Sodastream

By now unless you do not watch TV and have someone else do your shopping for you, I'm sure you have seen and/or heard of the Sodastream.  A home option to carbonate water, and a multitude of syrups to add to it, to make your own soda at home.

My Sodastream

The internet is a abuzz with all kinds of messages about it, whether it saves you money, just saves plastic, or is it even worth it at all.

Personally I just got mine a few weeks ago, found a deal on Black Friday for it, and decided to give it a try.  Granted it was still not cheap at $50 (although I did get 3 free syrup bottles with it), it was the best deal I had found with it since my gadget addiction kept looking at it.

My kit came with the plastic body, a carbonator, a 1 liter bottle, 6 sample syrups, and like I mentioned I was able to get 3 free syrup bottles with it.

The short and sweet of it, for this model, I can honestly say I would not pay over $50, had I known exactly the build of this one, I'm not sure I would have gotten it at that.  The entire thing is completely made of plastic, and it's not that I'm against a lightweight plastic gadget, I can't say that from a quick glance at it, that I'm getting much for my money, although if you include the cost of a new carbonator at around $30 in reality I'm probably getting about what I pay for.  If it lasts long enough, I guess I won't be too upset, but time will tell, if it is good plastic, or the cheap stuff.

The directions are simple enough for it thats for sure, fill a bottle up to the line, screw it into the Sodastream, and give it 3 good presses to carbonate the water.  There you have soda water in no time flat(no pun intended) and for practically nothing.  Although via some experimentation, if you use really cold water like leaving a bottle in the fridge before you carbonate, it doesn't seem to carbonate as well, but this was far from a scientific test, just one that worked and and one that worked less.

The flavor's I've tried thus far have been, Diet Orange, Orange Mango, and Dr. Pete.   The best by far is the Orange Mango, and I know the reason why.  I am just not a fan of Splenda or sucralose, and while even the regular versions that use Sugar, still use a certain amount of sucralose(if you look at the ingredients), the diet versions use all sucralose.  Hence why if you try the Diet cola, it isn't even close to Diet Coke, it's much closer to Coke Zero.  If you are like my wife and I, that difference is huge, and was a big deterrent from getting the Sodastream originally.  I really thought it was just the difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero, that made me not like it, but now after trying a couple other diet drinks versus a regular one in the Sodastream, I'm pretty certain I just don't care for the Splenda factor.

One of the nice things about the Sodastream is the play factor.  If you are like me, there is something about drinking a carbonated beverage that just beats plain flat old drinks.  Well I decided I would try something out, a way that could potentially actually make the Sodastream a money saver.  I took a Crystal Light packet and made my own concentrate, and added it to the carbonated water.  Raspberry Ice flavor.

Ok, so on this attempt I took a packet that made 2 quarts and mixed it with 2 tablespoons of water.  Mixed that up real good, and added it to the carbonated water.  My first lesson from this, way too strong for my tastes.  Going to have to try it with much less, we shall see, but it was a bit over strong, needed to be diluted quite a bit more.   Aside from being overly strong, it was quite delicious and worked very well.  A crisp carbonated raspberry soda, ahhhhh.   So I will try some more things down the road.

All in all, this one is a fun toy with some possibilities, but if you are looking at it for a cost saver, don't bet on it.  There are many sites that calculate the costs savings, and basically say you will save the $100 price tag after about 1500 liters of soda (ends up costing around .45 cents a liter if memory serves from what I have read, so a 2 liter on sale would be about the same or could be less, but don't take my word on it, google it and you will find many pages that discuss it,).  Now the savings on Soda water alone, I'm sure you would see much quicker returns.

If you are one of those "green" type people, yes you save a lot of plastic using this, (although you still have quite a few small plastic syrup bottles too).  

The best reason I could see for this in reality, is city living.  If you live in a place where you walk to and from the grocery or take public transportation, it most certainly is easier on you to carry a small bottle of syrup than it is to cart 2 liters or cases of cans home.

But I will continue to play around with it, and maybe figure out a great alternative that will make it more cost effective.

If you have ideas or experiences with it, let me know.

Best of luck in the kitchen!

KitchenAid Hand Blender

Today I received an early Christmas gift to myself, and one of my post Black Friday shopping deals.  The KitchenAid 5 speed hand blender.  Right out of the box it is impressive, it comes with a nice case to keep all the pieces together, a chopping base, and a pitcher.

KitchenAid Hand Blender

I have to say just pulling it out of the case, it has a well built feel to it, and the 3 different blades are nice additions for an immersion blender.  An S-blade for blending, a multi-purpose blade, and a frothing/batter mixing blade are an excellent assortment to include with the whisk and the chopping bowl.  With all these attachments and 5 speeds of power, it certainly has the ability to replace several things in your kitchen, which is a good thing as one of the downsides of this set, is that it takes up a decent amount of space with this case and the bowls.

Not having an immediate need for this, but still wanting to get it out and try it, I was forced to send my wife out for some ice-cream, so I could at least make milk shakes for everyone.  Let me tell you this was the EASIEST request I have ever made.  Short and sweet version, "Hun will you get some ice-cr...", "Ok".   Is it  her love for me, or her love of ice cream?  I am just going to assume it's for me and not ponder too long about it.

Anyway I loaded up the pitcher with ice-cream , tossed in some milk, and put the S-blade and went to  town.  It made easy work of it, and it wasn't long before I had enough made up for 2 glasses one for each kid.  Refilling I made enough for 2 more, filled my glass, then proceeded to add some bananas and finish it off for my wife.  Again, no problem at all.

Now while this hasn't been an exceptionally intense test, I have to say I am still impressed with the feel of it, and the attachments.  Oh and taking off the bar and blade and not having to try to avoid getting water all over the electrical portion...big plus in my book.  While if they would have made those portions dishwasher safe, it would have been a plus, just being able to clean them without fumbling around the motor is a big help.

Hopefully I will get a chance to try it out more and update on it, but for now, I think this might have been a pretty good purchase.  Only time tells with kitchen gadgets, if they are fads or forevers.

Dutch Cocoa Cookies Copycat

I have been very remised in my blogging duties.  To be fair though, I haven't really had a chance to try anything new, so I didn't think you would want to read about something rehashed.  This week though I got to try something totally new for me, a copy cat recipe for Dutch Cocoa Cookies.
And while it's not an exact copy, they are extremely good and very easy to make.

Dutch Cocoa Cookies

This recipe is not my own at all, so I have to give credit for to thebadpenguin.

Recipe:
2 cups All Purpose Flour
3/4 cups Dutch Processed cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter at room temp
2 cups of sugar (will need more to roll the cookies)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla

Sift the first 4 ingredients together, I cheat a bit and put it into a mixing bowl and use a whisk to lighten it up, very similar result to sifting without dealing with a sifter, since most of your flour is pre sifted anymore.

With my handy dandy KitchenAid mixer I mixed the butter and sugar together, then added the vanilla, and the eggs one at a time.  Then gradually add the flour mixture to it so that it gets well incorporated.

Now I removed the dough, wrapped it in plastic, and placed it into the fridge to chill and set up some.  I let it go about an hour, although a little longer might have been better, but it worked for me.

Once the dough had set some, I took a paper plate and added some sugar to it, now I tried it 2 different ways, one with plain sugar and another with sanding sugar.  For the look the sanding sugar came out with a look much closer to the classic Archway cookies, although the regular sugar tasted great too. The sugar just wasn't as noticeable on the finished product.

All you have to do is roll the dough into balls about 1" in size, then roll it to coat it in sugar, and place them on a prepped cookie sheet.   I used vegetable oil from a oil sprayer, but Pam would work just as well I'm sure.  Be sure to give them plenty of room, as you can see by the picture they spread out pretty good size.

Bake them in a 350 degree oven for about 12 minutes, until the center is set.

Take them out and place them on a rack to cool, be careful as they are very soft at this point and very delicate.  But they cool and become a chocolate lover's delight.

These were also great fun for the kids to watch as they slowly "melt" into their cookie shape.

Best of luck in the kitchen!