Are there any household gadgets you found unexpectedly useful after you'd gotten them?
I was thinking about how I missed having an indoor thermometer that measures humidity. It's such a small specific thing, one I'd never think of getting unless pushed to it (which I was by one particularly dry winter). But I like having one now.
What are your small, "random" or "junk drawer" type of gadgets that you actually use or like having around?
I bought a small rice cooker a while back. I have pancakes way more often now, which has really helped cut down my breakfast budget. I can snag a month of breakfast for like 5 dollars. Yeah sure, they're extra thicc and not as nutritious as a full complex meal, but its a lot less of a hassle than actually heating up the skillet and cooking a meal while I'm half-asleep.
yep. Just drop a bit of butter in and let it melt while you put some coffee on and mix together the milk and pancake mix, drop it in for 2 cycles, and enjoy. It's almost as easy as microwaving.
I am choosing to interpret the instructions as dumping a full bottle of pancake mix into the rice cooker, cook twice, then tip out the resulting pancake-cake and slice it up thinly like a pressed ham. I guess slice extra thinly for crepes?
Not bad! Though I used Bisquick, for better flavor, and for the work involved dirtying bowls and measuring cups I'd rather just use a pan.
In fact I made extra and made three pan sized pancakes in the time it took to make one big fluffy potcake.
Don't get me wrong, it's a great Idea and it totally works. If I were gonna do it again seriously, I'd get a dedicated pancake mix that uses just water, to maximize the simplicity, which is the goal I think.
It was fluffy and delicious, though I will say a lot of pancake flavor comes from the crispy edges and the thinness of the cake and you lose some of that with the thick potcake.