Going Green

By Jim Bona

(Hamilton, NY – April 2013jim_0071) When Elvia and I were visiting our daughter in Florida for Christmas, I was puttering around in the kitchen.  I was having a terrible time trying to open a can with the can opener that I found in the drawer.  When I mentioned that the can opener was broken, my daughter said: “that’s funny…..I use it all the time and it works fine” as she gestured to the electric one hidden on the counter top.  Duh.  That is one kitchen appliance that I don’t have in our home.

We don’t have many kitchen appliances, except a toaster and microwave. We have a blender too, but hardly use it.  Don’t have a Cuisinart or other similar device, but I did find a manual chopper/shredder/blender hidden away in the basement a while back.  It has three very sharp blades that rotate around a center post inside a quart sized bowl, and uses human crank power….aka: your arm. It was one of those Christmas presents that you get and think that you will never find any use for. (Except maybe a lucky “re-gift”).

Just for the fun of it, I took it out and thought that I might give it a fair chance to convince me of it’s worth.  First and foremost, it is manual, so not needing any electricity is always good in my book.  You have seen this advertised on TV…..you couldn’t miss it.  You know the one: it slices, dices, chops, shreds, mixes, etc, etc etc.  The hype is pretty bad.

I was shocked when I found out it works GREAT!  When I make a soup or beans, one onion and three or four stalks of celery take about 20 seconds of cranking the handle and the veggies are fine diced.  (I am trying to get away from using cans now, so all soups and beans are cooked from scratch.  There are chemicals in the cans to stop the insides from corroding the metal of the can, which is not good for you).

I like to make my own hummus. Thirty seconds of effort gets the garbanzo beans down to a perfect puree.  Adding the tahini, lemon and spices takes a few more spins, and it comes out better than what you can get in the store and a heck of a lot cheaper too.  You get to control your ingredients, so you can contour your recipes to your own taste, rather than having to suffer through what comes already made.

Clean up isn’t that bad, although you have to be careful of the three blades that are super sharp.  (Don’t ask how I found that out). For such a “retro” appliance, it is actually pretty cool.  Maybe you might find one under your Christmas tree this year (or Easter basket?) It took me a few years to try it out and come to appreciate how effective this device is, but it is one of my favorites now.

Jim Bona is a technician at Colgate and passionate about all things green. He can be reached at jbona@mail.colgate.edu.

 

 

By martha

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