Your Favorite Kitchen Gadget

I need your help. Honest. Cross my heart.

The very generous people from CSN stores who had sponsored a giveaway at my blog some months back, asked me to review one of their products. Anyone who has been to their site knows what gorgeous products they have.They sell everything from Housewares, Home Decor, vanity to Furniture. Check out their site for their amazing collection.

Now I am a dummy when it comes to Kitchen gadgets. It is my plain ignorance about things that can be bought for the Kitchen, makes me not buy them. All I buy is pretty kitchen things from HomeGoods but they are not gadgets.

I want something that can be plugged, that will whir, make a mean noise and output some amazing result. Actually I don't even know what that sentence means.

To educate myself and maybe some more souls like me, I need your help.

Please tell me in your comment Or on Facebook

What is your favorite kitchen gadget ? It has to be something you own and have used. Also tell me why do you like it so much. If you can remember the brand etc., it is better.

It can be anything from the mortar-pestle, to your favorite wok, to the Kitchen Aid mixer, to the spoon that you lick all day. Ok maybe not the spoon.

Please, pretty please help me here.

Infused Olive Oil -- Basil & Sun Dried Tomato

Remember This ? The Basil in my Herb Pot.

Well every year I throw together herbs in a pot and grow them. I grow them because I love the thought of growing my own herbs. But do I do anything with them ? Ummm, ummm...gulp, gulp. Well... I use all of the coriander and the garlic chives which are very scraggy in my pot and are not much but the rest is left to flourish and grow and look green and pretty.

No one will believe me when I say this, I think it is blasphemous to even utter this, but I never really cared to use the pretty, fragrant basil or oregano(yes someone said it is oregano) the last two years. But all that changed yesterday and I started plucking basil like crazy.

This basil had a very lemony scent to it and this is NOT lemon basil. I am growing lemon basil from a friend in a separate pot but this one was supposed to be the regular basil. But it was not the lemony scent that inspired me. It was the book, "Under the Tuscan Sun" which I have just started reading. The book is so very charming that it will make you do things like that.

Once plucked I wanted to make an infused Olive Oil. The husband said that my attempt might kill everyone with "botulism".

I did not listen. I listened to Martha Stewart.

I blanched a few basil leaves,
patted them dry,
coarsely pounded them with a mortal-pestle
and then I remembered Happy Cook putting sun dried tomatoes in olive oil.

So I took a washed and dried jar. This one is the Bru Coffee jar if you are curious.

Put some Sun dried tomatoes, put the pounded basil, poured in the extra virgin olive oil and am keeping it in the refrigerator for a week.

At room temperature or more than a week is not advisable.

We will see how I use it. For now I will just spread it on slices of baguette and take a bite with my tea.

********************

By now everyone I know must have read Joel Stein's article in The Times. Maybe his intention was humor, but the piece seemed to me much more rude than funny, kind of in bad taste. It also mattered that he was not saying it to a closed audience in his living room but on a media with a far more outreach.
It is these incidents which spark a fire of hatred somewhere, puts doubt in young minds and makes them justify their action. It is such hatred that leads them towards bigger crime. My condolences to Dr. Divyendu Sinha's family who lost his life in a tragic incident last week.

I am sorry but I have not been able to reply to comments or visit and comment on your blogs. I am hoping I will be up to it in a week

Off to the Garden

"Two years ago, I was saying as I planted seeds in the garden, "I must believe in these seeds, that they fall into the earth and grow into flowers and radishes and beans." It is a miracle to me because I do not understand it. The very fact that they use glib technical phrases does not make it any less a miracle, and a miracle we all accept. Then why not accept God's miracles?"

-Dorothy Day (1897-1980), From Union Square to Rome, 1938

This has been a very difficult week for us. A tragic incident close to home shook our belief in mankind, in humanity, in mortals.

I do not know how to vent my anger, my frustration. I do not know how to reinstate my faith. I do not understand why people do not understand parenting is a serious task and if a parent does not do his/her job well, they can raise humans who destroy society.

The greens in my garden consoles me. And though this year I can take no credit for them, I look to them to believe God is still there to work out miracles.

My Dad did everything for the garden this year from planting to taking care. He planted tomatoes, zucchini, carrots and beans. The tomatoes are growing happily. Zucchini flowers are in plenty. The bunnies ate the beans. The carrots are still growing.

He also planted hot peppers and I threw together all kinds of herbs in a herb pot.

Growing Mint is easy. I did not know that. My neighbors have loads of mint plants. On their suggestion I dug one stem of mint into the soil and it flourished.

The herb pot with herbs I can't even recognize

What are those ? Any idea ?

The Hot Peppers

Zucchini, all flowers and leaves. No fruit yet.

Tomatoes