Multi-Tasking Equipment

[snowangel]

Parchment paper. It makes for easier painting. As I painted trim today, none if it was so tight against the wall that I couldn't slide strips behind the trim, and much easier to remove than tape.

[Toliver]

While cooking dinner during my Christmas vacation, I discovered that the pastry cutter can make quick work of finely chopping that skillet full of ground beef or ground pork (or whatever) while it's browning.

Alton Brown would be happy to hear that.

[tamiam]

I use my olive pitter to pit cherries. Or is it my cherry pitter to pit olives?

[KitchenQueen]

Sheesh - where are all our innovative and imaginative cooks? There must be loads of things we use to do things other than intended.

How's this for multi tasking

A stir crazy popcorn maker with a ring form pan topped with a turbo convection oven. The unit with the mesh basket is a fan used in blue prints

This is my home coffee roaster and cooling station.

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You are truly nuts or a genius! Now I've seen it all.

[KitchenQueen]

Okay,

Hanging around you people is officially making me crazy.

After reading this thread, I'm thinking.......

Lots of bread baking around here requires frequently opening the oven door and spraying in water.

I have one of those little high pressure steam cleaning thingies.

Hmm?

[sparrowgrass]

I used to walk the fields in Indiana looking for Indian artifacts. On my windowsill right now sits a worked piece of flint that exactly fits my hand. Hundreds of years ago, some woman probably used it to break marrowbones or crack hickory nuts.

I use it to smash garlic cloves, and I think of her every time I do.

[KLwood]

I felt obligated to revive this one since Ive stared 1) using a hemostat to hold silverskin while peeling it off ribs etc.. 2) using the Pasta Rake as a backscratcher and 3) using the french coffee press for rehydrating mushrooms...

Some of My notable multi taskers include :

On more than one occasion, Ive 'Reverse Multitasked' my Microplanes as wood rasps but in both cases it stayed in the kitchen : once to gouge out the kitchen shear slot on the Knife block to allow for a new pair, and once to fix a boo boo on a wooden spoon...

I found that the Textured side of my meat tenderizing mallet to be un equaled for bruising Lemongrass, fresh Bay leaves and Kaffir lime leaves.

I have a nice sharp grapefruit spoon that has never seen a grapefruit but works like a champ for scraping the gills from Portabella mushrooms..

A Kevlar ( ? ) glove gets plenty of work as: a replacement for the awkward handguard that came with my Mandoline , a hand protector when opening oysters, and great way to hold onto slippery whole fish ..

Another Alton Brown esque trick Ive done on several occasions is to take a disposable chopstick and secure it in the chuck of a cordless drill and then wind up 20 or so feet of kitchen twine

from my Mega Spool for friends and relatives who cant seem to locate any on their own..

I wonder if that could count as a Christmas gift ?

And Im sure Im not the only one out there to have transformed an unused Moarter and pestle into a salt holder....

[Anna N]

. . .

And Im sure Im not the only one out there to have transformed an unused Moarter and pestle  into a salt holder....

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Well now that is a great idea - I have a mortar that is too small to be useful but would certainly make a great salt holder - so thanks for this one!

[baroness]

Even though I am allergic to melons, I keep several melon ballers on hand to:

shape rum balls and truffles

portion dough for party-size cookies

scoop out mangoes, avocados, tomatoes

Edited June 18, 2007 by baroness (log)

[andiesenji]

Even though I am allergic to melons, I keep several melon ballers on hand to:

shape rum balls and truffles

portion dough for party-size cookies

scoop out mangoes, avocados, tomatoes

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And, nothing is better for hulling the larger strawberries - it removes the central "pithy" bit along with the stem and leaves.

Not to mention the stem and blossom end of apples, pears, making it easier and neater to insert the core cutter.

I have an extra-small one I use for making butter balls for fancy brunches - people are always so impressed by this.

[Anna N]

I'm betting I'm not the first person to do this but I'd like to think I am.

I wanted to core some cucumbers and then stuff them with tasty fillings and slice for plating. I spotted a box of cannoli forms in my closet and they proved the perfect tool!

I came by them when Kerry Beal and I were checking out one of the many charity stores we frequent and when she handed them to me I came close to saying no. When would I ever need cannoli forms? But then I succumbed thinking that for 99c even if I didn't need them, someone, somewhere would. So they ended up in my basket and lo and behold they served this new purpose very well!

[andiesenji]

I'll have to dig out the cucumber corer I found at one of the kitchen stores in Solvang.

I think the Danish must love kitchen gadgets because the stores in Solvang carry many that I have never seen anywhere else.

I never thought of using a cannoli form, that is such a neat idea. You are brilliant!

I use a large larding needle to core the little pears, crabapples, and other fruits I candy whole -

I don't core them completely, just up from the bottom until I can get the seeds out (or most of them). Sometimes after they have been processed and are transparent, I sometimes have to use it to get at some residual seeds. It's not critical, but they look nicer without the pips.

Edited November 2, 2007 by andiesenji (log)

[paulraphael]

The first thing i ever baked all by myself was a pound cake, while my girlfriend was out of town. I got halfway through mixing all the ingredients when I rememebered we'd lent our electric mixer to a friend. All I could find was one of those hand-cranked egg beaters. The batter was too thick to churn with that relic.

Necessity being the mother of invention (or mother of something), I found inspiration in a hacksaw and an electric drill. I cut the handle off of the egg beater's crank, and inserted the remaining stub into the chuck of the drill. Voila: a two-handed, half-horsepower, Rube Goldberg-style electric mixer.

It whined and bucked and splattered and tried to wrestle itself out of my hands. But I held on. By the time the batter was smooth, the room smelled like smoke, and the little plastic gears of the egg beater were ground down to nothing.

The cake turned out ok! Would have been great, but the plastic gear shards didn't do much for the texture.

[Anna N]

I have always struggled to get the "essence" of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce into a dish without having the seeds in there too. I tried pushing them through a sieve, picking out the damn seeds one by one and even blitzing them in the FP but none of these things really worked. However, shoving them into the garlic press does the job in no time - lots of pulp, no seeds!

[Kerry Beal]

I use my garlic press for candied stem ginger. Makes it just the right size and texture to put in chocolates centers etc.

[mtigges]

I use a knife to pry stuff open.

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BAD!

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Don't worry he uses an electric knife sharpener, it doesn't really matter.

Sorry FG, I really couldn't resist.

[cbread]

I use the top from a big old Reverware fry pan and a glass bowl for raising bread dough. I couldn't understand why I was instructed to cover the top of a bowl with a cloth. Cloth just seemed kinda clunky and the metal top will keep moisture in better. It's easier to peek to check for how well risen using the top.

When I want to keep the humidity really high in the dough, I spray the top and insides of the bowl with a hardware store hand sprayer filled with water that I keep on the counter.

I use one of my bench knives as a cabinet scraper to keep my butcher block counter in good shape. I use a cutlery steel to raise a burr to make the scraper action efficient.

[john-k]

A French press coffee maker works beautifully to keep dried mushrooms submerged while rehydrating them.

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There's actually a restaurant in Chicago, 'Green Zebra', that makes mushroom broth at your table this way.