Monday Night Dinner

Periodically I find myself watching infomercials.  These used to be the province of late night, can’t-sleep/don’t-want-to-go-to-bed, channel surfing.  However, now when I’m staying up past my bedtime for no good reason I’m more likely to be clicking on youtube videos.  Where I do end up seeing strange infomercials is oddly enough my office.  There’s an enormous flat screen tv in the kitchen area that’s usually tuned to ESPN, which I generally tune out.  However, sometimes someone has been in and changed the channel and we’re all treated to a sequence of infomercials for products I can’t begin to imagine why people need.  I tend to watch these in hypnotized fascination until someone rescues me by changing the channel back to ESPN.

I’m not talking about the as-seen-on-tv products that are apparently designed for people who have inexplicable difficulties completing everyday tasks like shelling eggs, or draining pasta, or shaving their legs.  Nor am I referring to the perennial shills for knives that will cut through things I can’t imagine ever needing to cut through, like old shoe soles, and tin cans.  Neither am I captivated by the products that I can kind of see the use of, even if I suspect that they don’t work as well as advertised, like the Robostir that promises to prevent anything from sticking to the bottom of your pot by automatically stirring for you.  I can see the appeal in that even if it does look disconcertingly like a large spider perched over the top of the pot.

There’s also the boil over safeguard that prevents unwatched pots from boiling over messily onto your stove top.  The number of times I’ve turned away for a moment and had sticky boil overs weld themselves to my stove top I’m almost tempted to try this.

No, what I’m fascinated by are the gadgets that perform tasks I didn’t know needed performing, and promise to cook your food in ways I wasn’t aware anyone would ever want to cook their food.

For example, there’s the Dog Dicer which promises to reduce the chances that your child might choke on a piece of hot dog by slicing it into easy to eat chunks.  This is fair enough, but exactly how challenging is it to slice a hot dog?  Entertainingly (horrifyingly?) there are two versions of this out there – the relatively subdued original version, and then then more Whimsically literal version that’s actually in the shape of a dachshund, and comes with a small food bowl at the end of the slicer for you to fill with ketchup for easier eating & dipping.

There’s also the Cupcake Secret which sounds like it ought to be the title of a Nancy Drew novel, but instead just hides sweet surprises in the middle of cupcakes, or bakes pre-hollowed out cupcakes for you to fill with frosting or jam or whatever.  It’s not so much that I don’t understand the desire to tuck a rollo or hershey’s kiss into the middle of a cupcake, I just question why you need an entire baking pan to achieve this – you can just fill a muffin cup halfway, add the secret ingredient and then continue to pour batter over/around it and bake.

The one, however, that really really entrances me is the Rollie Egg Master.  Using an innovative ‘vertical cooking technology’ the Rollie Egg Master allows you to cook your eggs in a handy stick format.  For easier eating?  For novelty?  For people who’ve always thought ‘I like eggs; but I think they’d be even better if they were cylindrical.’

Not only can you use it for a quick breakfast at home, you can keep it on your desk and use it for a quick clean snack at your desk (really?  really?).

If you were concerned that the Rollie Egg Master was a one trick pony (one egg pony?), never fear.  There all kinds of things you can add to your rollie egg – bacon, sausage, cheese cubes.  Or you can pre-wrap your eggs in an edible packaging like a slice of ham, or a tortilla.  In other egg related dishes you can make tubular French toast, or pancakes.  Want something entirely egg unrelated?  You can make pizza roll(ie)s, or toasted peanut butter & jelly roll(ie)s.  You can get adventurous and make spring roll(ie)s (?!), or rollie burger dogs (?!?!).  You can even make dessert in your rollie.  There’s an entire 20 minute long official rollie recipe guide up on youtube.  Who knew there were so many things you could want or need to make in tubes.

In non-cylindrical food cooking, another recipe/Dinner round up to bring me current with this week.

Dinner – October 8th
Apricot Chicken Tagine
Mint & Basil Couscous
Roasted Cauliflower & Broccoli

Recipes can be found here

Dinner – October 15th – AKA Birthday Season Part II
Spaghettios
Salad
Snickers Ice Cream Sundae Skillet Cake (or the dessert that involves no bad adjectives)

Recipes can be found here

Dinner – October 22nd
Coconut Braised Pork Loin
Spiced Tomato & Potato Gratin
Green Beans

Recipes can be found here