Monday, April 18, 2016

The Silicone Spatula and Other Doohickies

One for fleishigs, milchigs, and pareve. It will change your life. 
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Silicone is heat- and freezer-proof. Spatulas have that whippy, sharp-edged form to thoroughly scrape and stir. Combine the two, and cooking will never be the same. 

Instead of using metal flatware that scrape my beautiful pots, or fumbling with an inefficient wooden spoon, I can flip and mix the boiling and the bubbling. When it is time to serve, I can get every fleck out of the pot. 

Note not all are created the same. Some may be too thick in the center, some not quite sharp enough along the edge, some just too dang heavy. Experiment. Read reviews. 

Ma found this one by Zyliss in Homegoods, and it is has a sacred spot in the milchig sink (with a multitude of backups in the basement, when each officially cries uncle). It was originally meant only for the morning oat bran and scrambled eggs of breakfast. 
http://media.gq.com/photos/5582eee03655c24c6c951c00/master/pass/food-and-travel-2010-10-kitchen-tools-silicone-spatula.jpg
Via gq.com
Once those once mundance cooking processes had been converted into religious experiences, she scurried out and bought other brands in different colors to differentiate for pareve. Then when one became accidentally fleishigs, we were all, "Hey, why didn't we do this sooner?"     

There are plenty others to try. Getting every drop of paprikás sauce onto a plate is so much fun.

As for other doohickies: 

For Pesach, we have no food processor. The year-round one gets little use as it is. 

But there are a few recipes that could use a chopping tool, like charoses, so we had a hand-cranked version that could also be used on yontif. When the blades became dangerously dull, I browsed online for a replacement. 

I bought the Chef'n VeggiChop Hand-Powered Food Processor. It's cool, you pull on the string on top like a lawn mower to get it going. It's not very large—about three cups—but it is smartly designed for easy use, everything interlocking neatly and competently. 
http://ab.wsimgs.com/wsimgs/ab/images/dp/wcm/201614/0025/chefn-veggichop-vegetable-chopper-c.jpg

I used it for the first time to liquefy an avocado for a Pesach brownie on Sunday (don't ask, haven't yet tasted the results) and it did a great job. It was fun, too. 

Zyliss also has a model, and Brieftons has a four cup version, if one desires something roomier.  

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