Rants & Raves -

by BS

How to Cut an Avocado

As you know, we here at Endless Simmer like to put avocado on everything.

I don’t know if everyone has this problem, but I’ve always been unsure about the best way to cut up an avocado. Some people like to cut it in half and slice up semi-circular pieces to place in salads or sandwiches. I find this method creates less-than-ideal pieces; there’s just something textural I don’t like about those long, thin slices of avo. Spoon it out works for guac, but not when you want whole pieces of green.

So I was pretty stoked when I recently spied a friend in a kitchen cutting an avocado up just like I cut mangos. Cut it half, slice crisscross patters into each half, and then just pop ’em out.

Apologies if this is not as revelatory for everyone else, but lately it has changed my life. It’s so much easier and quicker than other ways, and it results in perfect bite-sized pieces, ideal either for tossing in a salad or for mashing up into guacamole or another avocado dip.

by ML

Some Beers are Worth the Wait

Normally when I’m thinking about booze, filling cups and consuming it as fast as humanly possible seems about right to me.

So when I heard about the Bottoms Up system — a beer dispenser that fills beers up from the BOTTOM, and takes only seconds — I figured it was worth a shot, if I ever encountered it. No beer line? No wait? Sounds good to me.

As it turns out, at the Phillies game a few weeks ago, the bottoms up Bud Light stand was the closest one to my section. Let it be known I never drink Bud Light by choice, but…sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. So…Bottoms Up: God’s gift to sports fans? Not quite…

in Drinks / Personal / Rants & Raves / Trends 5 comments

by Miss K

Sparkling Everything….Even Juicy Juice

A few weeks ago, my parents came to stay with our son, and my husband and I headed off to a lovely bed and breakfast in Virginia, because sometimes, when you have small children, that’s what you’ve got to do. As expected, it was awesome, particularly the breakfast portion of the whole bed-and-breakfast gimmick. On Saturday, we were also given a picnic lunch which we enjoyed from the comfort of our king-sized bed. Included with the lunch were two cans of…wait for it…sparkling Juicy Juice. Yes, that’s right. Sparkling juice beverages have now officially hit the mainstream. One of them even came in a blue can.

Some might turn their noses up at such a commercial hijacking of a formerly high-brow concept, but not me. As a child of parents who missed the hippie movement by ten years but refused to let that stop them, I grew up drinking R.W. Knudsen’s Spritzers. I am particularly partial to peach. Since then, I have sampled any sparkling juice I can get my hands on. If Juicy Juice wants to jump on that train, I say welcome aboard.

in Drinks / Rants & Raves / Trends 2 comments

by BS

Plate It or Hate It

Recent food world discoveries the ES crew is loving and hating…

Plate It: Peanut Butter & Jelly M&Ms

Why in the world aren’t these limited-edition babies sold year-round? BUT we have discovered they are available online.

Hate It: Mad Men Cocktails/Tasting Menus

Already more tired than getting “Zou Bisou Bisou” stuck in your head. Sure, everyone loves Don Draper, but we don’t actually want to adopt his diet.

in Bacon / Desserts / Endless Bacon / Food Travel / Rants & Raves / Trends / TV 5 comments

by Russell Warnick

Blendtec: A 99% Rationale

I love gadgets and my kitchen is full of them: mini-food processor, mini-crockpot, Cuisinart, Kitchen Aid, deep fat fryer, slow cooker… You get the picture, but one item I’ve always lacked was a blender…until recently. I splurged and went with a Blendtec Total Blender, $400 worth of blending goodness. Yes, $400. I get that this is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a blender when there are tons of cheaper blenders out there, and I’m sure something as simple as a Magic Bullet would suffice for smoothies.

Here’s my justification. I’ve been on a smoothie kick of late but the only place I can find one close to my office is at Whole Foods. They charge $7.50 a drink which I think is a little absurd for some blended frozen fruit and ice. A couple of bags of frozen fruit — enough for five smoothies — is $12, plus a carton of coconut water is $3.95. Instead of spending $37.50 on smoothies a week I’m now spending $15. A weekly saving of $21.50. In 19 weeks I’m going to be even. In 20 weeks that $400 Blendtec will start saving me money.

The BF thinks my rational is ridiculous. He thinks the idea of spending $7.50 on a smoothie to begin with is too much. I’m sure he’s not alone in thinking that. But he’s wrong. In addition to saving money, it’s pretty to look at and I will make many other things in the blender, not just smoothies — margaritas for instance.

Who’s right? Leave your thoughts in the comments, and enjoy a recipe for my smoothie du jour.

in Drinks / Personal / Photos / Rants & Raves / Recipe 8 comments

by Miss K

Somebody Fetch Me a Unitasker!

Here at ES, we love to hate on unitaskers, or at least make fun of them whenever possible. And with good reason. I mean, if you haven’t yet learned to crack an egg, no ridiculous kitchen gadget is going to save you. Also, my kitchen drawers are filled to maximum capacity, so if it it comes down to a choice between a bottle opener or a lettuce knife, the booze wins every time.

There are times, though, when a unitasker is certainly called for. If I had a cherry tree, I would definitely acquire a cherry pitter, although perhaps not one that costs $50. Same with an apple tree and those amazing peeler/corer/slicer things. And actually, those do more than one thing, even if it is to a single piece of fruit, so I guess it’s not a unitasker after all.

And there is a certain gray area when it comes to unitasker ownership. What if, for example, you are really bad at cutting pineapple? Every time you cut one up, you get the distinct feeling that this can’t possibly be the best way, as you seem to have wasted about a third of the fruit. But no one has been able to show you a better way, except your brother-in-law, and that is because he owns on of these. Yes, a pineapple cutter. A perfect pineapple cutter. It’s brilliant.

So, is it worth owning something that you only use three times a year, if it does exactly what you need it to do? This, my friends, is a question that I have yet to answer satisfactorily. I can promise you this, though. I will never, ever, own a corncob cutter.

in Rants & Raves 4 comments

by Miss K

Eight Sugars in My Coffee, Please

One of the small pleasures of being a stay-at-home mom is that I rarely have to use a travel coffee cup. Sure, I may have to reheat my coffee three times before I make it to the bottom of the mug, and I have a tendency to set my coffee down randomly only to stumble upon it days later, but at least I avoid that perilous first sip from the tiny hole when you just know you are about to burn your lip.

My husband, of course, is not so fortunate, so when I received a sample KeepCup — “the first barista standard reusable cup” — I passed it on over to him for a trial run. His overall assessment was that it wasn’t too bad, although the color scheme made him feel like he was drinking from a sippy cup.

In both of our opinions, however, the greatest thing about the KeepCup is the rubber band/bracelet thingy that came with it. Actually, it came with two of them, in case you and your S.O. don’t like the same kind of coffee, but are too cheap to buy separate cups.

I think the idea of this rubber band is that you take the world’s finest tipped Sharpie, and darken in your coffee preference. Then, you just hand the cup to the cashier and avoid that annoying moment of social interaction wherein you actually tell the barista what you would like to order.

I do have a few questions about this band, though.

1. What the heck is doppio? Is it the marijuana brownie of coffee?

2. What is flat white supposed to mean? It sounds insulting.

in Drinks / Rants & Raves 10 comments

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