Appliances and Kitchen Gadgets

There is no denying that fresh herbs and spices make a difference while cooking. There is, however, always the lingering possibility that they do not get used in time; freshly cut herbs don't last long. Of course, the optimal solution is to have them fresh, alive, and always at the ready.

Having a stock of growing herbs doesn't have to mean digging around in the garden. In fact, it doesn't have to even mean having a garden to dig around in (at least in the traditional sense). The Click & Grow Smart Herb Garden moves the outdoors … Read more

Spring has sprung. We can now officially start to look forward to the coming warm weather months. The cool breeze on a warm summer day is still a ways away, but the effect can be recreated now. How? With 7-minute milkshakes and smoothies, of course.

The Zoku Slush and Shake Maker ($19.95) comes in an assortment of bright, cheerful colors. Whether one chooses red, green, orange, or purple to brighten their day, the result is the same: chilled drinks in as little as 7 minutes. The gadget consists of an inner core that is kept in the freezer (for … Read more

Food comes in all shapes and sizes. However, despite the cornucopia of options that populate supermarket shelves, there is always room for more variety. Sometimes a change does a food product good; just think about how many ways there are to eat something seemingly simple as eggs. Not only can they can be scrambled, fried, or poached, but they also happen to be a vital ingredient in millions of recipes. But when it comes right down to it, all of that pales in comparison to their one true, previously unknown purpose: being served on a stick.

Since the invention of … Read more

Dutch designer Scott van Haastrecht has come up with an innovative way to spice up his mornings. His invention, the Image Toaster, searches Google Images and proceeds to toast the day's latest images on bread at at 6x6 pixels.

Meant as a school project for a Creative Technology course, the Image Toaster is currently still a prototype and needs to be tethered to a computer to work. The creator explains that his final product will work on Wi-Fi and only needs a power cord to function. … Read more

Busy place, the kitchen. Fast-moving knives and quick-rising heat abound. Blink and it could mean the difference between delicious and destroyed. That's OK; it is part of what makes cooking fun. The puzzle that is the meal to be comes together a piece at a time. Layers build upon each other, creating towers of flavorful food that may not literally reach for the sky, but does have the ability to send our taste buds into orbit. All it requires is a little planning. And prep work.

As far as food-prep tools go, the food processor has to be one … Read more

The kitchen is a pretty interesting place. From the one room in the house, meals can be made that can transport one to another time and place. While metaphysical travel may only be as far away as a lingering trip down the spice aisle in the grocery store, actual physical travel takes a little more effort. Or at least, the ability to become unplugged.

The KitchenAid Pro Line Series Cordless Hand Blender is a versatile kitchen tool designed to let you take it places. With a housing that contains a 12-volt rechargeable lithium ion battery, the flexible prep gadget is … Read more

Cooking and waiting go hand in hand. Sure, sometimes, the action is fast and furious, but other times it just becomes a matter of patience. This "hurry up and wait" aspect of meal making isn't a bad thing; flavor develops at its own pace. As cooking can be all about timing, it would not be inappropriate to consider the fact that sometimes it is the actual appliance that needs to catch up. So it seems only natural that the cooking appliance itself should know what is expected of it. Like what time to have dinner ready at.… Read more

Doing the dishes is one of those annoying kitchen chores that is easy to put off. After all, the meal has already been made and presumably eaten. Clean dishes add nothing to the past. However, the future is another matter entirely. Last-minute cleaning to plate a waiting feast of deliciousness is an annoyance that can easily be avoided by just doing the dishes ahead of time. Especially when prep cooking requires it.

There is a certain order to doing things in the kitchen and the JonJas Cubodira wants everybody to follow along. The kitchen gadget combines a dish drying rack … Read more

There is a lot of good stuff that can be found in the freezer: ice cream, frozen pizza, ice. Beer, however, is not one of these items. Now, of course, there is nothing stopping anybody from placing a warm beer in the chiller to cool it down quickly and easily; nothing, that is, except for bad memories. Sooner or later, a bottle of beer put into the freezer gets forgotten about. The resulting beer explosion not only results in a ruined beer, but also in beer-coated ice cream, pizza, and ice. While beer flavored ice cream may not necessarily be … Read more