My Love For Kitchen Gadgets - T-Fal VitaCuisine

I love to cook. I love to bake. I LOVE to shop in kitchen section of stores. I just browse looking for a new gadget. One of my favorite gadgets right now is this steamer. My little sister bought a steamer last year and raved about it. I was perfectly content with my pot and little silicone insert that worked just fine... but was rather difficult to get the veggies out after without dropping them in the water. When I found this steamer on good old kijiji I seriously considered not buying it. It was $40 lightly used. But when I took a trip to Walmart and looked at their steamers, I realized it was a good deal so I snatched it up. Now I am absolutely obsessed with it. You can do almost anything with it and it is perfect for the new healthy lifestyle that I am trying to live. Steaming food is a much healthier alternative. I am able to steam carrots and broccoli, make rice from scratch and even steam a chicken breast all at the same time in under an hour. I originally thought the sound of steamed chicken breast was disgusting, but decided I had to try it. Not as good as a slow cooked or bbq'd chicken breast but it is pretty darn good. As long as I throw a lot of my herbs and spices in the rice and on the chicken I don't miss using soy sauce and other condiments.

My model is a T-Fal VitaCuisine. Its not that cheap to buy brand new but I love mine. I have seen other steamers that include a rice bowl and I would strongly suggest that you buy one. I gave away my rice cooker as I find that steaming works better for me and tastes fantastic. The convenience of making everything in one container is amazing. My one suggestion is that the rice takes longer to cook than the recipe book suggests. They suggested about 30 minutes. I'm guessing that is for white rice. I make 1/4 c brown rice with 1/2 c water and tons of Mrs Dash seasoning and other spices and herbs. Put water in the bottom of the steamer, turn on for 60 minutes and away you go. When there is around 40 minutes left I toss in my carrots, at 20 minutes I will add my thawed chicken breast. If I decide to add broccoli I would add it with about 7-10 minutes. Each time the lid is taken off the steam all escapes. The simple solution is to just push the turbo steam button at the top to get the steam back to full. I love it. Easy no fuss meal that I usually make 4-5 times a week!

Pros: Easy to use, one stop meal, able to steam 3-4 different things at once, convenient, makes delicious healthy foods

Cons: Short cord - make sure you are not steaming directly under your cupboards as the steam the escapes can cause damage to them, price for brand new is high, large steamer and can take up quite a bit of your cupboard space.