Thanksgiving Chef Tools Suggestions

Thanksgiving is quite possibly the best holiday: Food, football, napping, beer, snacks, parades, tryptophan, etc. Even if the turkey’s dry, the potatoes don’t mash right, and someone decides to make “real” cranberry sauce (I digress: real cranberry sauce is great, but it’s a food entirely separate from the canned, jellied cranberry sauce we’re used to, and it cannot be replicated in a home kitchen – it’s like someone saying they’re going to make “real” Doritos, or “real” Sprite. At any rate, I frown when someone makes it instead of just sticking with The Can.), the Lions lose and the Charlie Brown float goes down over Central Park, you still get to spend time with friends and family and bask in the glow of The Holidays.

But we here at Chef Tools want you have a perfect Thanksgiving. And since we’re in the business of providing people with cooking tools (or, chef tools, as we of course refer to them), here’s a list of necessary Thanksgiving cooking tools, plus a few cooking pointers. If you order any of these items today, you’ll get them before Thanksgiving. Visit our Thanksgiving Essentials Department for even more useful gadgets. Happy turkey day! 

Norpro Poultry Timer

The Norpro Reusable Turkey and Poultry Timer: Because you can cook a turkey any day of the year. This little guy is both cute and functional – its timer is set to go off when the interior hits between 160 – 165 degrees. That’s the perfect temperature for a moist bird; it’s also the recommended cooking temperature from the USDA. ($11.95)

Chicago Metallic Commercial II Nonstick Roast N Broil Pan (withrack): A reasonably priced turkey roaster pan that will hold up for generations. Made of aluminum, this roaster pan distributes heat evenly; the removable rack sits just above the bottom of the pan, allowing juices to accumulate (and later turn into delicious gravy). But the best part? It’s entirely dishwasher safe, minimizing cleanup. ($44.95)

Trudeau Gravy Fat Separator & Strainer (4-cup capacity): This tool is self-explanatory; use this fat separator so you’re healthier and thus live longer to experience more Thanksgivings! ($12.95)

RSVP Potato Ricer

RSVP Potato Ricer: Can you say “perfect mashed potatoes?” P-E-R-F-E-C-T M-A-S-H-E-D P-O-T-A-T-O-E-S. If you mix potatoes in a food processor they get gummy, and no one wants to eat potatoes with the consistency of roofing tar. If you mash potatoes with a hand masher, they come out lumpy (some people like this, and that’s fine, by we think your guests will enjoy creamy potatoes better). The ricer squeezes potatoes into fluffy little jewel that you can mix with butter, salt, pepper, sour cream (dear lord I’m starting to salivate), milk, garlic … whatever your recipe. Perfection. ($13.95)

Fat Daddio's 12” Pie Pan: My family was big into pies. My mother, aunts, great aunts and grandmother(s) would each bake a pie at Thanksgiving. And though everyone in the family was within a 45-minute drive, no one liked to leave their precious pans at Aunt Pat’s or Cousin Jim’s. You won’t have that problem with the Fat Daddio’s Pie Pan. Why? The low price means you can get 3 or 4 – enough pie pans for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and July 4 (red, white and blue cheesecake). These pans are made of anodized aluminum, so they distribute heat evenly and won’t scratch. On second thought, keep an eye out that Aunt Pat doesn’t abscond with Fat Daddio’s pie plate. ($7.95)

The versatily LamsonSharp slicing knife

LamsonSharp Pro 10" Slicing Knife: Ultra sharp, reasonably priced, and made in America. Use this LamsonSharp knife to carve turkey, duck, roast beef, tofu turkey or anything else you want to serve up in slices. This knife features a hygienic polypropylene handle– it does not absorb bacteria, oil, and flavors like a wood handle. ($22.95)

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Not signed up for Chef Tools’ daily deals? Click here, sign up and start saving on excellent kitchen gadgets and housewares!

As Groupon’s imitators continue to pop up and its stock continues to trend downward, we here at Chef Tools decided to go DIY and run our own deals. We call it ChefTool du Jour (get it? Chef Tool of the day?), and we’re very happy to report that our customers have been quite pleased. Our daily deals have quickly become one of the most popular parts of ChefTools.com.

Here’s how it works: Each Wednesday we send out a newsletter that contains updates, new products and the Chef Tool du Jour. All you have to do to get the deal is sign up for the newsletter and click the link when it arrives in your inbox. Oh, and we know how annoying it can be to get constant, daily emails from a website, and we’re not going to do that to you (and, of course, we don’t share your email address with anyone). This is a weekly email.

If you head over to ChefTools.com right now, you’ll see we have two deals going this week, both centered on designer Jill Butler’s Parisian-themed Rendev-Vous collection. With one deal, you buy 4 high quality placemats for only $29.99, and you get 6 machine-blown glass tumblers for free. With the other deal, you buy an awesome serving tray for $19.99, and you get a set of 4 appetizer plates for free. 

I don’t want to spill the beans on future deals, but they’re going to be good. When we put these deals together, we’re thinking of you, but we also have the holidays in mind. Many of these sets would make great gifts for friends and family. 

Don’t miss out: Sign up for our newsletter and get in the loop on the Chef Tools deal of the day!

Choose Meri Meri V&A collection for your next holiday party

V&A Reindeer Place Card

It’s never too early to start thinking about decorating for holiday parties and dinners. November and December are the best months of winter because we get to spend so much time with friends and family – best of all, most of that time is spent in our homes, around a dinner table packed with scrumptious food.

For sure, food is a main attraction. But what about the rest of the table, the rest of the house? Are there elegant ornaments hanging from the ceiling? Are your cocktail napkins in the spirit of the season? Are your cupcakes shrouded in beautiful silver and gold wrappers?

New this year from Meri Meri, one of the world’s leading party decoration makers, is the Victoria and Albert collection. These pieces were inspired by textiles from the famous Victoria and Albert Museum of design in London, and are appropriate for any holiday party between now and New Year’s.

V&A Cocktail Napkins

Meri Meri’s V&A collection has all the items you’d expect: from cocktail napkins to ornaments, place cards, luminaries, plates and centerpieces. Each piece features an intricate silver and gold pattern; like what you’d imagine the Queen of England’s wallpaper must be like.

Browse the V&A collection and buy a few pieces to make your next holiday party more wonderful and more beautiful. String the snowflake garland around the living room, place the cocktail napkins next to the appetizers, put the place cards around the table, and enjoy the warmth of a holiday party with loved ones.

Mad Bakeware: Fat Daddio's Mad Dadder Cake Pans

Image from Colette's Cakes

What!? That cake looks crazy! It’s so tilted and delicious looking that I’m getting dizzy! 

It’s called a Mad Hatter cake, a style popularized by baker Colette Peters of Colette’s Cakes. It totally broke the cake mold (pun!) and I don’t see how anyone could go back to baking regularly-shaped cakes after seeing this. 

And now, thanks to Fat Daddio’s Bakeware, you can make a Mad Hatter cake at home. Fat Daddio’s has constructed a pan that bakes tilted cakes that can be stacked to create the Mad Hatter cake effect. The closest object I can compare it to - and this is not meant to be appetizing – is a pool: one end is shallow, one end is deep, which creates a kind of right triangle with its top cut off.

The innovation with Fat Daddio’s Mad Dadder pans is that it comes with a stand to hold up the shallow end so that cakes bake up level. These pans come in square and round shapes and in 4 different sizes (6, 8, 10 and 12 inches). 

The Mad Dadder. Notice the stand on the left that keeps the pan level.

Buy one pan and you can use frosting to illustrate different tilted layers (good for creating a Cat In The Hat hat cake). But even better, buy several different sizes and you can stack the cakes up like a pyramid, creating that wonderful whirling effect. 

Square, round and rectangle cakes have had their day. They are bland (not in taste, just the way they look), staid, old news.  Buy a Mad Dadder pan (or pans) and start having fun with your cake and eat it, too.

Hot Chocolate With Whipped Cream

iSi 1 pint

I was half watching the evening news on Monday when I witnessed the weatherman make a grim prediction: “lows in the mid-30s.” He was talking about a town tens of miles from where I live, but it’s inevitable that chilly temperatures are coming. (And will stick around for, oh, I don’t know, 5 months?)

The best defense? Hot chocolate with whipped cream. 

Maybe apple cider with whipped cream is appropriate right now or at least until Nov. 1. Then it’s time for hot chocolate with whipped cream. Deeper into winter I’ll go for an Irish coffee with whipped cream.  The point is: whipped cream can get you through most grim situations. 

iSi 1/2 pint

Those fluffy, sweet clouds of aerated heavy cream complement almost anything (toast, strawberries, and even hot dogs). So would it not be prudent to have a device handy that can produce whipped cream in seconds?

Chef Tools recently added several fine whippers by iSi. These attractive, durable little stainless steel devices (“little” is an understatement, they have up to a 1 pint capacity) use nitrous oxide to produce whipped cream. You can also store your cream inside them in the refrigerator.

More, they can whip almost any liquid in a frothy cream. Turn butternut squash soup into delicious topping for vegetables (or butternut squash soup!). Cut down on calories and whip soy or coconut milk for a delicious non-dairy topping. You could even whip hot chocolate and use it as a topping for hot chocolate. These are just examples. Prepare for winter the right way and get an iSi whipper to keep your mind, body and soul from freezing in snowstorms and frigid temperatures.

Beware! The Chef Tools Halloween Department!

Lucks Dec Ons cake decorations

Forget vampires, zombies, ghouls, haunted houses and tiny, tiny candy bars – Halloween is all about the pumpkin. The gourd’s wonderful orange hue adorns everything from aprons to cast iron baking dishes (and a lot of other stuff). Even better, that sweet/savory pumpkin flavor works its way into everything from muffins to coffee to donuts to beer. Even oven-roasted pumpkin is a treat on a cool, rainy fall evening.

Thus, Halloween – and the weeks before - is still sweet for folks who are a little too old to dress up like Shrek and collect pounds of candy from the neighbors.  

Here at Chef Tools, we're well aware of the wonderfulness of Halloween, pumpkins, the color orange and caramel apples – so we’ve created an entirely new Halloween-themed department for all your Oct. 31 needs. And, we’ve reduced prices on many key items - you'll 15% off all items. 

Start with this LamsonSharp carving knife (made in the USA) and slice a scary grin into an orange gourd, or use it to turn that tasty pumpkin meat into a pie. Or flavoring for cupcake …

We have a great selection of Paper Bakeware Halloween-themed baking cups. Just fill the wrappers with batter and place in the oven. The paper is oven safe, so there’s no need to dirty a pan and the cupcakes (or cake) come out in a lovely wrapper. 

Serve the cupcakes at your Halloween party with decorations by Meri Meri. Get intricate cupcake holders, like that giant spider below; plus, we have plenty of plates, napkins and cups for all your guests. My favorite, the haunted house table centerpiece complete with ghosts, witches and craggy trees.

Meri Meri Spider Cupcake Holder Set

Check out our Halloween department. There are over 75 items, from cake molds to serving trays to food coloring. Everything you need to enjoy (a pumpkin-flavored) Halloween. Order today and get your items weeks ahead of Halloween!

Hey bakers and cake decorators, stop squandering pastry bags!

The Bag Adapter Kit

The Bag Adapter Kit is one of those ingenious products that could only come from the mind of someone who’s intimate with a particular trade. This trade happens to be cake decorating and the inventor is Michelle Hageman.

A baker/decorator for 30 years in the San Diego area, Hageman got tired of having pastry bags that could only accommodate one size coupler. To wit:

“At the end of the week, when you work in a bakery, you’re down to bags that will only get used if you’re putting icing on a cake or cupcake,” she told a the host of a morning TV news program. “When you go to get a coupler to put through the bag itself, you’ll find you have a bag you can’t use.”

“I got tired of that. Who wants to stop what they’re doing and go buy more bags?”

So, Hageman invented the Bag Adapter Kit (“we’ve got your BAK” seems to be company’s motto). It’s a simple, inexpensive device: a conical plastic piece that slides inside any pastry bag allowing you to use any size coupler (and thus decorating tip) with the bag – no matter how big the hole you cut. The BAK essentially returns the pastry bag to its original, uncut form. Here’s a video with Hageman demonstrating the BAK:

You can get a BAK at Chef Tools right now. We’re very excited about it. A long season of holiday baking kicked off last week with Rosh Hashanah, so what better time to try the BAK? Save time, save money, save pastry bags, save a trip to the store. Above all, create awesome baked confections. If you decorate cakes, cupcakes or anything else – whether as your job, hobby or for your grateful family – the BAK was made for you.

(And trying BAK benefits a good cause: Hageman donates 2 percent of all proceeds to the charity, Autism Speaks.)