So I sent a link to the boss. Let’s see what she says. :)
You guys got me to buy one.
My wife and kid go through A LOT of ice cream. At CAD$6+ per container, it adds up quickly. So I grabbed a Creami at Costco this week. My bride has already made strawberry sorbet and chocolate ice cream (with 2% instead of cream). Truly, the end product is just as good as store-bought ice cream.
The thing just takes up quite a bit of counter space. The SodaStream has been relegated to the cupboard…
I would think if you ever want to add sweetness, agave syrup might be a good fit. It wouldn’t take very much of it at all to move the sweetness needle, which I think would be key since you don’t want to alter consistency very much.
They have an oat milk and agave ice cream recipe in the book that one of the videos posted reviewed. There are definitely options to make less unhealthy recipes. I remain unconvinced anything produced by this is actually going to be part of a healthy diet (and thus it’s harder to rationalize a purchase when I’m constantly spending effort to maintain my weight), but I’m interested to hear how people experiment with it - I may be swayed!
To change the subject, I just discovered, after 30+ years of cooking, how much better nice plates are. I have always used Corelle plates, the kind you can get at Target for $30 for a full set. Don’t get me wrong, those plates are great, they will take a beating, go in the dishwasher for 1,000 cycles, and still look practically new. But then I got some heavy plates. The kind you can warm up before you eat and then they are still warm 20 minutes later. There is something about picking up a thick, heavy plate that just makes it more enjoyable too. They feel like high quality plates, and that makes me happy. Of course, outside of the heat retention, it’s all in my head, but that’s all that matters.
Now, I think I should invest in some nice everyday silverware as well. I use Amazon Basic stuff now, which is still a step up from what I was using. Any suggestions?
We have parallel interests. I like Corelle because they’re American made and glass can get close to 100% sanitized (and they’re some kind of strange Glassonium and i’ve never broken one). But i also hate how they get cold mere minutes after plating up. I generally just microwave them before serving. Which ‘heavy’ plates did you pick?
I used to buy Villeroy and Boch for the family but it seems like the days of the china cabinet are over and nobody under the age of 50 has one.
My favorite plates are from a pottery place called East Fork, but they are extremely expensive ($50 a plate), so I only bought a couple. I bought some Made In “entree bowls” as well, which are a cross between a plate and bowl that I have found incredibly handy, but they do not fit in the dishwasher as easily.
Funny. My wife and I got a ton of plates from a restaurant supply chain that are heavy in the way you describe (square porcelain white plates.) While they are occasionally nice, they feel super impractical for day to day use. They were also more bulky so took up more space in the dish washer (it was like having double slot GPUs!) We swapped over to thinner plates for day to day and really appreciate how much more simple they are to use and take care of.
These things are heavy
We still have nice plates (and a set of china, but dishwasher safe china that can’t go in the microwave) that we bust out for holidays, etc. But we found it was just too much trouble to deal with super heavy stuff.
Yeah, that’s actually what I’ve used thus far instead of adding in sugar.
The sorbet’s are reasonably healthy, in that they’re maybe 150 calories for a whole pint of it, which is probably more than you’d want to eat in a sitting.
The ice cream stuff can be made reasonably healthy compared to a lot of ice cream, in that you can reduce the fat content. There’s certainly an impact on the texture of the final product when you cut the fat and sugar content down, as those things tend to make ice cream more creamy, but from my initial experiment, even using just 2% milk still made a pretty good ice cream, albeit a bit more “icy” than the ideal consistency.
As a single guy some 8 years ago I figured I needed to up my kitchenware game a bit. I went from cheap mixed set plates and silverware to at least nice stoneware and a semi-decent silverware set.
Like you I went to some local places and was blown away at how much a full set of stoneware costs, not to mention I felt I would likely break something and then be forever unable to find the set again. Sooo, I ended up only taking one step up from Corelle but went with a nicer set from Pfaltzgraff. And I’m happy I went in that direction. I stayed away from local pottery places and the like and in my case, I’ve had no issues with replacements for broken items I’ve had, twice.
The same with silverware, I wanted to step up from el-cheapo, but didn’t go that far up the chain and stayed with stainless steel and Oneida (or Reed and Barton, same company now I believe.) You can get as fancy as you want there and still not break the bank too badly. And once you know which set you have, replacements or additions are extremely easy.
The only problem with anything I did is it happened pre-marriage, and of course my wife hates everything I got. So … here’s to the next round.
I’m still using the chipped and well-used cheap porcelain plates and bowls that my ex and I bought from Costco when we were first married more than 20 years ago. They’re entirely functional and when I entertain it’s usually outside on paper plates, so no need to upgrade. I expect they’ll last me until death.
My wife and I went the opposite direction to everyone in this thread. When married we were gifted with a very nice and extensive set of stoneware. For the first eight years of marriage or so we used those but got tired of the weight/bulk. So we acquired cheap Corelle stuff from Target about a decade ago and still use it to this day. It turns out light and sturdy are our favorite qualities for daily use.
My father in his old age went completely to eating over the sink, off the cutting board, out of the pan, or from paper towels/plates. His rationale was why dirty up dishes just for him? I am the opposite, the older I get the more I want to improve the eating experience. For years I ate from the couch in front of the TV or a computer. A few years back I bought a dining room table and now I sit down at the table for meals (still with a computer on the table though).
We’ve been creeping in this direction except with paper plates. The nicer kind you can even rinse and dry off since they have a coating. This means that, especially during COVID, I would frequently use the same paper plate multiple times and seriously cut down on dishes. Or even if not, I would hand wash the things that I used and reuse them later in the day.
When my wife and I got married, we needed lots of stuff including silverware and so we went to lots of warehouse sales trying to pick up stuff fort he household at a discount. Mikasa had an annual warehouse sale then and we grabbed a specific set because everybody else was grabbing it. One of the best purchases. Everything is solidly made, with a nice heft to them without being heavy. We liked it so much we went to the warehouse sale the next year and grabbed another set.
Forks. We always need more forks.
Paper plates are fine, so long as they’re coated so they don’t immediately disintegrate.
Plastic utensils, on the other hand, are abominations. The only acceptable disposable eating utensils are chopsticks where the cheap bamboo Chinese takeout ones are actually better because they don’t slip.
The man speaks sooth.
Please try your Nice Chinese Food With Chopsticks
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