Wow! Lucky you! All of these gifts are quite handy. Here's what I use the
"gadgets" for---hope the information is useful.
Bethann
Crock Pot
I use my crock pot at least once a week because both my husband and I work
long hours. You can put the food in the crock pot in the morning, turn on
the pot, and when you get home in the evening you have dinner ready to go
on the table. I make main dishes, soups, and stews in the crock pot. I also
use my crock pot in the winter to make mulled cider or other hot drinks
when we have dinner parties or need to take something warm to drink to a
pot luck (just take the crock pot to the pot luck and plug it in
there---the drink will stay warm all evening). I believe that there are
many crock pot recipes in the FF archives. I have a lot of recipes that I
could send you, but not all of them are vegetarian or fat free (most of
them are low fat, though). There are lots of crock pot cookbooks available.
Check your local library---I think you'll be surprised at how versatile the
crock pot can be.
Hand-Held Blender
I don't have one of these, but my parents have one and they use it almost
daily to make yogurt and fruit smoothies, to mix up batches of batter
(pancakes, etc.), and to cream vegetable soups. I use my full-sized blender
and food processor to do these things, but I'm seriously considering buying
a hand-held blender to use when I'm making small batches of food or
individual drinks. The hand-held blender is much easier to clean than a
full-sized blender.
Food Processor
I have a Cuisinart and use it to slice or grate large batches of veggies,
make bread dough, and to cream large batches of vegetable soup. I don't
know the size of your processor, but you can chop herbs in the small
processors. There are lots of things to use a food processor for. There was
probably a recipe book included with the processor. Take a look at it and
you'll get lots of ideas about how to use the food processor. Again, check
your library for cookbooks.
Toaster Oven
Soooo nice! If you are cooking for 1-4 people, the toaster oven is great
because you don't need to heat up your large oven to bake small batches of
food (toaster ovens save energy and in the summer they keep your house
cooler). You can bake and broil in the toaster oven and we also use ours to
make toast in the mornings. My grandmother used to make muffins, small
cakes, and cobblers in her toaster oven.
Electric Skillet
We use ours to make pancakes. Also, if you're making a really large batch
of something you usually prepare in a stovetop skillet, the electric
skillet holds more food. We don't use our electric skillet very often, but
it's nice to have when we have a lot of people staying for the holidays or
other special occasions because we can make 5 pancakes at a time instead of
2 or 3. Sounds trivial, but hungry people get restless pretty fast... :-)
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 12:38:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Otto <otto@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Wedding Gifts
Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.4.10.9907181221190.15281-100000@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Someone once told me that the best way to get stuff is to get married. It
turned out to be right. Now I have some kitchen items that I have NO IDEA
what to do with. My neat-freak husband is now having a fit because I
havn't used these items yet (in the three weeks since), and I was hoping
that I could get some suggestions/recipes.
The gagetry includes:
Crock Pot
Hand Held Blender
Food Processor
Toaster Oven
Also, what is the point to an electric skillet? My cousin seemed to think
that I needed one...
Thank you all in advace for any comments or suggestions.
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Bethann D. Merriam Senior Technical Editor
(408) 371-8834 Cisco Systems, Inc.
Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both
useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth
of time by employing it well.
---Louisa May Alcott
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