends on what is served with it. I like rice plain, both white and brown, when served with most any spiced dish. The plain rice offsets the spiciness of the other food. I like both white and brown rice with butter, salt and pepper. I like white rice with milk, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg (really rice pudding without the custard and long cooking). I like it with saffron. I like it curried. I like what Mom calls Glorified Rice - cooked white rice with a can or two of fruit cocktail with its juice and whipped cream mixed in, sort of a cheap ambrosia. Rice is very versitile and able to take almost any type of spicing that you care to throw at it.
Jim eats leftover rice with chopped apples and pomegranate syrup and black walnuts when he feels like cracking them first.
Re 151 That sounds insanely good. Re 149 I tend to like plain rice, because like Glenda said, it's more on what goes with it. With indian food, I'll cook basmati rice with whole cloves and a cinnamon stick in it, maybe a bit of saffron, but nothing else.
Sometimes I cook rice in stock instead of plain water. Plain rice with slivered almonds, green onions, and Clancy's Fancy is pretty good.
I'm boring, I just tend to have brown rice with a little salt and butter.
I always mix rice into a casserole or stew sort of dish. Cooking for one makes it easy to avoid the issue. Whole wheat noodles i sometimes serve plain, then add a bit of olive oil, salt, & pepper, or maybe plain yogurt. Depends mostly on what's on hand and how much time i have.
I got a rice cooker. I'm geeked, in a rice cooker kind of way. ;-)
hahaha. I know people love those, but for me there is no purpose. I don't cook enough rice I guess.
re #157 They're great if rice is a side dish and you tend to forget it's cooking (thus it doesn't burn as easily in a cooker)
Rice cookers are designed to put a lot of steam into the air, which means they waste a lot of energy and also make your room very humid. We cook rice in a tightly fitting pot and it comes to boiling much faster (and if in a pressure cooker, you just turn it off once it reaches pressure, after a few minutes, and it cannot burn).
All that wasted steam must be what's making my kitchen smell delish at the moment. Tonight, at chez Remmers, it's orange beef stir-fry.
Steam is just one more excuse to open my pores.
It is not good for the structure of whatever you are living in to have water condensing in it. Running down the windows. Puddling on the sills. Rotting the wood.
I'm sure it's not.
Hi Sindi. I live in the desert. Trust me, I'm good. The house is fine too.
re #162 They've invented these crazy lil things called exhaust fans. When I cook on the stove, I use it.
Do you have an objection to using less energy to cook with? An exhaust fan also cools the house (or heats it if it is warmer out).
I seriously could count on one hand how many times this year I've used my rice cooker, so it's not too much an issue. We just don't eat that much rice.
re #166 Do you have an objection to using less energy to cook with? You mean do I object to eating only twigs and leaves like a Giraffe? Yes.
Cooked rice does not grow on trees.
Neither do spastic colons.
Do nonspastic colons? Pressure cooked rice gets very thoroughly cooked. With brown rice we add 1.3 cups water per cup of rice. White rice would probably be less. If you cook with more water, the rest of it goes into the air along with wasted heat.
re #171 How long does that take? Do you use a pressure cooker pot on a stove?
Maybe 5 minutes to come to pressure, then 5 to come down? I never timed it. It is does before the rest of the meal. Yes pressure cooker on stove. We also have one large electric pressure cooker which is more efficient but too large (nuisance to clean). We have at least 10 pressure cookers of various sizes and designs, and take a small one bike camping with us. I wonder if we could cook oatmeal in it (dont' let the pressure come up too far).
What the hell kind of rice cooker causes steam to condense on windows, puddle on sills, and rot the house frame???
I dunno, but I do know that in the winter, when the air is very dry in our apartment- a little steam only does good things. We tend to use the 'pot on the stove' method of rice making though- not a specific rice steamer...
Our house is well sealed, and adding steam to the air causes problems. Our highest January heating bill was $60 (electric). DO the rest of you not believe in global warming or just not personally want to do anything about it? Some friends put in a geothermal heating system at great expense but never insulated or weatherstripped and they now pay $180 in January for heat.
WTF Sindi? The occasional use of a rice cooker is going to top the balance?
re #176 My electric bill in Jan was about $60, too. I do my part for low carbon footprint but I also have to do my part for low mildew in rainforest climate. I'm betting the cooking we do at home(rice rarely) is way more efficient time, money, energy than restaurant or frozen microwavable.
I am pointing out that there are multiple reasons to cook efficiently. Seattle does not typically go to -10F in January. Tod, do you cook things in tightly sealed pots? I agree that taking a car to a restaurant wastes far more fuel that even boiling a lot of water off rice into the air.
My electric bill in the winter was about $30. Our gas bill was higher, but that's divided up between all the units in the building. Sindi- some of us also live in apartments that are run by corporations that REALLY frown on tenants making their own changes to the apartments. So we do what we can. And for goodness sake, we're not talking about THAT much steam! It's a rice cooker, not a steam engine.
Um, we got a console model rice cooker that sits on the floor, is about 4 feet high and 3 feet across, and weighs 200 pounds. Whenever we use it, all the windows fog up, the walls get wet, and the neighborhood experiences brownouts from the electricity consumption. If we run it with the windows open, the weather bureau issues a local dense fog warning. None of these wimpy table model rice cookers for us! Oops, almost forgot: :)
John Remmers, kicking it hard core.
re #179 Tod, do you cook things in tightly sealed pots? I haven't entertained the idea of a pressure cooker in my house simply for safety reasons. In the 80's, a friend of mine suffered major burns when the pressure cooker where he worked (Big Boy's on 9mile in St.Clair Shores) exploded. The risk doesn't seem equitable to energy savings. Perhaps the new stovetop pressure cookers are better these days?
One thing I will mention even though it doesnt have much to do with kitchen gizmos is that people should pay attention to their reactions regarding Sindi's comments about how cooking inefficiently is contributing to global warming. That is why expecting people to change any of their habits out of the good ness of their heart is never going to work. You have to make policy that forces them to change their habits. Rice cookers probably dont use enough energy to really come into play here but I'll bet that if it cost 5 cents to cook rice with a pressure cooker and $5 to cook rice with a rice cooker, a lot of people would switch to using pressure cookers.
I'm intrigued simply because my rice cooker works like crap when it cooks brown/basmati rice. If I can do it in the same time as white rice by using a pressure cooker then I'm interested. I would need assurances that a pressure cooker isn't going to harm someone, though.
I love that....I won't make changes out of the goodness of my heart. Just because I use my rice cooker maybe once a month I am somehow condemning the earth. Nevermind my avid recyclying/reusing or other things we have done to our home to make it more energy efficient. Next you'll be telling my not owning a pressure cooker is me buying into a patriarchal conspiracy. I don't use a pressure cooker because A) I don't own one and B) I try to not own a ton of stuff in my kitchen. I hate being cluttered in my kitchen. I have considered getting a pressure cooker simply because I love watching them get used on Iron Chef. But I'm not there yet.
We have been pressure cooking for 30 years or so and never had an accident. We have pressure cookers from the 50s and later. It is the ones from the 40s that were not working right. They are by far the easiest (not just the fastest) way to cook grains and beans (it helps to presoak the beans but it not necessary). Or even potatoes. We use the special weights that show pressure (5 10 15 lb) and potatoes need 5 lb, brown rice and beans 15 lb. Brown rice takes much longer to cook than white rice. Probably the rice steamers assume white rice, you add the amount of water that corresponds to the 20 min it takes to cook rice (it takes 20 min to boil off then the cooker senses that the temperature has gone up and turns of). YOu could try adding twice the water for brown rice. Pressure cookers do not burn things because they cook mainly with steam, not just with bottom heat. My mother used hers for potroasts. We tried a microwave rice cooker which took much longer than pressure cookers.
Where can I find pressure cookers which use weights? Or is it better to use the electronic ones with auto shutoff?
resp:186 That is my point. *everyone* thinks what they are doing is reasonable. I know I sure think that I am doing my part. And no...using a rice cooker is not especially harmful to the environment. And fwiw, I use the stove top method which is probably the least efficient. Anyways, I seriously doubt that even the highest energy taxes in the land would deter someone using a rice cooker since they just dont use that much energy. But think about how you feel when someone suggests to you that you should give up the rice cooker. That is how some folks feel about their SUVs. Guilt will not get them to stop buying them just like no amount of guilt will stop anyone in this conversation from cooking rice in the way that works best for them.
We made a big pot of rice last night in the rice cooker and I was sure to towel off the windows and sills while wearing hipwaders. ;)
http://tinyurl.com/6gr9b3 You want my rice cooker? You're going to have to pry that baby from my cold dead hands.
From my cold dead chubby fingers! Look a nice one with a dial setting (instead of weights) http://tinyurl.com/4qsand
Yeah, you would have to pry my rice cooker from my fingers too! http://www.clearwaterbeachkiku.com/images/ImgLeft_About.jpg
hahahahahah!!!!
Good one, Lynne!
re #193 Why does that guy have my thong on his head?
Dang. I guess I'll have to quit cooking my rice on a pile of burning car tires. I'm really going to miss that special smoky tang.
I got a new gadget - a milk frother for quick and dirty caps at home. Nuke a little milk with or without flavoring. Froth for 20 seconds. Pour coffee through. Enjoy. It works. http://tinyurl.com/5w4evp
You put milk into your dirty capacitors? Does it fix the bulging problem?
Every time. Almost.
Is there some additional ingredient you need to add to them? Hot glue?
resp:199 That looks almost exactly like a gadget a friend of mine used to bring on backpacking trips - to stir koolaid. It is kind of an in joke but we have a mutual friend who is both into backpacking and into gadgets. He always made a point to pack as lightly as possible but would also almost always bring one fancy made for backpacking gadget. My friend with the koolaid stirrer (which may have really been a milk frother) would always try to also bring a gadget on every trip except he would try to make his as useless as possible in order to tease our other friend.
Boy, your friends go for the jugular, eh? ;-)
Yeah. That same friend with the stirrer once went out and bought a $400 tent which made the other friend rather jealous. Once the first friend realized that, he started setting up his tent in his living room and talking about it all of the time to the gadget head friend. The gadget head friend was really excited to see it in action so to speak. Then, when they next went camping together the guy with the nice tent brought his $15 K-Mart pup tent and said that the $400 tent was too nice to use outside ;)
You have several choices: