Don't Let the Men Have All the Good Tools!

Here I am, sitting with a cup of chamomile tea, writing to you. It has been an extremely productive day. If ever I had a day that I accomplished the Proverbs 31 challenge, today would have been the day.

But I have to tell you, I have a lot of great appliances in my kitchen to help me along. And today, two of them definitely proved more useful than the rest.

The first, my BreadmanUltimatePlus. An unbelievable find at a thrift store! It has served me faithfully for the past 3 years, kneading out loaf after loaf. Minimum 3 loaves a week, and frequently many more. One of my favorite tricks with the Breadman, is to stop the process right before the baking starts. I preheat my oven (of course), pop the dough out of the Breadman and into two lovely cast-iron pans (bless my mother-in-law!) and Presto! it looks like I kneaded all day!

And I haven't even mentioned my Nutramill, which makes all of this delicious, nourishing goodness possible! :) 

The second favorite appliance of the day is my British Berkefeld. This water filtration device is a step above the rest! My husband and I cleaned it out just the other day and here are the results:



The top three ceramic filters are waiting to be scrubbed. The lowest one has already been cleaned. The British Berkefeld (a.k.a. Big Berkey) prevented that nasty silt from the old lead pipes from getting into our drinking water. I cook with this water, I water my plants from this water and I drink this water! It is some of the purest tasting H2O that I have ever enjoyed. And not only does it take out any large molecules, there are four more filters that take out fluoride and any other stray chemicals that should not be consumed. It's a step above any other water filtration technology I have ever seen. The British field troops use this same technology, and, theoretically, you could pour ditch water into this beast and get clean drinking water. Not that I haven't been tempted to try it... I just don't want to have to clean it out! :)

Both of these appliances make it into our "must have" list. They have proved their usefulness time and again. I love being able to put in less than ten minutes of measuring and wheat grinding to get a fragrant, delectable loaf 3 hours later. And I love the fact that, no matter where we live and what water is supplied us, we have pure drinking water.