I don't want to turn this post into one of those late night television commercials where some extremely loud sales-barker is pitching the latest "As Seen on TV" product guaranteed to make your life wonderful, but I do have a couple of gadgets in mind as I write this.
We've been making salsa here at Chateau Squatlo for the past month, and the results have been outstanding. My lovely (and dangerous) wife is the salsa queen, and the recipe she follows renders a finished product that can bring tears to your eyes (especially if I'm left alone in the kitchen long enough to add more hot pepper ingredients to the stock pot...)
But making salsa is a pain in the ass. Blanching and peeling hundreds and hundreds of ripened tomatoes, one after the other, day after day, would be enough of a disincentive to chase away all but the most dedicated of canners. But the endless chopping of peppers and onions makes the endeavour almost (almost...) not worth the effort.
You have to imagine the scene. We have a small kitchen with limited counter top space on which to work. When you have to dice up quarts-worth of peppers (jalapeno, habanero, cayenne, banana, chili, and bell) and then suffer through your tears to dice up equal amounts of onions BEFORE you even begin to blanch, peel, core, and dice hundreds of tomatoes, well, it's easy to understand why more people don't make their own salsa.
But our lives were brightened by way of a device loaned to us by our buddy BJ last week, and before we EVER think of making another batch of salsa we shall acquire one of these gadgets of our own.
Normally, I spend at least an hour dicing up the peppers alone for a batch of salsa. But this handy little chopper turned that into a five minute process, and all of the pieces were uniform and perfectly diced. Instead of spending the rest of the day and evening with burning fingers from handling extremely hot peppers in massive quantities, I was able to make short work of both the pepper AND onions.
The one I purchased at a local big box home improvement store was slightly different than the one pictured, but this is close enough for illustration
We've been making salsa here at Chateau Squatlo for the past month, and the results have been outstanding. My lovely (and dangerous) wife is the salsa queen, and the recipe she follows renders a finished product that can bring tears to your eyes (especially if I'm left alone in the kitchen long enough to add more hot pepper ingredients to the stock pot...)
But making salsa is a pain in the ass. Blanching and peeling hundreds and hundreds of ripened tomatoes, one after the other, day after day, would be enough of a disincentive to chase away all but the most dedicated of canners. But the endless chopping of peppers and onions makes the endeavour almost (almost...) not worth the effort.
You have to imagine the scene. We have a small kitchen with limited counter top space on which to work. When you have to dice up quarts-worth of peppers (jalapeno, habanero, cayenne, banana, chili, and bell) and then suffer through your tears to dice up equal amounts of onions BEFORE you even begin to blanch, peel, core, and dice hundreds of tomatoes, well, it's easy to understand why more people don't make their own salsa.
But our lives were brightened by way of a device loaned to us by our buddy BJ last week, and before we EVER think of making another batch of salsa we shall acquire one of these gadgets of our own.
THIS THING IS AWESOME!!!!
Normally, I spend at least an hour dicing up the peppers alone for a batch of salsa. But this handy little chopper turned that into a five minute process, and all of the pieces were uniform and perfectly diced. Instead of spending the rest of the day and evening with burning fingers from handling extremely hot peppers in massive quantities, I was able to make short work of both the pepper AND onions.
It's a labor saving miracle, and I highly recommend one if you've got a lot of dicing to do. So far this summer we've made 60 quarts of salsa (actually 59... one jar shattered just as it was placed into the boiling water bath... too bad you weren't here to watch grown people cry)
The other labor saving device that's found its way near and dear to my heart is a cheap attachment for my lawn's weed whacker. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to keep the lawn trimmer string from binding up or snapping off during trimming, especially if you have to carry the weedeater back to a garage to replace or rethread the line every time it malfunctions.
The motor unit on those weedeaters almost always perform flawlessly, but the trimmer heads are maddeningly frustrating.
If you find yourself spending more time rethreading the line on your weedeater and want to make your yard chores a LOT less miserable, find and purchase one of these:
The one I purchased at a local big box home improvement store was slightly different than the one pictured, but this is close enough for illustration
You have no idea how many times I've said the following words aloud after using one of these attachments: "Best product improvement EVER!"
Instead of stopping at least once or twice (and sometimes half a dozen times) to mess with the line advance head on our weedeater, I now complete the entire yard every time without stopping.
It's like taking 75% of the misery of lawn work out of the equation. If you're one of those folks who's fighting with his weedeater more than he's using it, get thee to a Home Depot and buy one of these universal string trimmer attachments.
Your life will be better for it, I promise.
If you have a product improvement the rest of us need to hear about, PLEASE toss a comment to the blobber gods. I'd love to know what handy, dandy labor saving device has brightened your life lately!
8 comments:
If you don't know what to do with your abundance of 'maters, you could give them to a local food pantry. I'm sure they would love some fresh produce.
I bought a thingie with three plastic blades for my gas-powered trimmer. I know what you mean about what a pain in the ass getting the string to advance (Been there, done that!!) is, that's why I bought the thingie when I saw it marked down at Northern Tool. So far it is working great and will cut some good sized weeds and small brush.
Uh, Bob. About the weedeater hassles.I hate having to walk back to the garage to add more line or untangle what I got.But the garage is where the cooler is, so sometimes it takes me awhile to restring. It also sometimes takes me days and multiple six packs to maintain my 2 acres, but I got nothin' else to do.
I have that first item. I love that first item. I broke that first item. Planning to get another one. My new "find" is a dish draining mat. Mat as in breathable cloth, fold it when you are done thing. Got mine at Target. Try it, you'll like it!
Randy, we've got two additional refrigerators in our garage, and one of them is devoted almost entirely to my beer stash. I understand the appeal of a return trip to the garage, but also know I get a lot less done once I've started a party...
I hate self-denial, but sometimes you have to be strong if you want to get shit done...
mddle child, You broke it? Gadzooks, maybe I need to exert a little less force with the larger chunks of onion?
I want someone to invent a cutting board attachment that serves as a funnel once you're done dicing. Some kind of plastic guides that clip on a standard cutting board, maybe? Then when you're done with dicing instead of trying to scoop the pieces off the end or side (or worse, trying to pick them up by hand or with the blade) you could just shove them through the funnel into a pan or bowl. Ta-Da!
Someone get that on K-Tel products and I'll buy one!
They make plastic sheets for cutting. When you're done, pick up the sides and it funnels the pieces into whatever you want to put them in. It's think enough plastic that you won't slice thru it, but flexible enough to bend.
What Kulkuri said. I use those a lot. There's also a hard plastic board with a lip like you ordered...
http://www.bestchoicemart.com/cutandscfush.html
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Kulk and Cynthianne: well done! I took the link Cynthianne provided and was GOING to order one of those funnel shaped cutting boards, but they're currently out of stock.
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