Product Review: Kool-Aid

Soda is expensive. At a dollar and 25 cents for a two liter and 3~4 dollars for a twelve pack, it can sometimes be prohibitively expensive.  I like Coke just as much as the next guy, but I'm not made of money.

Enter Kool-Aid.  At 20 cents a packet, it's reasonably priced, and it's actually fairly healthy as far as drinks that are not water are concerned.  And since you add in the sugar yourself, you can add less, or cut it with zero calorie sweetener (or just use zero calorie sweetener for it's entirety).

There are threefold issues I find with Kool-Aid. Firstly, one has to provide their own plastic or glass pitcher.  Secondly, one has to provide their own sweetener, either sugar or zero calorie.  Thirdly, it can stain skin and wooden utensils in its concentrated form.

For me, however, these are mostly non-issues.  If you don't have a pitcher, you should buy one.  They're great for juices from concentrate, home-made lemonade, Sangria and other mixed drinks one makes in large quantities, as well as kool-aid.
As for providing your own sugar, you should probably have some already.  It lasts forever, and it makes all manner of tasty things available to you. Like cake.

I'd also hope that you have something other than wooden utensils.  I love wooden utensils to death, but I also make sure to keep some plastic spoons and spatulas on hand.  There are just some applications where it makes sense to have them.

So, really, if you're looking for a way to save money around the table, skipping the soda and going with Kool-aid would be one way to get the job done.

Arbitrary product score: 8/10 (Go and get some.  It's tasty business!)

Product Review: Avanti Mini-kitchen

The equipment we cook our food on can have a large affect on the food we prepare.  Making red sauce in an iron pot will result in ruined sauce, and having a dull peeler can make doing things like peeling potatoes and making carrot sticks a pain.

So, as you can see, something like what you are actually using to cook the food, e.g. your stove, can make a huge difference, especially if you're trying to be time efficient. If you want your food done in a timely manner, then don't get the Avanti Mini-kitchen.

The Bane of my Existence

I've been using the mini-kitchen for months as my primary cooking apparatus, and it's been positively horrendous.  Water will not boil in any reasonable amount of time unless you put a lid on it, and even then you can't simmer things once you get things going.  The burners only have two temperatures: On and Off.  There is no nuance. You cannot put something on warm. They are either on, or they are off. Which is stupid, because it HAS a temperature knob already on it for the oven.  I'm not entirely certain if they were just lazy or they didn't think it was important. It doesn't matter either way, because the end result is the same: a difficult time either not burning things or having noodles and rice boiling over all the time.

These scones took
two hours to make.

If you think that maybe the oven will work like a dream, then you're going to be sorely mistaken when you try to bake something.  Everything takes longer to make in this oven.  Things that should take 20 minutes to bake, like scones or cookies, take two hours.  I made some perch the other night for dinner, and it was done two and a half hours late, just in time for bed. Pies can take four hours to make.  This is usually exacerbated by the fact that you're usually hungry when you start making the meal.

Another problem with the oven is that you can't fit a regular sized cookie sheet into it, because the oven is about an inch too small.  Everything must be done using brownie pans. It isn't a truly terrible thing, but it is awfully inconvenient.  It also makes things like frozen pizza difficult, just because of the size issue.

Lastly, they left out a mighty important feature, which would be the ability to have both the oven and the burners on at the same time. This might seem like a little thing, but if you want to make baked fish, rice, and mixed vegetables, something is going to go cold.  And be prepared to wait, because you're going to be there for a while.

Arbitrary Product Score: Two thumbs down (Just walk the other way)