I'm So Easily Entertained!

Kitchen gadgets...I just love them.  Love to look at them online, love to look at them in stores... I find them fascinating.  Sometimes they are a big help...and sometimes they just don't work out the way I think they will...or the way I think they should.

Friday, I stopped by Cactus Flower on the island.  I checked out the after-Christmas sale items...didn't find anything I just had to have, so I moved on into the kitchen gadget section...I swear it just sucks me in!  I found several things that caught my attention - one I had been looking for relentlessly - so that was cool.  I was hoping to find a silicone whisk but I didn't find that there.

The first little gadget I was happy to find was a simple wooden toast grabber.  I previously wrote about finding some long silicone tongs at Cactus Flower that worked okay - but I really wanted the little wooden tongs that I could leave perched up on my toaster - easily available.  My newish toaster doesn't seem to spring the toast up high enough...nor the bagels...so I have looked at Wal-mart, a couple of Targets, Kohl's, and even Central Market and World Market in Austin.  Hadn't been able to find the little wooden/bamboo toast tongs I remember seeing everywhere years ago.  Don't want to stick my metal tongs down in the toaster...that seems dangerous! 



See - you have to reach down in to get the toast...
sucks if you don't have tongs!

But, Ta Da...there they were on the wall at Cactus Flower, ready for me to grab them :-)  Yay - used them to grab my toast Saturday morning - I'm so happy.  It's the little things that make me smile!  $1.95 - happy days.

Toast Tongs - make life easier!



My next find was a clip-on spoon rest...you clip it on the side of your pan...and it keeps your spoon from dripping everywhere and you don't have to clean up a spoon rest or your counter...or so it said.  Would it work?  I bought it - $7.95 - stainless steel and silicone - an okay price for a gadget. 

And, it does work I found! 

Didn't work for my larger metal tongs...still needed my stand-up spoon rest (which does work great for tongs).  The spoon balances nicely on the side of the pan - doesn't slide down and splash crud all over the cook top. 

I can actually clip it to the edge of my stand-up spoon rest for storage. 

 I give it 2 thumbs up.  I noticed Rachael Ray's new spoons which clip onto the edge of the pan are in the $10+ each range...so my $7.95 spoon rest clip is "a good buy" in my opinion.  I can use the spoons I have and buy one clip and I'm set...of course, I'll need more clips if I'm using multiple pans...I better get over there and buy a couple more!

I bought one more gadget...but haven't used it yet...so more to come in a day or two!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!