Cupcake liners in Mason Jars!

Best idea ever. #Pinterest #cupcakes  http://t.co/Sjp6pqkinT pic.twitter.com/LuMo6kPW4j

— alice.RICHES.snow (@aliceRICHESsnow) January 23, 2014

Nicely tucked away in my kitchen island drawer. I plan to add labels to the top of the containers and I'll be set!

Basil

Okay, so we use a lot of basil and I mentioned before that I use Olivia's Garden Basil and the best way to store the basil = upright, roots in water and in cool spot. Until it's the right time of year to grow our own, this is where we get our basil from. Here it is:

I usually use a vase but I repurposed that to hold my favorite kitchen utensils on the stovetop. This is a pitcher that has plenty of space in the bottom but a wide top - which is good to keep from squishing the basil. 

The rocks are from one of our favorite beaches up here and hold up the base of the basil and keep the bottom 2" from getting all moldy. 
Also pictured: HerbPro scissors, which also come with a container at some locations, that are great for cutting up herbs. Be careful, they are SUPER sharp. I use them all the time! 
We're out of basil recipes for the week so I intend to make some pesto sauce, yum!  

Favorite Kitchen Gadgets, Vol. I

Source: realsimple.com
Photo by: Miki Duisterhof

“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”

― Harriet Van Horne

Real Simple's Daily Though landed in my inbox this past Wednesday and of course had to share with all of you! I saved the content below from a few weeks back as a series of blogs for my cooking friends. It's my Favorite Kitchen Gadget series (soon to come: Favorite Foods, Favorite Photography gadgets, Favorite Home Improvement Gadgets and in general: My Favorite Things). In each entry I will have a photo of the gadget, where I purchased it/if it was a gift I will do my best to find it for you, the price and how to use! I am sure some of you will scoff at the little trinkets claiming that your hands, fingers and a simple spoon can do the same thing, well my doubtful friends, I suggest you try some of these, they have made my cooking experiences so much better! My mother-in-law is quite the cook herself and I was exposed to several of the gadgets we'll look at through both of her kitchens (yes both) and had several "ah-ha!" moments. So, without any further ado, here is Volume I:

Source: Personal library

Garlic press: Oh my friend the garlic press. This has made a difference in my kitchen because of the shear amount of garlic we use in our food - and our undying love for garlic bread.  Simply remove the outer flaky skin of the garlic so the "meat" is exposed, cut a small sliver of either end (if you desire), place in press and crush over your next batch of homemade marinara. The press will help you evenly distribute your garlic and keep you from being a walking vampire repeller - good tip here for Edward Cullen fans (I had to Google that). It is a cinch to clean, simply use a toothpick to remove the garlic fragments from the teeth of the press, rinse with soapy water and air dry - do not put this in your dishwasher, be nice to your favorites. This was a gift but I imagine you can find it here (d0n't forget your coupon!). Super affordable and really a necessity.

Source: Personal library

Citrus peeler: This is a new kitchen gadget for me and so far so good! I recently attended a Pampered Chef party hosted by a dear friend with Barb Maurais. I helped with some of the food prep and was able to get a goodie! Considering the large amount of lemon/lime/orange consumed in this house all in the name of recipes (and gin) I thought it a wise choice. It really works! When I looked it up for you lovely folks, I was so happy to see that it is only $1! If you need zest from your citrus before you need juice, don't score until you've grated the rind. I wouldn't call it a necessity, but it's a neat addition.

Source: Personal library

Kitchen scissors: Oh my kitchen scissors/shears. I never thought of using anything other than a knife to cut-up ingredients for whatever recipe required me to chop-chop-chop! We received an entire knife set with block and sharpener as a wedding present from the Sweet Husband's cousins and I was delighted to finally have some sharp scissors at my disposal. Granted for a while I used them to open containers and in a pinch I may have used them to open mail (eek!) but now I have a little more respect for them once I used them on salad ingredients and my least favorite thing to deal with, raw chicken! I know you might have a hard time wrapping your head around spending $20 on a pair of scissors but I promise, it's worth it. I've been know to cut up carrots with these babies when the counter is full and I left the salad prep for last. 

Source: Personal library

Pastry blender: Considering that I bake a lot more than I used to - and you have to be nice to dough of all kinds if you want the right results - I figured it was time to get myself a pastry blender. The recipes constantly called for one and I always figured I could do without. Wrong. The blender will properly combine your butter with flour without warming the butter and distributes all the ingredients evenly. This has made a huge difference with my scones (of all kinds). Honestly, look at a scone recipe/ingredients the wrong way and voila, flavorless, hard ick.  Really anything that requires you to make a sticky or crumbly dough in the begining of your baking process, reach for a pastry blender. 

Source: Personal library

A fork(s): I'm not going to tell you where to find a fork, if you don't have a stainless steel or non-plastic equivalent in your house, we have much more important things to talk about. A small salad fork is the size I use most often when holding down chicken breasts I'm avoiding to touch. Mostly, I use a fork to squeeze the maximum amount of juice out of a lemon/lime/orange. After cutting the citrus in half, I hold it over a mini-strainer to catch the seeds and extra pulp, and squeeze. Wiggle the fork around, watch the rind so you don't pierce your hand and simply squeeze away. Here's another small tip - save the hallowed out rind if you plan to not purchase the garlic press, it's a good way to alleviate some of the stench on your fingers. Do you have a compost holder in your kitchen or a garbage dispotal? A little lemon goes a long way. It's my favorite kitchen clean scent!


I hope you enjoyed Volume I, there's a lot more where these came from! 

Keurig

Source: personal library

Yep. We did it. We caved and bought ourselves a Keurig (from this point on referred to as 'K' I think the spelling is weird). I was completely skeptical at first and entirely un-interested in putting another appliance in our kitchen. Oh yes, especially since we already have/had a one cup coffee maker, french press AND a very nice Cuisinart 12-cup, programmable coffee maker.
The husband has this thing with the search for the next great cup of coffee...we usually find it at our local Dunkin Donuts but not in our kitchen. We've tried everything: filtered water, unfiltered water, less grinds, more grinds, freshly ground grinds, bolder coffee, flavored coffee (huge mistake), more sugar, less sugar. Terrible. We stink at making coffee. We also found that if we did the same exact thing every morning sometimes we got a great cup of coffee and sometimes it tasted like gopher pee. It was becoming a regular thing to get up and drive to Dunkin (not me mind you) and get a cup of coffee. I was getting really tired of that (and our gift cards from Christmas ran out). So! On a Sunday afternoon we were browsing through our local 'get everything here' store and somehow the K found it's way into our cart. Voilà! Delicious cup of coffee for the past week. 
Today I am sampling some English Breakfast Tea...not so good. Extremely weak. I prefer my tea to sit a steep for a decent amount of time before consuming. Considering my upbringing and heritage this could only be my preference/problem. I've also had hot chocolate with the K and ick, mine is way better.  Considering it's many functions, coffee seems the best so far. Which brings me back to my slogan from the dairy-free blogging days: This is life on earth, you just can't have everything.