I recently acquired two new kitchen appliances. And they were both free, but for different reasons.
First is the yogurt maker. It was a present from my sister. It is really idiot proof. You buy a quart of milk -cow, goat, or soy- add some starter or plain yogurt directly to the carton, mix well, stick it in the holder and plug it in. 8-10 hours later you have yogurt. You can add flavoring or sweetener and you can make it thicker by adding powdered milk or pectin. That's it. I admit, I miss having little glass containers but I love the small footprint.
It's called the Miracle Yogurt Maker.
The second appliance is a crock pot. I got it through Freecycle.com. That's a yahoo group that allows you to offer or ask for free stuff. It's true, it's not very attractive and it needs a good scrubbing and it is an older model that doesn't have a removable insert but it was FREE. Can't beat that with a stick.
6 comments:
Love LOVE LOVE my Rival Crockpot. I have the large programmable model that was on clearance at BBB as an out of the box special. I almost sold it at a garage sale, but thankfully, it didn't go and my current cookbook has excellent crock recipes.
I also love my rice cooker, which was about $10 at a local Asian market. You put in twice as much water as rice, and when it turns off, the rice is done. It's always fluffy and perfect.
I had a rice cooker but I never used it so I gave it away. But I've been wanting a crock pot. Not only can you cook food, you can also make soap.
Soap?!
We have that exact, same, ugly, old, crockpot! We also got ours free, for signing up for a checking account when we still lived in Buffalo, so sometime around 1991. Crock-pot stew is a nice winter staple!
I'm with H... Soap!? Do tell!
So there are 2 ways to make soap from scratch. The first and more usual way is called cold process. You heat the ingredients, mix them together and then they sit, for 4-6 weeks until the oils saponify. Or you can do hot process. Here everything is heated, mixed and then kept at a warm temperature for a while. A crock pot is ideal for that. The oils will saponify in only hours rather than weeks. There is debate about whether this process makes as nice a soap as cold process. I will have to experiment.
I, too, adore my crockpot. It's also a Rival, I believe. I made a lovely minestrone in it just the other day. I also have just picked up a book on soapmaking. I haven't touched it yet, being somewhat nervous about developing a new addiction, but I just made a new friend who makes soap so it's probably inevitable...sigh.
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