Does your butter have herbs in it? Garlic? Little pieces of sausage? It could. Well, maybe you don’t really want the last one, but customizable butter doesn’t have to be far away.

The Paderno World Cuisine Fresh Butter Maker (with instructions) is a butter churn for home kitchen use. Consisting of a hand crank and a jar, the kitchen tool takes cream from liquid to butter in minutes (along with some elbow grease).

Of course, it doesn’t take one of these things to make flavored or seasoned compound butter, since there is still the matter of shaping it after the whey has been tipped off. But as long as you’re playing with butter, might as well make it fresh. Yum!

Did you know that eggs come from chickens (mostly) and not just cardboard packaging? Yeah, me neither. But apparently, those little devils are laid and then collected, eventually coming to market. And here all this time I thought they were produced in the Cadbury factory!

[Read more →]

Few things hit the spot quite like a glass of freshly-squeezed juice. Healthy and nutritious, every sip refreshes in a way that does not compare to the stuff that comes out of a carton. Yet, convenience wins, and more often than not if juice is to be had, it will be poured from a half-gallon container. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Offering the convenience of countertop accessibility, the Krups Citrus Press provides easy access to freshly-squeezed juice. Featuring a pour spout and a motorized lever, all that stands in the way of having fresh juice is a press of the lever. That and some limes, lemons, oranges or grapefruit to squeeze too, of course.

***Update 5/14/15***
Link updated. Juice on:

KRUPS ZX7000 Stainless Steel Electric Citrus Press with Manual and Automatic Settings, Silver

Fresh herbs brighten any meal. Using herbs is probably the easiest way to take your cooking to the next level. However, the simple little addition of freshly cut herbs is not as easy as it sounds. After all, if you want to use herbs, you have to buy herbs. Considering that it’s not always easy to keep fresh herbs, well… fresh, it’s no wonder that this vital ingredient often goes overlooked.

With the Prepara Power Plant Professional you can always have fresh herbs on hand. The indoor garden doesn’t require any soil; instead, seeds are bathed in a nutrient solution, eventually growing to full height with little maintenance. Good news for those of us whose thumbs have not even a tinge of green.

UPDATE 7/18/12: Links above no longer grow anywhere. But this one does:
Prepara PPL1-PP201 Power Plant Professional