I know it’s only Monday, but I couldn’t wait to share this cocktail I made with Drink of the Week. It’s a play on a martini, only it’s made with sake, fresh pear juice, and a little bit of dry vermouth.

Sake is great in a cocktail. It adds a light, delicate flavor to the drink with no trace of the “burning” some people dislike about liquor. The average sake has about 9-16% alcohol while most liquors have about 40% alcohol, so using sake in a drink is a way to have a cocktail without worrying too much about getting drunk. If you dislike strong cocktails, this is the drink for you.

We used a juicer to make the fresh pear juice. If you don’t have a juicer, you can use a blender or food processor instead. Just cut the pear up, remove the core and seeds, and blend until liquefied. Then strain the juice from the pulp. Alternately, you could use pear juice from the store, but the drink will not be as good.

Here’s the recipe:

Pear Sake Martini
makes one cocktail

Ingredients:

1 1/2 oz sake
1 1/2 oz pear juice (roughly the juice of half a pear)
1/4 dry vermouth
Ice
Pear slice for garnish (optional)

Directions:

In a cocktail shaker, combine the sake, pear juice, and dry vermouth. Shake thoroughly with ice. Strain the drink into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a slice of pear, if desired. Enjoy!

The first time I flew by myself, the airline lost my luggage. Since then I have made a point to carry my suitcase on the plane as much as possible. It is more efficient, protects my belongings, and saves money now that airlines are charging fees for checking your baggage.

But while I always use a carry-on for shorter trips, for longer trips I am still forced to check my bags. However, now that I’ve seen this slideshow on how to get 10 days worth of clothes into one carry-on bag, that may be changing.

According to The New York Times, travel expert Heather Poole can get 10 days worth of clothes into one small bag. This includes “three pairs of shorts, three pairs of dress pants, one skirt, three pairs of casual pants or jeans, three nightgowns, three bathing suits, one sarong, three lightweight sweaters, four dresses, 10 casual shirts, six dress shirts, a clutch, toiletries and two pairs of shoes.”

Her method is to roll the clothes, like so:

Then she tightly layers the suitcase with the heavier clothes on the bottom, lighter clothes on top.

Everything fits in with no trouble. By contrast, here are the same items packed the usual way:

I am going to have to try this out.

If you ask me, it is too early to be thinking about Valentine’s day, but I have to admit, this Chocolate Espresso Cake With Rose-Scented Frosting from Desserts for Breakfast looks pretty decadent. Why wait to try it?

These “double chocolate espresso pound cakes” are topped with cream cheese frosting that has been scented with rosewater. There’s even bittersweet chocolate chips in the batter. Yum.

Click here for the recipe.

Cool! I’ve been awarded a Stylish Blogger Award from Ronda at Lilacs In May.

Thanks Ronda.

I want this! This is a Molecular Cuisine Starter Kit from ThinkGeek. It comes with “50 individually portioned chemicals, essential tools and a recipe DVD.” The chemicals include:

* Agar-agar – 10 sachets of 20g each
* Calcium Lactate – 10 sachets of 20g each
* Sodium Alginate – 10 sachets of 20g each
* Soy Lecithin – 10 sachets of 20g each
* Xanthan Gum – 10 sachets of 20g each

What are those things? Beats me, but the kit also comes with a DVD and 50 recipes to teach you how to use it. So pretty soon, you will be able to make food like this:

That’s mustard ice cream on braised pineapple with coconut foam, pineapple tuille, and mustard sauce from the restaurant wd-50 in New York. What does that taste like? I have no idea.

Image courtesy roboppy.

For awhile I was lusting over the idea of Moroccan tiles in my bathroom until I realized how expensive they can be. I gave up my dreams of a Moroccan-themed bathroom, and now I learn I didn’t have to. I could have just used these Moroccan stencils by Royal Design Studios.

For the price of the stencil and paint, you can get a Moroccan look for much cheaper than the tiles. And okay, maybe it doesn’t look quite as good as the tiles, but it doesn’t look bad either.

You can do a lot with these–use them on a wall:

or a ceiling:

or even stairs:

[The Style-Files]

Awhile back, I wrote a post about 5 Ways To Save Money On Paper Towels. I mentioned that I wished there was a machine that could cut paper towels any length you wanted. I meant a manual machine along the lines of a paper cutter, but instead I was informed there is a high-tech option available called the CleanCut Paper Towel Dispenser.

Here’s the product description:

The CLEANCut Touchless Paper Towel Dispenser is a sanitary, no-touch paper towel dispenser that uses any brand of store-bought paper towel. It … uses Breaking Beam Technology to cut paper towels to any length, regardless of perforation. To use, simply place your hand between the LED sensors in the dispense zone (right side). Once the desired amount of paper has been dispensed, remove your hand. To cut, place your hand between the LED sensors in the cutting zone (left side). … CLEANCut operates on a low voltage power adapter that plugs into a standard 120V outlet.

I had an opportunity to try the CleanCut Paper Towel Dispenser out. Generally, I love machines that make life easier. I use a dishwasher to clean my dishes, a Roomba vacuum cleaner to sweep my floor, a thermostat to control my heat, so it seemed like I might like the CleanCut Paper Towel Dispenser to cut my paper towels for me. Although the high price of the gadget–$140-$160–made me pause, it still seemed possible that with repeated use you could make that money back on saved paper towels. Also, it might be a fun or attractive gadget to have in the kitchen.

But when I received the CleanCut Paper Towel Dispenser, I was perplexed. First of all, it is huge. At 16 x 6-1/2 x 11-1/2 inches and weighing almost 7 pounds, it is the size of a fax machine.

Secondly, the site claims it is stainless steel. It is not. It is made of gray plastic. It does not look high-end to me, and in fact felt kind of cheap.

Third, you can’t just flip the CleanCut on and begin using it, you have to install it first. It has to be mounted underneath a kitchen cupboard and near a power outlet, which means that this product won’t work for many kitchens simply on logistics alone.

Anyway, I got the CleanCut Paper Towel Dispenser installed and then went about loading paper towels into it. First problem: the jumbo rolls of paper towels I buy from the outlet center wouldn’t fit. This was confusing, since the website says, “It doesn’t matter what paper towel you buy, the CleanCut is designed to work with any brand.” Brand, yes, but size of roll, no.

Luckily, I had a smaller paper towel roll around, so I loaded that instead. Finally I could try it! And I found that the no-touch technology works pretty well. It takes a little getting used to, but in general, it was fun to wave you hand over the gadget and have paper towels magically roll out to your exact specifications. This is not without its charms.

Also, if you are someone who worry about germs, one advantage of this product is that you don’t have to touch it to get the paper towel. So, if you’re cutting raw chicken, say, you can get a paper towel without having to touch anything, thus reducing cross contamination or at least cutting down the amount of time you have to cleaning things you’ve touched.

So, let’s get to the main question: Will the CleanCut Paper Towel Dispenser save you money?

I seriously doubt it.

The version of the CleanCut I tried costs $160. Just to break even, you would have to cut down your paper towel usage enough to save $160. Well. That is a lot of paper towels.

In my case, I buy 4 jumbo packs of paper towels at about $60 a year. Let’s pretend I waste half of every paper towel and by scrimping every piece of paper towel through the CleanCut, I cut that down to 2 jumbo packs. That means I would save $30 a year on paper towels. At that rate, it would take me over 5 years to make back the $160 I spent on the CleanCut Paper Towel Dispenser.

At that point, you might start making money on this product–except there’s still the issue of the electricity you are using to make the CleanCut run. Every time you wave your hand over the front, the machine is pulling electricity out of the wall outlet to give you the paper towel, which of course goes on your electricity bill. Is the money you are arguably saving by using a little bit less paper MORE than the money you are spending on electricity to make the CleanCut work? That’s a question that can make a penny pincher’s head hurt, but it’s probably negligible either way.

Therefore, CleanCut is not a good way to save money on paper towels. Switching to rags does a much better job–and they are free.

SO let’s sum up the CleanCut Paper Towel Dispenser:

Pros:

Fun to use.
Will reduce the amount of paper towels you use.
Reduces cross contamination.
Great for people who fear germs.

Cons:

Expensive.
Big.
Plastic, not stainless steel.
Hard to install.
Will only work in some kitchens.
Doesn’t use jumbo rolls.
Uses electricity.
Won’t save you money.

Of course, that’s just my opinion. If you used this product, what did you think?

Great tips on how to do things like tying your shoes or wrapping a cord faster. My husband has been doing the shirt folding trick for awhile now and it works great. Personally, I’m going to try the speed-peeling the potato and the cooking spray on nail polish tricks.

I wouldn’t recommend parking your car that way, however. [snotr]

I’m loving this “Sew For Victory” poster. It was originally a propaganda poster during World War II to encourage women on the home front to sew for soldiers at war. It would be great in a craft room.

I also like this one as a reminder of frugality:

You can buy the posters for $13.95 each here.

I tried to make clam chowder once, but I wasn’t happy with the result. So I’m still on the look out for a good chowder recipe, and apparently NPR has my back. They’ve got a pretty nifty post on different kinds of chowders. It includes Spicy Seafood Chowder, Curried Succotash Chowder, Rockfish Head Chowder, and my favorite, Smoky Ham And Corn Chowder. No clam, though.

Man, I’m hungry now.