(Some of the) Best of 2010

Going out on a limb, here are a few of our Bests of 2010: Best chewing gum--bar none--Orbit Mist from Wrigley. This gum really does last and comes in enough varieties of mint or fruit to keep any avid gum chewer satisfied.  Best product--there really are a  few in this category but the electric Smart Kettle  from Chef's Choice is still going strong and lives up to is promises. We also want to mention Cuisinart's Smart Power Blender, which has un-complicated the art of blending and looks smart, too. For noteworthy foods we have to list Jovial Foods Einkorn Pasta, Morningstar Farm's Riblets and Lasagna, and  Gardein meatless entrees as well as Smart Life's Vegan Hot Dogs and Sausages (vegan) , Amy's Breakfast Burritos, Quorn meatless entrees (vegetarian). Where would we be without Tabasco Sauce to give zest to meals or Rice Select's varieties of couscous and grains or the lovely teas from The Republic of Tea--all make cooking and enjoying a bit more pleasurable.

More (Smart) Power to you

Cuisinart’s SmartPower Deluxe 600-Watt Blender is sleek, powerful and up to any food chopping, crushing or grating challenge that will help bring out the Master Chef in you.


With just five buttons you can blend ingredients for a Creamy Dill Salad dressing, puree the cinnamon, cream and pumpkin for Pumpkin Bread pudding, or mix eggs basil, peppers and carrots for Frittata Primavera. The ice crush setting enables you to prepare fabulous drinks like Fresh Fruit Smoothies, Frozen Rum Punch or Frozen Mudslide or Café au Lait “Shake.” Recipes for these and more tasty beverages and dishes are included in the manual. Using just five buttons and two speeds—low or high—you can blend, chop, crush, or liquefy until you run out of ideas or ingredients.

The sturdy stainless steel housing has all the features – and all the blending power – serious cooks need. The patented stainless steel blade, large borosilicate glass jar, and Pulse at High or Low speeds will help you conquer te kitchen like a pro.

Cuisinart—the Art of Cuisine

http://www.cuisinart.com/products/blenders/spb-600.html

Be Your Own Master Sous Chef

Some home cooks seem to have a love/hate relationship with their food processors. Or they ignore them completely, relegating them to culinary oblivion in the basement. The issues include the clean up and too many attachments, the size, the weight….So, clearly, for a food processor to be a part of your cooking life, it has to be versatile enough to have a   permanent  place on the kitchen counter.

This may be a solution. Cuisinart’s  Elite 14-Cup Die Cast Metal Food Processor. The new unit comes with three different-sized nesting work bowls so you can prepare several recipes at once, with no need to cleans the bowls in between tasks. The Elite comes with three bowls--a 14-cup, 11-cup and a 4-½ cup, all with pour spouts and maximum liquid fill lines.

A few readers had mentioned that they didn’t like the leaking that can occur with some food processors. The Elite features the exclusive BladeLock System that ensures the blades will stay locked in place to prevent leaking from the bottom of the bowl when the food processor is in use, and that the blade will stay in place when the ingredients are poured out of the bowl and tThe SealTight™ technology maximizes each bowl’s processing capacity while doing away with drips and leaks. There is also an easy on/off locking system integrated into the lid, with push-button release for the ultimate in ease of use and safety. 

There is a stainless steel adjustable slicing disc (1 – 6 mm) that goes from extra thin to ultra thick, and a stainless steel reversible shredding disc (fine/medium), both of which can be used with either the large or medium work bowls. And there are also  three stainless steel blades: a small and a large chopping/mixing blade, and a dough blade.

With a 1,000-watt peak power motor, this is one powerful food processor. And the tapered work bowl design and rounded square base with a die cast metal housing will look very nice, indeed, on your work counter. You won't want to haul it off to the cellar or back closet. This is a serious food processor that not only may make you feel like you could face any judge on Chopped, it is a small appliance that will earn a place as part of your every day food preparation.

www.cuisinart.com

Perfect Rice and Much More

.  Cooks in many countries depend on rice cookers to reliably cook this staple. But, you say, you don’t need an appliance that cooks rice? Even if you are a cook whose rice always, without fail, never comes out gummy, too hard, too sticky no matter if it is brown, white or wild, keep reading. How about one that cooks not just rice but a host of other dishes?  The new generation of rice cookers, which use new technology, are more than just  rice cookers. Cuisinart’s  Rice Plus Multi-Cooker with Fuzzy Logic Technology allows you to cook not just rice like a chef on a food network. It also enables you to artfully prepare Quinoa, Millet, Bulgur Wheat, Couscous, Amaranth and Kasha. And not just rice—white rice, brown rice, sushi rice, Black Rice, Wehani, Wild Rice. These are all grains or other foods that will bring inexpensive and nutritious variety into your menus. Quinoa? An amazing grain-like crop in the goosefoot family that is steeped in complete proteins –12 to 18%-- and is native to the Andes. You might try cooking it—there are directions for cooking this and a host of other foods.

And there is no longer any need to fear the Risotto. There is a special setting for Risotto. Remember in the film Big Night and the angst about making the perfect Risotto? Risotto doesn’t stay in a holding pattern very gracefully. It is best served immediately and an appliance like this makes the planning easier. You can figure the cooking time down to the minute so your creations are ready when you and the rest of the diners are. One rice well-suited to Risotto is Arborio [  http://www.usarice.com   Arborio rice is a large, bold rice with a characteristic white dot at the center of the grain. By the way of length/width ratio and starch characteristics, it is classified as a medium grain rice. ..This rice develops a creamy texture around a chewy center and has exceptional ability to absorb flavors.]

You can also steam vegetables with the steaming insert. You can slow-cook sauces, soups, chili or stews, or you can quick-cook dishes such as Basmati Rice with Indian Spices. The Quick-Cook feature allows you to sauté ingredients in preparation for the final cooking method. Make the Irish Steel-Cut Oatmeal you never had the nerve to try for breakfast before. 

The Keep Warm feature does just that, keeps the foods you’ve made in the cooker at just the right temperature.

Cuisinart’s  Rice Plus Multi-Cooker  is  light weight, very easy to handle and simple to operate and clean. You’ll have fun trying the different recipes you will be able to easily make using Couscous, Kasha, Amaranth, Millet, etc., and oh, yes—Rice.

http://www.cuisinart.com/

        Here is a little more information about rice from  http://www.rice-trade.com/world-wide-rice-production.html  Rice is the second largest produced cereal in the world. At the beginning of the 1990s, annual production was around 350 million tons and by the end of the century it had reached 410 million tons.

Production is geographically concentrated in Western and Eastern Asia. Asia is the biggest rice producer, accounting for 90% of the world's production and consumption of rice. China and India, which account for more than one-third of global population supply over half of the world's rice. Brazil is the most important non-Asian producer, followed by the United States. Italy ranks first in Europe.

The world's major rice-producing countries - including the two most populous nations, China and India - have emphasized the importance of continuing to develop new rice varieties to guarantee Asia's food security and support the region's economic development.

Today, rice is grown and harvested on every continent except Antarctica, where conditions make its growth impossible. The majority of all rice produced comes from India, China, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, and Bangladesh. Asian farmers still account for 92-percent of the world's total rice production. More than 550 million tons of rice is produced annually around the globe. In the United States, farmers have been successfully harvesting rice for more than 300 years. There are thousands of strains of rice today, including those grown in the wild and those which are cultivated as a crop.”

More, I am sure, than you ever need to know about rice. Want to know more about Amaranth? You’re on your own.