(Image courtesy Cooking Light)

Most bar tools are unnecessary, but I could really get into having one of these channel knives for making a citrus garnish. A cocktail doesn’t look right without a fancy little garnish on the side, but cutting one of those lemon or lime curls with a knife is hard. Seriously, have you tried it? It’s practically impossible.

A channel knife has a u-shaped blade that makes it easy to get a professional looking citrus twist to garnish your cocktail. Prices on these gadgets run from $2 to $25. I like this one for $8 because it also doubles as a citrus zester:

Which is handy to have around for cooking, too.

No posts this Memorial Day, but I’ll be back on Tuesday. Have a great weekend.

I am not a vegetarian. Obviously. I tried it in college for awhile, but it wasn’t good for me. I need a lot of protein and I love meat. I also don’t think that it is essential to become a vegetarian to save the world from ecological disaster. It’s a nice thing to do, but moderation is good too.

So I was interested in the above TedTalk, where Graham Hill from TreeHugger suggests that people go vegetarian during the week and save meat eating for the weekends. I like this idea. Personally, I try to have a couple of days a week where I don’t eat any meat. There are several good reasons for this, as follows:

* Eating vegetarian is cheaper. If you have a garden, you can cut down on your food bill drastically simply by sticking to the food that comes out of it. But even if you don’t have garden, vegetarian food is cheaper. A bag of beans is one of the cheapest things you can buy.

* Most of us don’t get enough vegetables. We are supposed to eat several servings of vegetables a day, but who has time for this? Eating vegetarian insures that you get closer to that goal and in the process, you get more of the vitamins and minerals that we all need.

* Vegetarianism makes you thinner. Vegetables are lower calorie than meat. By eating them, you get just as filled up, but you are less likely to have excess calories left over that your body can store as fat. Eating vegetarian a couple of times a week instead of meat should make a difference in the waistline.

* Vegetarianism is better for the planet. Vegetables takes less energy, water, soil, and space to grow compared to meat, which means we need less resources to feed vegetarians than meat eaters. Also, some of the ways we farm animals are problematic and cruel.

But despite all this, I don’t think a little bit of meat hurts anything. We are omnivores, and we are supposed to eat both. I have learned not to fight my body on things like this, and besides, meat taste awesome. But I respect vegetarians and agree that cutting back on meat is a good idea.

Here’s a list of vegetarian recipes I’ve covered so far:

Spicy Carrot Peanut Soup
Zucchini on Zucchini Raviolis
101 Salads
Vegetable Quiche
Mushroom Cauliflower Soup
Roasted Vegetables
Mexican Scramble
Vegetable Broth

More vegetarian recipes to come!

Here’s a fascinating little gadget: a time-lapse camera for your plants. It takes a video of the plant’s growth, then you can convert it into a time-lapse video like this one of a mushroom:

Or these vines:

Or this night-blooming water lily:

$79.95 at Signals. (Via Rare Bird Finds)

Lion Brand Yarn has a spiffy free pattern for this grass rug. It’s an easy pattern that uses three colors of green yarn. It really does look like a little bit of lawn sprouted in your house. It would be great in a bathroom. (Via Craft)

Justin reminded me of the existence of Scotch eggs today. I have never had one, but they look good. They are “de-shelled hard-boiled egg, wrapped in a sausage meat mixture, coated in breadcrumbs, and deep-fried,” according to Wikipedia.

Apparently, some people hate Scotch eggs with a passion, like this guy on Bravo, who says, “It is a nightmarish food item, the stuff of cheap family weddings, where the irascible scary uncle gets drunk and tries to score with the bridesmaids. … Think dry, cold, coagulated, cheap quality sausage meat – minced pig eyelids, ground down ears and knee caps; the cheapest of the cheap – with a crust of bright orange breadcrumbs on the outside, and inside an egg boiled to such a degree that if lobbed in a crowded public space it would be regarded as a dangerous weapon. Put said item in deep fat fryer and leave to DIE.”

Wow. Well, I’ll admit, most of the pictures of Scotch eggs on the Internet look dried out, which is why I would use a soft-boiled egg if I were going to make one. Still, I don’t see how it could be that bad. Does this look bad?

(Image by Claudine)

Not to me. Here’s a recipe for Scotch eggs.

The whole thing reminds me of another fried hard-boiled egg I’ve been wanting to try: Son-in-Law Eggs.

This is a traditional Thai dish where eggs are fried in a mixture of sugar, fish sauce, onions, and Tamarind. I have always meant to try these. Apparently they got their name when a mother-in-law showed up to her daughter’s house to find her out, so the son-in-law tried to cook for her and came up with these. Almost Bourdain has the full story plus a recipe.

Design Sponge has a great before and after: Elien Popelier in Belgium took this average-looking desk, which she got at a thrift store, and taped a striped pattern on it, like so:

Then she painted the desk and removed the tape. The result:

Great idea!

She also used IKEA boxes to make a spiffy coffee table, which you can see here.

Carrot juice is good for you, full of minerals and vitamins and so on. So why not ruin it by adding alcohol? Drink of the Week and I thought that sounded like a good idea, so we ground up some carrots and made a cocktail out of their juice.

We weren’t really sure how carrot juice would taste in a cocktail, but it turns out it is really good. After playing around with gin and a ginger liqueur–the same liqueur we used in the Green Tea and Ginger Cocktail–we came up with a drinking that is refreshing and delicious and very orange:

Mix in a good-quality gin and a touch of cinnamon on top and this drink is almost reminiscent of carrot cake. In fact, it could even be a good alternative for traditional brunch cocktails like the mimosa and the Bloody Mary.

The recipe:

What’s Up, Doc? Cocktail
(Makes one cocktail)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 oz carrot juice (fresh is ideal, but you can also buy carrot juice at health food stores)
1 1/2 oz gin
1/2 oz ginger liqueur
Ice
Cinnamon to top (optional)

Directions:

Combine carrot juice, gin, and ginger liqueur in a cocktail shaker. Shake thoroughly. Put a few cubes of ice in a glass and strain the drink over the ice. If you want, add a slight touch of cinnamon on top. Enjoy!

Here’s a cool wallpaper from Trove. Although there’s frustratingly little description of it on their site, it looks like it is made up of old photos of the balcony of an opera. Close up:

Kinda like little ghosts watching what you do.

I find it intriguing. If used right in a room, it could be very impressive.

(Image from Divas and Drooligans)

Yesterday it came to my attention that there is something called a Hooter Hider, or a nursing cover, that allows women to cover their baby up while breastfeeding. It seems like a remarkably simple little gadget that seems like it would make a woman’s life a lot easier.

But I am not sure why you would pay $30 + for one of these nursing covers when they are essentially a hemmed piece of material with a strap connected to it. In fact, Blisstree has a free how-to on making your own nursing cover. Back:

Front:

Looks like it takes one yard of fabric and less than an hour. And, since you are making it yourself, you can pick whatever pattern you want.

This is brilliant. Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before? (Or maybe they have?) It’s a door knob shapes like a hand. Called the Hand-le, it’s designed by Naomi Thellier de Poncheville. It’s just begging to shake your hand. (Via Apartment Therapy.)