I know, it’s two days before the incredible Turkey Day, and my mind is on pedicures, (really). Not just pedicures, but that little egg grater call Ped EggTM has been looming on my mind. The Ped Egg was initially developed to file away heavy skin of heels and toes. In the genetic pool, I’ve seem to inherit nasty, thick, rapid growing calluses on my feet. Now that is more information than you need to know.
The good thing out of this is that I’ve tried every product to remove the calluses and finally found a little file/grater called Ped-Egg which does a wonder job getting rid of my nasty little problem. Watching my daughter trying to grate a small portion of parmesan cheese and making a mess, I realized that Ped Egg would be perfect. It is also perfect for garlic, nutmeg, citrus, almost any substance that you need to grate small amounts and easily capture. The only thing to beware is that Ped Egg is mostly from plastic which will keep that wonderful garlic smell forever. So buy yourself several Ped Eggs and go experiment. Luckily they come in 3 colors; pink, light blue and white.
Talk about grating, when I need large amounts of finely grated items, my first choice is my mother’s french cheese grater. Truly a bizarre contraption, it quickly grates chucks of cheese, nuts and other foods. The only problem is that it takes up to much room in my small kitchen, which is why it is still at my mother’s house. I love the Microplane TM rasp for quick, medium size jobs but have been disappointed with their small rasp (it’s in the photo along with the large rasp) – I can’t seem to make it work as well as their large rasps. But for a fine tiny job, the Ped Egg is wonderful .
Enough about graters and rasps. Let’s talk about food, and a great cranberry recipe. Here is one of my favorites. Every year I buy a large bag of cranberries and make a huge pot of the this recipe. Cranberry sauce freezes well, so put most of it in plastic containers and freeze for another day. However if you are DESPERATE, Trader Joe’s makes a good cranberry sauce that isn’t too sugary sweet.
Madeira Cranberry Orange Relish
You can experiment and try using Chardonnay or a Merlot wine instead of the Madeira.
INGREDIENTS
1 pound washed cranberries
2 cups of sugar
½ cup of good Madeira
2 teaspoons grated orange rind
½ cup of orange juice
1/4 cup of finely chopped almonds or hazelnuts (optional)
DIRECTIONS
1. In a large heavy pot combine all the ingredients except the nuts. Cook until the cranberries pop open (approximately 10 minutes). Skim the foam. Cool down
2. Serve the relish in a lovely dish and garnish with the nuts.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy the holiday. Don’t forget to use your SaladSuccess Salad Dressing Shaker and eat lots of wonderful salads.