Holiday Gifts: Go Green, Pick Practical

by Kate Heyhoe

This year I’ve picked gifts with either a green sheen or a very practical profile—from stocking stuffers to big family gifts, including handy tools for Thanksgiving and holiday parties. For more ideas: The Global Gourmet Store and the New Green Shopper are filled with tasty treats, great tools and green gifts. Cookbook Profiles and I Love Desserts feature sample recipes from the year’s best books. And come back for more new picks in December, including sweet treats and dessert tools (our past holiday picks may also include products that are just as perfect today, but somehow Santa skipped).

Happy holidays, part one!
Kate Heyhoe

 

Calphalon LX Series 15-piece Knife Set

Sometimes labels help. I know I’m not the first cook to pluck the wrong knife out of the block, then fish around until I got the right one. Calphalon’s LX set was made with me in mind: the bottom of the handles identify the knife, with handy but unobtrusive etchings like 8″ Chef” or 3″ Paring. But user-friendly ID’s would be meaningless if the knives didn’t perform. I’m not saying you need to break out the band-aids for this set, but cooks who appreciate sharp knives will find these babies do the job right. Use these knives with care: they’re sharp! And according to Calphalon, they hold their edge longer than stainless because they’re made of German high-steel carbon with Molybdenum and Vanadium, forged in a single piece (blade, bolster and tang). The ergonomic handles feel good, with enough weight to aid chopping but without causing fatigue. The snazzy black block holds the full set of an 8″ chef’s knife, 5″ santoku, 3.5″ parer, 8″ bread knife, 4.5″ tomato (serrated), 6″ utility knife, and a sharpening steel, shears and 6 steak knives.

Buy a Calphalon LX Series 15-piece Knife Set

 

Dual Thermometer Tests Food and Oven Temp

CDN’s Dual-Sensing Probe Thermometer/Timer (DSP1) measures both the temperature of the oven and the internal temperature of the food being cooked. My book Cooking Green (March 2009) contains oven-fuel saving tips, including cooking several items at the same time, or skipping preheating. This dual-sensing device tells you if the oven’s cranking at the proper heat, especially handy whenever you cook simultaneously, or after you’ve opened the door to take one dish out, or shut the oven off early so foods cook passively. Instant read-outs of both the internal food temperature and ambient oven temperature help you adjust your oven as needed. You can also program desired settings for both the food and the oven temperature: it chimes one sound when the oven temperature is reached, and another sound when the food is done. It also features a digital timer, and an overtime alert signals when food is left in the oven too long.

Other Features: A 39-inch high-heat resistant sensor cable. The stainless steel probe is 6-3/4 inches long. Registers from 32 to 573 degrees F (0 to 300 degrees C). USDA recommended temperatures for food safety are printed on the thermometer. Can be mounted by magnet or stand. The timer counts in minutes and seconds up to 10 hours. Once the set time has been reached, the timer counts up from zero to indicate how much additional time passes. It runs on one AAA battery (included). Visit www.cdn-timeandtemp.com for where to buy, and information on How to Recalibrate Your Thermometer, Thermometer Technology and 25 Tips for Food Safety.

Buy a CDN Dual-Sensing Probe Thermometer/Timer

Designer Porcelain-Bamboo Mortar & Pestle Set

You really connect with your ingredients when you grind or crush them by hand. A mortar and pestle is the most effective tool for releasing the oils and essences of herbs and spices, and it also comes in handy for times when you need to grind medicines for people or pets. The Kuhn Rikon Mortar & Pestle set has details that make this functional, low-tech tool even better. Besides the porcelain pestle, it features two mortars: a porcelain one that nests inside an earth-friendly bamboo mortar and stand. Designed by award-winning Swiss designer, Philipp Beyeler, the set is featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s catalog, and features added functionality in clean, crisp design, including:

• A pouring spout on the coarse porcelain bowl, handy for grinding fresh herbs and spices with wet ingredients as pastes for dressings or marinating.
• A 6×6-inch bamboo base for grinding dry spices such as peppercorns, cardamom and mustard seed, or for homemade curry blends.
• A porcelain pestle with a small hole in the handle to strip leaves off herb stems, and which stores compactly inside the porcelain bowl.

Suggested retail price $50; at specialty and online retailers including Museum of Modern Art catalog (www.momastore.org) or factorydirect2you.com.

 

2-in-1 Serving Knife Acts as Spatula

Multitasking meets kitchen tool. Kuhn Rikon’s Serving Knife slices like a serrated knife and serves like a spatula. I like to serve at table, but two tools can be awkward and messy; either the knife or the server falls into the casserole or onto the table. Not so with this handy tool; simply slice, twist the wrist, slide it under the food and serve. It’s not as complete as a Swiss Army knife, but it’s got that same Swiss logic. For instance, it features nonstick coating and an offset handle to make slicing and serving even easier, and prevents slipping back into the pan. A protective sheath keeps the knife secure for safe storage and transport, so you can take it to potlucks or tailgate parties. In Red or Metallic Silver, in two sizes: 10-inch knife at $14 msrp, and 12-inch knife at $16 msrp. At specialty and online retailers including factorydirect2you.com.

Versatile Potato Ricer Delivers Two Textures

Never mash potatoes with a food processor: they’ll get gummy. Hand mashing’s okay, but you’ll get the fluffiest results with a potato ricer, especially the Kuhn Rikon Potato Ricer. It’s a handy low-tech tool for all sorts of vegetables and even baby food. The ergonomic design eases leverage, so with a simple squeeze of the handle, light strands of potatoes extrude through the ricer. You can rice one large or two medium sized potatoes at a time, and a handy pull-out clip lets the ricer rest on the rim of a pot or bowl. It comes with two stainless steel disks: larger holes for mashed spuds, and smaller holes for making puree. (Store the extra disk in the ricer’s built-in compartment.) Go beyond the standard mash to create potato pancakes, gnocchi, lefse and spaetzle. What else can it rice or puree? Berry sauce for desserts, tomato puree, parsnips, carrots, baby food and blanched greens. Dishwasher safe, in black or white.

Buy a Kuhn Rikon Potato Ricer

 

Capresso H2O Plus Water Kettle

This electric tea kettle always makes my list of functional green appliances: It boils water with less fuel than a cooktop, shuts off automatically, and you can use the hot water for more than just tea. This model boils water faster than on a stove, keeps the kitchen cooler, and it’s handy when you want to rehydrate dried mushrooms, dried tomatoes, and powdered soups; or to jumpstart a pot of water for pasta, steamed vegetables, or potatoes. The Capresso H2O sports a glass carafe, so you can see the progress without lifting the lid (and it’s fun to watch the bubbles: like an aquarium without the fish). It holds a manageable amount, letting you boil from 2 to 6 cups. It’s one of my handiest kitchen appliances, in its snazzy black and silver design, and makes a great gift for almost everyone, even non-cooks.

Buy a Capresso H2O Plus Water Kettle

More New Green Basics product reviews include:

• Cuisinart Green Gourmet Cookware
• Hotpan Thermal Cookware
• Kuhn Rikon Pressure Cooker Skillet
• Architec Cork Cutting Boards
• Epicurean Cutting Boards
• Equal Exchange Roasted Nuts and Berries
• Caldrea Scented Cleansers

Don’t Forget Green Food Wraps

(and affordable organics and pet food, too)

Brown bag lunches, wrapping up turkey leftovers, fall potlucks and festive tailgatings ramp up our use of plastic wrap, storage bags, trash bags, and paper products—all of which have greener options these days. But some can be pricey. Natural Value makes a full line of planet-friendly products at affordable prices, including plastic wrap and storage bags with no plasticizers or PVCs, unbleached recycled lunch bags, unbleached waxed paper bags, recycled paper products, home-compostable plates, and a full line of detergents, scrubbers, baby wipes, and trash bags with eco-positive aspects. They even make unbleached parchment paper (gourmet cooks listen up!). The Natural Value brand sells organic foods ranging from coconut milk from pasta to popcorn; some are also kosher. Got cats? Their cat food contains no preservatives, byproducts or coloring. Check out these products:

Buy Natural Value Plastic Wrap

Buy Natural Value Cat Food

Buy Natural Value Walnut Scrubber Sponge

Natural Value website

TerraCycle: Leaders in Plasticity

by Kate Hehyoe

I’ve always thought the typical process of plastic recycling was more labor and resource intensive than it needs to be. Apparently, some brilliant students at Princeton thought the same thing and in 2001 launched a poster-child for zero-carbon eco-businesses, known as TerraCycle.

Essentially, they pay consumers and school groups for used bottles or other containers, repurposing the containers without breaking them down. They fill plastic soda bottles, for instance, with natural worm-enhanced fertilizer, stick a colorful sleeve over the bottle as a label, and sell the products online and at stores as diverse as Home Depot, Gardener’s Supply and Whole Foods.

They’ve totally nailed the business dynamics down: they’re truly eco-friendly, low-impact and low-cost, true recyclers, and their inventory has expanded to include rain barrels and composters made from oak wine casks; fashion bags, totes and backpacks from drink pouches; spray cleaners, bird feeders, and deer repellent (again in plastic soda bottles); and potting soil, seed starters, and tomato food, all happy and active with “worm poop” generated from organic waste.

The backstory behind the business is too cool to pass up (the guys won a million dollar business contest, but turned the prize down because they didn’t like the constraints it came with.) Check out Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer’s story in the video at TerraCycle’s website. And we’re big fans: The Global Gourmet’s garden blooms big and happy with TerraCycle Plant Food.

Buy Terracycle Ready-to-Use Liquid Food

Buy TerraCycle All-Purpose Plant Food

Tulsi Hybrid Solar Oven

Emission-free Cooking with a Boost

Solar ovens are obviously not standard kitchen appliances, yet more people are turning to them for emission-free, guilt-free cooking.

You can use them for everything from cooking rice to roasting chickens to baking desserts, and not just in Death Valley weather. Even when the mercury stays in the pleasant zone, solar ovens function fuel-free, simply by reflecting light into a dark box area and retaining the heat with a clear lid. (Think of how hot your car gets in a parking lot.

The Tulsi oven is a unique breed of solar oven and a favorite of tech-minded cooks. It’s a portable hybrid contraption which comes with an electric booster to kick-start the heat or keep things cooking on cloudy days. Even with the electrical boost, it’s still more efficient than conventional ovens. And it comes as a clam-shell type of suitcase, ready to pack up and go wherever the dinner party may be. There’s a small learning curve with solar ovens, but essentially anything that works in a crockpot works in a solar oven.

Buy a Tulsi Hybrid Solar Oven

Cuisinart Green Gourmet Cookware

Cuisinart has launched a new Green Gourmet cookware line of anodized clad pans with an aluminum alloy core, and get this, a ceramic-based nonstick interior that is indeed truly nonstick and safe.

The cookware contains no petroleum products, no PTFE or PFOA, the pans and their metal handles can withstand oven use up to 500 degrees F and is broiler-safe. And because these pans conduct heat so well, they perform best when not used on high heat; medium and low are sufficient (meaning built-in energy-efficiency).

The drawbacks: They’re made in China, so they’ve got a traveling cookprint similar to most cookware these days, and they can’t be used on induction burners (no ferrous material). The ceramic-based surface is tough but not infallible: it can chip, which untreated anodized aluminum won’t do, but so will enamel-cast iron (which is considerably heavier to lift). Avoid sharp or metal utensils (anything that works on a Teflon surface is fine, like silicone or nylon). If you treat the cookware kindly, it should last a long time. Kudos to Cuisinart for the next generation of nonstick cookware. Hopefully, we’ll keep seeing greener improvements from them and other brands in their cookware and in every part of the kitchen.

Currently the cookware is available at Bed, Bath and Beyond stores.

Hotpan Thermal Cooking: Saves Energy

It’s not that Europeans haven’t told us about thermal cooking. After all, they’ve been using this method of energy efficient cooking for centuries, in the form of homemade hay box cookers (in which hot pots were started on a stove, then tucked into straw-lined boxes, and left to cook using only retained ambient heat). Now, with global warming and fuel costs out of control, it’s an idea worth revisiting. And with Kuhn Rikon’s colorful new Hotpan Cook & Serve Sets, embracing the concept just got easier.

Here’s the hip, modern Kuhn Rikon Hotpan version of hay box cookery: Cook food on the stove in a high-end, stainless steel pan with insulated, convex lid (the lid’s shape helps baste the food). Then, before the food is done, remove the pan from the stove, place it in a brightly colored insulated shell to create a double wall of insulation, and let it passively cook, without added fuel, until done. With such gentle cooking, the food remains hot for up to two hours and will never burn or dry out. Plus, actual cooking time on the stove is scaled back.

In fact, Hotpan thermal cooking uses 70% less cooking energy than traditional stovetop methods. For example, simmer brown rice on the stovetop for 10 minutes, then transfer the pot to the thermal shell for 30 minutes. Simmer polenta for 1 minute, then let it passively cook for 20 minutes.

The Hotpan Cook & Serve Sets come in various sizes, from 1- to 4-quart, and in colors pretty enough to serve at table. (The 3-liter is probably the most versatile, if you pick only one size.) The outer shell isn’t a one-trick pony either: when not hosting the Hotpan, it works as a salad bowl or serving bowl, and it keeps breads warm or ice cream cold. You can also buy the shells separately (in orange, black, red, blue, and white), and the sizes nest inside each other for compact storage.

• Hotpan Cook & Serve Set

Pressure Cooker Skillet: Does Double Duty

Kuhn Rikon, the same Swiss company behind the Hotpan Cook & Serve Sets, is a leader in energy efficient pressure cookers. Two of their most versatile, quick-cooking products are the Duromatic Pressure Fry Pan and the Pressure Braiser.

I prefer the braiser, because it’s essentially the same pan as the skillet but instead of a long handle, the braiser has two short handles making it more compact for storage. Both are extremely fuel efficient and can replace oven cooking in many instances. At 2-1/2 quarts, they’re the ideal size for smaller recipes and side dishes, and especially handy for couples, small families, and empty nesters. You can use them as a regular skillet, or cook under pressure. The waffle-texture base lets you brown in little or no fat. After browning, you can finish thick chops, small roasts, and chunky chicken pieces by locking on the lid and cooking under pressure.

Another bonus: Pressure cooked vegetables retain more nutrients than cooking by other methods. Weeknight rescue dishes are especially easy. I often make risotto in minutes, without all that pesky stirring at the stovetop; or brown a pork tenderloin, then pressure-braise until perfectly pale pink in the center. If you’re considering replacing a worn out skillet, the Kuhn Rikon Pressure Braiser or Fry Pan make more sense. They’re more versatile, save fuel, and though they come with a ten year warranty, I have a feeling these babies will probably last a lifetime. (By the way, this is not the same thing as a pressurized fryer, the kind used in fried chicken restaurants.)

• Kuhn Rikon Duromatic Pressure Braiser

Capresso Kettle Boils Water Better

An electric tea kettle always makes my list of handy, green appliances, because it boils water with less fuel than a cooktop, shuts off automatically, and it’s not just for tea. The best ones also boil water faster than water on a stove, are cordless and the heating elements are completely self-enclosed (meaning almost no fuel is wasted, unlike on a gas or electric range). The Capresso H2O Plus Water Kettle does all of this, and more.

It sports a glass carafe, so you can see the progress without lifting the lid (and it’s fun to watch the bubbles: like an aquarium without the fish). It holds a manageable amount, letting you boil from 2 to 6 cups. We drink a lot of tea, so we use it daily, but I also use it whenever I need hot water in the kitchen: to rehydrate dried mushrooms, tomatoes, and soups; or to jumpstart a pot of water for pasta, steamed vegetables, or potatoes. It’s one of my handiest kitchen appliances, in its snazzy black and silver design.

• Capresso H2O Plus Water Kettle

Top Chop: Architec Cork Cutting Boards

Cutting boards get greener, and handsomer, everyday. The latest model to cross my countertop is the Architec Cork Cutting Board. According to the company, it’s made of small particles of cork adhered together using heat and pressure, like traditional wine corks.

Cork comes from the bark of oak trees in Spain, Portugal and China, a sustainable and renewable green material, produced with minimal environmental impact. The cork is hand-harvested by gently peeling the bark off the tree, leaving the tree intact and ready to produce again. In the kitchen, cork is naturally antibacterial and easier to clean.

Cork is a wonder of nature. Each cubic inch of cork is made up of over 625 million 14-sided cells. Suberin, a natural substance, makes it impermeable to gases, liquid, dust and odors, and it is naturally fire retardant. Its ability to recover from compression means it doesn’t suffer marring like most woods do, while being gentle on the knife blade.

The Cork Cutting Board can be used for all cutting and carving needs, from fruits to vegetables to raw meats and cooked roasts. Wash by hand with non-antibacterial soap, dry before storing, and season with mineral oil about every ten uses. The Architec Cork Cutting Board comes in two sizes: Large (12 by 18 inches) and Small (9 by 12 inches). A round aluminum insert located in the corner of the board serves as a handle. Suggested retail prices: $29.99 (large), $19.99 (small). They are sold at specialty and online retailers including Crate and Barrel stores and architecproducts.com.

Greener Valentines

If you’re considering sharing a Valentine’s Day moment this year, paint your roses green.

Start with “To Pull a Thorn from the Side of the Planet.” (May require free registration.) This New York Times article reports on florists and growers who specialize in organic flowers. To which many people ask, “Why would it matter? We’re not eating them.” Clearly, we still need to reach out to those missing the message that pesticides can be harmful to the planet and other living things.

But there’s more to the issue of organics when it comes to earth-friendly, commercially grown flowers. As with food, which is better: local conventional or organic transported? Beaucoups of bouquets burst from South American soil, then travel outwards to florists worldwide, cutting a swath of transportation carbon along the way. But, as the Times article asks, “what is greener: large loads of flowers transported over long distances efficiently or a smaller number grown locally, but requiring a heated greenhouse and a trip to a farmers’ market in a pickup truck?”

The article also taps into related issues: better worker conditions on certified farms in South America; California’s growers who shun pesticides by growing in hydroponics greenhouses; and online sources for USDA certified organic flowers.

Of course, flowers are just one consumable associated with Valentine’s Day. You’ll find plenty of romantic meals and sweet treats at GlobalGourmet.com’s Valentine’s Handbook, and there’s a whole world or organic, fair-trade chocolates to savor. So whatever you do, if you make your February 14 footprint a little (or a whole lot) greener than you did last year, we’ll all be feeling the love.

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