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Gadget: Peeling Garlic Easily

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I have to admit that I am a little addicted to Kickstarter (and to a lesser extent Indiegogo). I tend to spend at least an hour or two per week browsing the latest projects on Kickstarter to see what people are creating. Sure, some of the stuff they come up with is either totally pointless or stupidly expensive, but there’s also a lot of very cool stuff.

For someone who likes cooking and has a mild addiction to kitchen gadgets (yes, that would be me), I often stumble across kitchen gadgets that pique my interest.

Earlier this week I came across this new garlic peeler.

If you cook with garlic a lot then you might find it useful. As they show in the video, it’s pretty easy to use:

garlic-shaker-how-it-works

Simple enough, no?

At the moment they’re available via Kickstarter with prices starting at $25 (plus shipping). Yes, it’s a little expensive and there are plenty of other ways of peeling garlic, but it’s still a cool solution to a cooking problem, so I was happy to order one.

Getting Back in the Saddle (Literally!)

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As I mentioned, I’ve been either walking or cycling in and out of the office for the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately (though this depends on your perspective) I live a little too close to the office for the commute to be a decent workout.

So the only way for me to get a proper bit of exercise is to take longer routes or to schedule specific rides just for exercise.

This afternoon I did around 10km down by the side of the river.

It’s not an unattractive route and you do get to see some nice things like this lock:

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The actual route I covered was essentially a tight loop out of the town and back in again:

10km-bike-ride-may-2015

I’m happy I did it, but it was painful. So painful. I’m seriously unfit and I’ve also got out of the habit of cycling.

On the upside I did burn off a few hundred calories 🙂

As long as the weather doesn’t deteriorate too much ie. pouring miserable rain, then I’ll try to get out a couple of more times this week. I’ll try. I’ve no idea if I’ll actually manage it!

 

Weather and Exercise

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Carlow town park

How good, or bad, the weather is has a direct impact on how much outdoors physical exercise I want to do.

If it’s cold, damp and grey I’m highly unlikely to want to get off my ass and walk or cycle.

But if the weather is pleasant then it’s a hell of a lot easier.

Walking from in and out of the office, for example, is a relatively easy way to get myself a few thousand steps towards my daily goal. Cycling might not help with my “step count”, but it definitely contributes to my overall calorie burn.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been making a conscious effort to either walk or cycle in and out of the office. When the weather is bad I have my cycling jacket which keeps me relatively dry!

As we head into the Irish “summer” I’m hoping to increase my level of physical activity and get back to cycling longer distances. Seeing some of my friends clocking up hundreds of kilometres per week is helping motivate me a bit, though at the same time it’s a little depressing 🙂

 

Kitchen Meets IoT With Countertop

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Countertop_Lifestyle-1I love gadgets and technology and I’ve come to embrace the Internet of Things (IoT) more and more over the last couple of years. The possibilities of leveraging technology in the home fascinate me.

But what about the kitchen?

One of the challenges with any of this new technology is that it’s “new” so it tends not to “play nice” with any of your existing equipment.

Sure, if you’re a multi-millionaire you could dump all your existing equipment and replace it all with “smart” gadgets. But doesn’t that seem wasteful? Especially when so much of this technology is in flux. Who knows which technologies will really take off?

So the latest gadget that has caught my attention seems to be a move in the right direction.

“Countertop” is a smart countertop (thence the name!). But what makes this particular gadget intriguing and quite appealing is that it can work with “dumb” devices too ie. it can retrofit them.

Here’s their rather slick promo video that explains how it works:

https://youtu.be/xWc6XtTpSyk

I love the idea and it almost checks all the boxes. But I don’t have ANY of the kitchen devices it currently works with. Do I have a slow cooker? Yes, but not that brand. Do I have a blender? Yes, but again it’s not that brand.

I do, however, have a Jawbone UP, but without any of the other compatible gadgets this isn’t going to work for me – for now at least.

You can find out more details and order via the official site for shipping later this year.

Compensating For Bad Habits

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Eating. Sleeping. Drinking. They’re all things we do, but a lot of us don’t do them properly.

Personally I am all too aware that my eating habits can be quite bad. Sure, when I’m home for a few days I’ll cook fairly healthy meals and eat plenty of salads, fruits and fresh vegetables. I’m picky about where I buy meat, so I tend to get pretty good quality meat from a small local butcher.

But I’m also aware of how much I misbehave, both when I’m travelling and when I’m either too tired or too busy to make the time to cook a proper meal.

Sleeping? I know I don’t get enough of it consistently. I can push myself to get more, but invariably I’ll slip up and go to bed way too late or have to get up way too early.

And drinking? Well that one is one that I can keep more under control. Or at least to a degree.

Sure, when I’m travelling I probably drink a little more than I would normally, but when I’m not “on the road” the most I’ll have is one or two beers in the evening and not most evenings.

There’s no simple way to “compensate” for this behaviour. It’s not like eating well on a Monday is going to magically fix the junk you ate on a Sunday ..

11123896_1422868228019310_892607272_nSo what can you do?

Personally I’m not too sure, but I know that if I’m going to prepare chips or potato wedges that I’ll use my actifry with only a small bit of olive oil for taste!

Posting about my bad habits won’t fix them, but maybe it’ll make me feel a little guilty .. In any case I know I’ll be eating homemade soup for the next couple of days so I can feel a little less guilty ..

 

Sunday Evening Cooking

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Weekends, as I’ve mentioned before, are a great time to do a bit of extra cooking. Instead of having a quick, rushed breakfast it’s possible to take the extra time to prepare something a little bit more elaborate and time-consuming.

Sunday evening can also be a good time to prepare a tasty dinner as well as doing a little bit towards preparations for the rest of the week.

In my case that meant that instead of simply prepping vegetables for dinner I also used the prepped vegetables and a variety of leftover vegetables to make a tasty soup. Yes, I’m still “cheating” and using a soup maker, but the end results is damn tasty.

Chopping up a bunch of fresh vegetables and making a soup out of them is quite satisfying 🙂

So for the next couple of days I know what I’ll be having at lunchtime – homemade vegetable soup and probably a banana or some other fresh fruit.

Tonight’s dinner worked out pretty well. Chicken pieces with a load of vegetables and plenty of herbs.

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The vegetables were fresh, but unfortunately I’m currently stuck with dried herbs, as my track record with fresh herbs has been pretty bad (short version – they keep dying on me!).