Review: Ziszor Personal Schredder - Protect Your Identity from the Kitchen
We all do more than just cook in our kitchen. We often find ourselves opening lots of different mail in the kitchen, and then tossing the ones we don't like unschredded into the kitchen wastebasket. In this modern age of identity theft this is a very bad idea, and because of that products like Ziszor are coming to market.
The packaging and design for the Ziszor is excellent.
Ziszor is a personal schredder that allows you to stop dumpster diving thieves by using a shredder in the kitchen. We've written several articles on this before, but Ziszor is small and handheld compared to a traditional shredder, thus taking up less space wherever you need to shred.
We are forever making zucchini slices to put into a pasta, cous cous, or other yummy salad. The problem we always have - making nice consistent slices and not chopping off our hand while doing so. The OXO Good Grips Hand-Held Mandoline Slicer makes this task really easy. You use the soft knob to simply adjust to the desired slice thickness, and slide the zucchini over the stainless steel blade for nice even slices. We like the clear surface that shows slices accumulating below, and the little grippy slider also hides the blades from our kids prying fingers.
We love just about anything mango, but what we don't love is having to get the mango out of the mango. Mangos tend to have a very large seed in the middle, and the entire process can really take some time. When we heard OXO - maker of just about any kitchen gadget you could want made a mango splitter, we realized our mango intake could increase if we had such a gadget, and perhaps be a bit less of a hassle.
The OXO Good Grips Mango Splitter is pretty straight forward. It's much like an apple corer with two big soft grips on the side. The middle part of the OXO Good Grips Mango Splitter slides down over the mango seed and splits the mango.
First you'll need a mango, ours is a bit green but will do.
We received these silicone baking cups from Le Creuset to try out. My daughter was very excited because cupcakes are her favorite thing. The great thing about them is you can make cupcakes without having to have a muffin pan, which is one less pan in your drawer. Also, of course, being silicone, the cupcake or muffin doesn't stick to the side. The cups are very flexible, which makes it easy to pull it off the cupcake, but it does make it harder to put the batter in the cups without them moving around. It comes in a set of six cups.
Not enough room for your wok, fry-pan, and saucepan plus lids? We've been testing out the Jamie Oliver Survival Kit that is designed to solve this problem. The Survival Kit contains all you’ll ever need to cook most dishes in your kitchen (for us some zucchini and chicken), and it stores away in one stack - saving you loads of room in your kitchen cupboard.
What did we think? Did these cooking pans hold up to the dreaded evening meal test? Did we find ourselves using them over other pots and pans after a week of testing?
We received a mini version of this oval au gratin pan from Le Creuset. I'm not sure what you would use the mini version for--my daughter used it to make a mini apple pie from the leftover crust of our big pie--but the pan itself was great. It cooked evenly in the oven. The pie came out easily and didn't stick to the pan. The pan comes in three sizes and eight colors. I think I would find a larger pan much more useful than the mini.
We received one of these gel mats for review and have been very impressed. The mat is designed to help people with low back pain, foot pain, and heel pain. The difference between standing on it and standing on the hardwood floor is amazing. I didn't realize how hard the floor was until we got this mat.
The mat has also been very tough, withstanding lots of stuff dropped on it. It is easy to clean up and isn't hideous to look at. According to the website, they are lots of colors and style varieties.
If you have back or foot problems and do a lot of standing in your kitchen, this mat will definitely help.
Review: Zarafina Tea Maker Suite - Make Perfect Tea One Pot at a Time
We've just spent the last 3 weeks using the Zarafina Tea Maker suite. It's been a very interesting addition to our already large coffee and tea habit here at KitchenContraptions.com. What's surprising about the Zarafina Tea Maker is how consistent the cup of tea you brew can be if you have a tea brewing appliance like the Zarafina Tea Maker.
You get a serving tray, the main tea maker, the tea pot, two tea cups,
and some serving utensils.
What's different about the Zarafina tea maker? The Zarafina tea maker has a unique brewing chamber which allows you to observe the process, variable settings that allow you to control the strength, brewing time and temperature and a built in diffuser that keeps your tea free of leaves whether you are using tea bags or loose tea. It is designed distinctively to enrich your tea experience and give you a perfect consistent cup of tea every time.
Review: Smellkiller Stainless Steel Hand Soap and Air Cleaner
We've been looking for a stainless steel hand soap to get rid of that nasty garlic smell after making legs of lamb lately. Having seen quite a few different options online, we stopped into our local hardware store only to find exactly what we were looking for - the Smellkiller Stainless Steel Hand Soap and Air Cleanser.
Now you're probably wondering - how does stainless steel soap remove odors on your hands or even in the air? It neutralizes them or breaks the molecules of odor upon contact, or if you use the rubber bowl that's included and a little water, it will remove odors from the air. Does it work? Well...
I have a KitchenAid stand mixer, and one of my biggest complaints is how difficult it is to add ingredients while the mixer is going. So I was very excited to receive this Mix-In-Guide. I believe my mixer came with some sort of shield, which was so useless, I don't even know where it is anymore. But the shield didn't help when I was trying to add flour to the mixer while it was going.
I tried out the Mix-In-Guide while making cookies last weekend, and it worked great. First of all, it is easy to fit on the bowl. Second, the ingredients slid right into the bowl instead of getting all over the counter. Finally, because it is stainless steel, nothing stuck to it, so cleanup was easy.
The dispenser looks nice. It is very sleek, and the stand is very sturdy. I love the fact that the dispenser comes with a measuring cup, so you can monitor how much you are dispensing.
The product is pretty tough. Before I got a chance to use it the way it was meant to be used, my daughter decided it was a plaything and put several of her toys through the dispenser. It was able to accommodate several lego pieces as well as a small doll. After wrestling it back from her, I tried it out on regular food.
We received a Sil-Pin silicone rolling pin to review. As my mom is the pie maker in the family, she used it to make pie crust for an apple pie. Silicone is everywhere in baking these days--mostly because of its nonstick surface. The Sil-Pin was much less sticky than our wooden rolling pin, but it isn't completely non-stick. You still need to put flour on the pin before rolling, but you can use a lot less flour. The bggest benefit is how easy it is to clean up. The dough came right off the pin with a wet towel while there is still dried dough on my wooden rolling pin that has never come off.
The rolling pin is very heavy--you might want to grab it if you think there is a burglar in your house. However, it doesn't feel heavy when you are rolling. It rolls smoothly and evenly due to the ball bearings in the handles. Overall, we were very impressed with the Sil-Pin--it is a big improvement over our previous wooden rolling pin. We received a black Sil-Pin, but it comes it lost of fun colors like red, tangerine, and pink.
We also received a Sil-Pin junior (which should be available at Linen's and Things), which is basically the same rolling pin, but smaller and lighter for kids. My daughter loved it, and she was able to roll out her own dough and make a mini pie with it.
We got a couple of WrapMasters to review from WrapMaster USA. The WrapMaster is an aluminum foil and plastic wrap dispenser. You load the foil or wrap, pull out the desired amount, and press down on the lid. The lid has blades that are specially designed to cut either foil or wrap. It holds rolls up to 200 sq. ft.
I liked the idea of this contraption becuase my aluminum foil and plastic wrap boxes are always getting mangled in my drawer and I have difficulty cutting off pieces of plastic wrap without getting it tangled up. The foil and wrap is relatively easy to load--although it is a three step process, which could be a problem if you are lazy (like me). Once loaded, it was very easy to pull out the desired amount of foil and wrap, and the blade cut the foil and wrap very cleanly and neatly. It was definitely much easier than taking foil or wrap from the box. My only complaint was that the WrapMasters are a little big. They are 3.75” wide x 3.5” high x 14.5” long, which is too big to fit in the drawer where I normally keep aluminum foil and plastic wrap, so I will have to do some rearranging in order to use them.
Review: Have a Pie Day Clay Pie Plate from Hess Pottery
We received a clay pie plate to review from Hess Pottery.
The plate is made with natural red clay and is non-porous and lead-free. It can be used in the oven, dishwasher, and microwave. I had to wait to review it until my mom came to visit as she is the pie maker in the family. After debating about what type of pie to make—peach, cherry, blackberry—we finally decided just to make our favorite, lemon meringue pie. Continue reading:"Review: Have a Pie Day Clay Pie Plate from Hess Pottery"
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Review: Ziszor Personal Schredder - Protect Your Identity from the Kitchen
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