ReeHart – Blogging from the Heart

Posts Tagged ‘appliances’

Are bread machine mixes any good? Yes, some of them are, but the problem with all bread machine mixes is that they limit your choice and discourage your creative talents. That may sound a little harsh, but think about it for a minute. If you rely on bread machine mixes you can only make the bread for which you can find a bread machine mix and you can only put the bread machine mix in the bowl and switch the bread making machine on. You are not encouraged to alter the bread machine mix for fear that it won’t work.

What is the alternative? Well, the old-fashioned cookbook, of course! Not any old cookbook, but a specialized bread making machine recipe book. Bread making is a very simple, but rather tedious process. The ingredients are everyday, household items: water, flour, yeast, salt, sugar and oil. You already have those items in your cupboard with the possible exception of the yeast, which can be bought everywhere at low cost.

And I’m sure you already know what happens when you cook following a recipe, don’t you? You’ve read the recipe through and you know you have everything in the kitchen, but when the recipe calls for, let’s say, sultanas, you open the cupboard door and see that you don’t have any sultanas – they were currants! Oh, well you think, they’ll do. You make do. You experiment. And that means that you are developing your skills and creativity. Bread making mixes cannot and will not do that for you.

A good bread making machine cookbook will have well over 100 recipes coming from a number of different countries and you will become really enthusiastic about experimenting with the different ones. Have you ever tried Welsh bread – Bara Brith? Or Amish bread? Jalapeno bread or banana bread? Cranberry bread is lovely too, but one of my favourites is Brazil Nut Bread – absolutely scrumptious.

The fact is that you may not find recipes for all these breads in one recipe book, but if you have a safe starting point, like a bread recipe cookbook, you can begin by using previously tried and tested gourmet bread recipes and gradually develop your own – oftentimes because you have to.

I once made a really great loaf of bread by adding some of the leftover vegetables from my Sunday dinner. It was very delicious, however I could never quite make the same loaf again, try as I did many times, because I had not written down the weights of the added vegetables. I could only remember that I had added green beans, potatoes and sweet corn in it!

Bread machine mixes will never in a million years give you that, will they? And bread machine mixes are relatively expensive compared to the cost of 10 pounds. I usually vary the ingredients too: honey instead of sugar, milk instead of water, olive oil or butter instead of just corn oil. Rock salt instead of sea salt or visa versa. You get the picture.

Bread machine mixes are not only limited but limiting too. Furthermore, a bread making machine is a great way to use up leftovers. I have added meat and fruit in my gourmet bread many times. My guiding principle is: if it’ll go in a sandwich it’ll go in the dough – like an Indian stuffed paratha or stuffed naan bread.

Don’t waste your money buying bread machine mixes – instead be creative with a bread machine recipes cookbook.

There are many people out there that have never heard of an air purifier, along with many people that have. If you have no idea what an air purifier is then this is a good place for you to start. Before buying an air purifier you should be aware of how they work as if you do not research them properly you could be spending more money then you have to.

Air purifiers are electronic devices that are specifically designed to clean the air that is in your home. They basically will catch and trap harmful air particles that are sucked through it and remove them, letting out only clean air.

When I say air contaminant I am also referring to air particles. If you did not already know, that the air outside is way more cleaner than the air that is inside, this is why air purifiers are very necessary inside households especially for newborns and women that are pregnant.

If you are a in house smoker or own a pet then it is highly recommended that you have an air purifier in your home. The odor from pets and cigarette smoke have been proven to form very unhealthy air particles. If you have an air purifier these air particles can be reduced dramatically, or even be completely eliminated.

Besides removing pet odors and cigarette smoke from inside a home, air purifiers are also great for getting rid of dust particles. This is very important for people that are very sensitive to allergies.

Now that you know who can benefit from using an air purifier in there home, you will also need to know how they work. Since there are many different manufacturers that make air purifiers, a lot of them work differently.

For instance some air purifiers might filter out bad air by using ionizers, while others will use a certain type of air filter. The air purifier will take suction on the air that is in the house or the room, and filter it out so only clean air is coming out of the air purifier.

When you are shopping for air purifiers it is important to know if they require an air filter or not. If they do require an air filter it is wise to know how much the replacement air filter is going to cost, along with how long that replacement filter will cost. This will wind up saving you money in the long run, as some air purifiers you will be spending more money on the filters than the initial cost of the air purifier.