Kitchen Tools and Electronics

What types of cookware are worthy of a place in the kitchen?

In the beginning, Kitchen God made the silicone baking mat. The flexible, food-safe baking sheet liner kept pastries from sticking and made cleanup a breeze. Kitchen God saw that the silicone mat was good, and decided to expand on that theme with flexible cake pans, muffin tins and Madeleine molds.

Then Kitchen God said, "Let there be silicone spatulas," and there were silicone spatulas. Kitchen God saw that these spatulas were not only good, but dishwasher safe, and went on to make silicone potholders and pastry brushes.

That was Old Testament silicone. Since then, cooks have seen an explosion of new wave silicone gadgets and cookware.

Silicone, a synthetic material that contains silicon, makes good sense in the kitchen for a lot of reasons. Among them:

• It's heat-resistant (the degree varies with products and brands, but most can withstand temperatures up to 425 degrees or higher).
• It's nonstick and nonskid. Baked goods slide right off, and trivets don't slide on the table.
• It's easy to clean.

These mixer blades scrape down the bowl

If you bake a lot, you probably wish there were a way to blend ooey-gooey ingredients like cream cheese and peanut butter without repeatedly stopping your mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

The SideSwipe blade by Frut LLC is the solution.

The blade is designed to mix heavy ingredients thoroughly and evenly while cleaning the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl with a series of silicone blades -- the company calls them fins -- that surround the blade and work like mini-spatulas.

The removable blade is available only for the tilt-head KitchenAid stand mixer, although the company says it plans to release blades for other mixers.

Gifts from the kitchen

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is when we get an unexpected ring of the doorbell, usually in the evening, and we open the door to find someone there bearing a plate of delicious homemade treats for our family. The kids all run to the dining room table to witness the unveiling, as we remove whatever lid or wrapping there may be, to discover what delights await us. There is almost always a spirited discussion as people get "dibs" on which items they want, then begging or bartering is often involved. After all, we have seven in our family, and there is rarely seven of any one thing in a cookie assortment.

The most impressive assortment we ever received was from our neighbors, Dick and Sonja. The sheer size of it was amazing enough, but add to that the variety of goodies, and the thought of how many people they must do this for, and it led you to wonder if Sonja had started baking back in August.

You don't have to limit your homemade gifts to baked goods. This year for Christmas my mother and I will make an assortment of home-cooked frozen dinners for my grandparents that they can take out and heat on those nights she'd rather not cook. We're even using recipes of my grandmother's that we know are some of my grandfather's favorites. A gift like this will bring them comfort and joy well beyond Christmas.

"Mix in a jar" recipes have become quite popular, and I like them. With everyone indulging in so many goodies this time of year, it's nice to receive a mix you can enjoy later when you start to suffer from treat withdrawal. A soup mix in a jar is a great alternative for those who are health conscious or diet restricted, or if you just want to do something different.

When you want to give a more elaborate gift, it's also nice to include food gifts in a gift basket. For example, your best homemade salsa gifted with a bag of chips, a cast iron fajita pan, and a tortilla press or warmer. Or pancake mix with homemade syrup and a citrus juicer and juice glasses for a breakfast-themed gift. You can pretty much come up with a theme with any food gift that you use as a starting point.