Kitchen Gadget: Greenco Spiral Julienne Vegetable Slicer (Spiralizer)

I was at Jason's Deli the other day and decided to try zucchini. I really enjoyed the addition to my salad! It was had great bite and the flavor wasn't overpowering. Since there has been so much buzz lately about zucchini noodles- or zoodles- I decided to give it a try. Everything seemed pretty simple but I didn't have a spiralizer in my kitchen. A little comparative shopping and one was on it's way to my doorstep- the Greenco Spiral Julienne Vegetable Slicer. It was a fairly inexpensive gadget that ended up being really easy to use.

As you can see from the photo this product is constructed from a sturdy plastic as well as stainless steel. It is two sided and comes with a cap to attach to the vegetable you want to turn into strips. Each side contains a set of teeth that quickly and efficiently turn the veggies into noodle like strips. One thing that I like about this gizmo is that each side has a different width of blade.

You can see that the zoodle on the left is about half the width of the one on the right. 

I was able to turn two zucchini into zoodles in about two minutes from start to finish... super fast and simple. I'm not sure how long it would take to spiralize a more dense vegetable but based on the sharpness of these little teeth I would assume not much longer.

Now on to things that I didn't really like about this model... The biggest issue I had with it was that it is not particularly ergonomic. Luckily, you only need to be using the gadget for a few minutes to have enough zoodles for several people so it isn't a huge deal breaker. Perhaps it is because I have tiny hands but the two metal pieces meant for holding were further apart than necessary so it hurt my hands a bit to use. The only other thing that I disliked was that the model did not come with a cleaning brush... easily solved with spare/new toothbrush! I was afraid to clean it with my hand or a cloth as the blades are quite sharp so I suggest that you pick up a cheap toothbrush to clean your spiralizer. 

Overall I would recommend the Greenco Spiral Julienne Vegetable Slicer

Kitchen Gadget: PROfreshionals Pineapple Corer

So I love pineapple... it is hands down my favorite fruit. It's just sooo messy! I prefer to purchase my foods in their natural form and most definitely NOT packed in syrup so my options were to give up pineapple, pay extra for the pre-chopped snack packs (and hope they are fresh and not sprayed with chemicals to keep the beautiful yellow coloring for longer), or get messy trying to slice it myself. Then I went to Walmart to pick up 1-2 things between shopping trips and saw this gadget. It's plastic and was fairly expensive so I didn't have great hopes for it but decided it was worth the risk if I could save the messiness (and maybe some of the juice to use in smoothies!) and still have my pineapple fresh. It was a good choice... this inexpensive gadget both cores and spiral slices your pineapple with minimal effort.

The packaging is fairly simple, a couple twisty-ties and piece of cardboard. Easy to remove from the 'packaging' so that is a plus in today's overly difficult packaging world (I'm talking to you electronics plastic packages that take a knife, scissors and two people to open on Christmas day!).

 My beautiful pineapple ready to be cored and sliced by a Prefreshional. 

I chopped off the top of the pineapple and placed it in a small dish to catch any juice. I suggest this quite a bit because the first time I used my pineapple corer I went through the bottom and juice went everywhere. 

Next you simple align the tube over the pineapple's core and twist. It is surprisingly easy... just keep twisting until you reach the bottom of the pineapple. What is difficult to judge however is how far down into the pineapple your corer actually is. You can gauge by seeing where the corer hits just below the top of the pineapple before you begin but if it is in a dish you can just go until you reach the bottom of the pineapple. 

It isn't stated on the packaging but pulling the pineapple corer out is a bit difficult and I tend to break the rings when I attempt to do so. For this reason I just cut through the skin of the pineapple in a straight line which makes removing the corer much simpler.

The final step to using this nifty device is to remove the handle by pressing in the yellow buttons and lifting it out of the tube. Then invert the tube and slide the rings right off. The whole process took maybe 5 minutes, including packaging up the pineapple and cleaning up. 

To clean the gadget you push the core out of the tube, rinse and run it through the dishwasher. If you don't use a dishwasher you can clean it with the rest of your dishes by hand. It it pretty easy.

Should your Walmart not have pineapple corers there is a link to this exact one on Amazon at the bottom of the post. If you don't use plastics in your house then you'll be pleased to know that there are plenty of pineapple corer/slicer combinations out there made in stainless steel as well. 

Now to go have some pineapple... yumm!

Kitchen Gadget: Ice Cube Trays

Want to know what one of my most useful kitchen tools is? The one that saves me the most money out of everything in my kitchen? No, I don't have one of those nifty food saver machines (though they look pretty cool). it is so much simpler and CHEAPER than that. Ice trays... simple, $1 for 2 at the dollar store, ice trays. I use them to freeze up bone broth, sweet potato and pumpkin purees, ketchup, BBQ sauce, and even fresh herbs (in olive oil). I can't tell you how much time I save in the morning when I can just grab some pre-chopped and frozen fruit, a cube or two of pumpkin puree, a handful of greens and a cup of liquid to make a smoothie in less than a minute. No measuring, no mess, no spoiled food... easy, quick and I save money to boot! Or the evening I come home exhausted and just want a quick burger with some yummy homemade ketchup or a bowl of soup but don't feel like spending 10 minutes making that ketchup or an hour or more making soup... nuke 1-2 cubes of ketchup while the burger is cooking and dinner's done or toss a handful of ready-made stock cubes with some chopped veg in a small pot while I do my evening chores (think laundry... so much laundry... why is there ALWAYS laundry!?!) and I'm done. I'm not a big fan of cooking for one and even less of a fan of cooking for more than 20 minutes on a weeknight... is anyone? 

From left to right (what is in my freezer RIGHT NOW): beef bone broth (the chicken bone broth is freezing still), homemade sweet potato puree and homemade ketchup. All of these are simple to freeze, simply ladle them into the trays and freeze them. 

If you wanted to store herbs you just chop or mince them, put them in the tray and fill the remaining space with olive oil. How would I use these cubes of oil and fresh herbs you ask? Just toss it in a hot pan and saute away... fast and easy way to start off your stir fry or pan seared Tilapia. Best part? Those fresh herbs you worked so hard to cultivate don't wilt away unused and wasted! I don't have any fresh herbs right now so unfortunately I can't show photos of how to do this... yet. I will try and come back to add photos the next time I do.

I measured my ice tray compartments by taking a cup of water and filling the compartments of tray one by one until the water was gone in order to measure the volume of each cube quickly and efficiently. Now I know exactly how many cubes I need when a recipe calls for something I have frozen away for later use and don't have to guess.