Why I Oughta...

We Americans load our homes and kitchens with uni-taskers .  At Menards last week, I spotted this "Melon Splitter" for just $4.99.  What is a melon splitter?  It is a device that slices your water melon into 12 equal slices.  That is - as long as it fits inside this contraption. This thing is HUGE.  You'd have to live in a really big McMansion with a really big kitchen to be willing and able to store this thing for the 3 or 4 times you'd use it every year. As you can guess, after mocking this thing in store, I had a moment of weakness where I actually thought about taking it off the hook and sticking it in my cart.  Fortunately, sanity overcame me and we left without this gadget.

Look at what just arrived via USPS Mailman on our frontdoor?!?  Two and a half pounds of extract-grade vanilla beans.  Yes..that's what is in that photo below.  Kind of strange looking, but they're oh-so-sweet smelling. I'm about a month behind my schedule from last year so I have to get going fast.  With school ending this week, it shouldn't be difficult to get my nieces and nephews over here to slice and scrape beans and get production ramped up.  There's nothing quite like under-aged, low-priced labor is there?   After that, all it takes is a mere six months of steeping and we should be in great shape for the holidays.

See that grey-ish liquid on the top of my starter?  This is what they call hooch .  I'd heard of it, but never had it on my culture before.  When I took my jars out of the fridge ( earlier this week ) after a long slumber, the hooch was thick.  I dumped it out, then got started on the feedings.  As I mentioned earlier this week, the culture snapped right back to life.

At least that's what I *think* happened.  Unless we have a ghost who comes in and drops my culture jars on their edges just for fun. Earlier this week, I grabbed my sourdough culture jars out of the fridge and I tried to wake them up.  I wanted to bake some bread for Easter this weekend, and figured it was going to take a few cycles of feeding them to fully get them activated because it'd been about 2 months since I touched them.  The good news?  They woke right up.  A few feedings in, I had a fully alive culture and a bubbling jar. The bad news?  I forgot to open the jars and dump out a bunch of the culture one evening.  We went to bed and woke up to the strong stink of yeast in our kitchen.  And one of my jars was surprisingly low in terms of contents.   When I picked it up, it dripped.  Turns out, the bottom busted out.  I can only guess that this was a weak spot in the jar and the pressure was too great.  In the...

I received a pair of these 'Ove' Gloves from my mom back at Christmas and I scoffed at the idea.  My mom persisted and said that they came highly recommended and in fact, the woman at Walgreens (yeah...that's where she bought them!) told her she HAD to buy 2 of them! Guess what?  These have become my go-to oven mitt and I don't even reach for anything else.  For breads, this thing works perfectly as I can pick up the loaf directly.  Same with pizza skins. I know what you're thinking...my oven mitts are fine.  That's what I thought, too!  This is one of those "As Seen on TV" products and, surprisingly to me(!), this one really works well.  Can't recommend it more.  Sounds silly, I know! Go buy it here with the link below: