With the 171st comment (selected from 190 eligible comments using Random.org’s True Random Number Generator), CrunchGear reader Peter Van Loan takes home the grand prize from this weekend’s pump-action salt and pepper grinder giveaway with “i love salt! give them to me, please!!!!” That’s five total exclamation points!!!!!

Vat19.com will be sending the salt and pepper grinders to Peter shortly. Thanks for playing, everyone. Keep an eye out for more contests in the future.

Yes, the “Pump and Grind Salt and Pepper Mills” cost $20 apiece and allow you to season your favorite foods with one hand.

Made from restaurant-grade stainless steel, these may be the last salt and pepper apparatuses you’ll ever have to buy. Did I say “buy?” I meant, “win!” For free! You can win both — a $40 value — courtesy of Vat19.com.

HOW TO ENTER:

Just enter a comment on this post and we’ll pick a winner at random. Contest available to US residents only, please.

Entries will be counted until 11:59 PM Eastern time Sunday night and announced Monday morning. Make sure that the comment you leave contains a valid e-mail address so we can get in touch with you for your shipping address.

Pump and Grind Salt and Pepper Mills – One finger pump action mills [Vat19.com]

Yes, the “Pump and Grind Salt and Pepper Mills” cost $20 apiece and allow you to season your favorite foods with one hand.

Made from restaurant-grade stainless steel, these may be the last salt and pepper apparatuses you’ll ever have to buy.

Each includes salt or pepper grinds. For free!

Pump and Grind Salt and Pepper Mills – One finger pump action mills [Vat19.com]

Originally posted at Appliances & Kitchen Gadgets

I know, it’s about four days too late for these handy wind-up walking salt and pepper shakers to make Thanksgiving dinner more entertaining, but there’s always Christmas dinner less than a month away. Available soon from SUCK UK (for about $33) and designed by Marc Owens, these robots are yet another sign that automatons are slowly but steadily taking over all of mankind’s most menial tasks. And I for one welcome our mashed potato seasoning overlords.

[ Salt & Pepper Wind-Up Robots ] VIA [ Nerd Approved ]

Edible bridal shower favors are always a hit! Many people don’t like taking items home that will just end up cluttering shelves or sitting in the corner somewhere. Who wouldn’t like delicious chocolate favors or candy treats wrapped up in personalized party favor boxes? At www.americanbridal.com, you can find a vintage dress shaped cookies, cake shaped cookies and basic square or circle cookies that can be personalized with a monogram or a name (for $3.95). Another option for edible favors is to personalize a mint tin with the event (for instance “Jamie’s Bridal Shower, November 22, 2010″). These gifts are clever and cute, but best of all they are tasty!

Some brides feel the best personalized bridal shower favors are the practical ones. After all, not everyone necessarily needs another generic candle. American Bridal has a great selection of these types of shower favors. For instance, there are teapot tape measures ($1.40), passport covers ($2.54), luggage tags ($1.94), bottle openers ($2.08), muffin mixes ($3.90), sticky note pads ($1.95), “two peas in a pod” salt and pepper shakers ($2.71), “meant to bee” ceramic honey pot with wood dipper ($2.80) and heart-shaped measuring spoons ($11.30). These practical wedding shower favors can be used again and again in the home, not to mention they’ll be customized with the bride’s name and shower date, so people will always remember your thoughtfulness and generosity.

One of the most popular places to find personalized bridal shower favors is over at www.beau-coup.com. Here you can find fortune cookie favors that come with up to 3 lines of text at 35 characters on each line. These cookies can be decorated with hearts, sprinkles, chocolate and various colors of icing for added artistic flair. There are also unique, custom bridal shower party favors like caricature mint tins, water bottle labels, silk fans, lifesavers, M&Ms, monogrammed brownie pops, tea tins, note pads, wine glasses, caramel corn, mini bottles of oil and vinegar, two-tier mini cakes, seed packets, measuring tapes, mini suitcases filled with candy, matches, tissue packets, travel candles, disposable cameras, hot sauce bottles, hot chocolate, honey jars, golf balls, sewing kits, aluminum water bottles, jars, coffee, vases, note pads, sparkling cider, shot glasses and much more!

Beth Kaminski is the leading expert in the field of treatment for panic attacks and stop panic attack. For more information on tips to stop these attacks as well as how to prevent panic attacks, visit anxietydisordercure.com today.

If you prefer beef we have a cool summer recipe for you too. It’s called Steak and Tomato Basil Pasta . You should go out and buy for this one the following ingredients: 1 pound uncooked penne or mostaccioli pasta; 6 beef tenderloin steaks or 3 boneless beef top loin steaks cut 1 inches thick; ¼ cup of freshly grated Romano or Parmesan cheese; 1/3 cup of thinly sliced fresh basil or two teaspoons dried basil leaves; 1/8 teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 cup of chopped onion; 1 table spoon olive oil; 6 cups of chopped plum tomatoes (3 ¾ pounds); 3 large cloves of garlic, crushed; ¾ teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon granulated sugar. First you should take the pasta and cook it according to the directions that are on the box and after that put them into a closed bowl so that they will be kept warm.

One of our favorite salads is the Caesar Salad, because it is very easy and yummy to make. Today we will teach you how to do it and you will be amazed of how fast you will be done. You will need the next ingredients: garlic croutons, 1 small head of Romaine lettuce that you will torn into small bits, 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, 3 large cloves of garlic, ¼ cup of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 1 egg yolk, ¼ cup of parmesan cheese and 2 filets of anchovies.

For all you ‘fishy’ persons out there, you brought a special cool summer recipe: The Macadamia Nut Crusted Mahi Mahi. It’s a delight and you will clean every finger after eating this dish. To prepare this, you will need to purchase the following ingredients: ½ cup panko – Japanese bread crumbs; 5 ounces (1 ¼ cups ) coarsely ground, roasted macadamia nuts; 2 tablespoons flour; vegetable oil for the brushing foil; ¼ cup melted butter; 2 tablespoons coconut milk and kosher pepper and salt.

Gallery haters take note, to skip the slides and jump to a single long post, click here.

Equipment: A dishwasher. To make sure I got a good sense of the process, I tested out two machines, one from probably 1975 and one that’s maybe two or three years old. Both relatively cheap.

Ingredients:
For the Fish
• Two smallish fillets of salmon, about 4oz.
• Olive oil, salt, pepper

For the Cilantro Sauce (from Salon)
• 1 tbsp butter, lots of salt and pepper
• 1 leek, finely chopped
• 1 shallot, minced
• 1 jalapeño chile, seeds removed and diced
• 1.5 cups chicken stock
• 2 cups lightly packed cilantro leaves
• 3 tbsp lime juice
• 3 tbsp sour cream

Notes: This recipe cheats a little bit. The fish is cooked in the dishwasher, yes, but the sauce is made in usual boring fashion with a saucepan and a blender. A more MacGyverian side: Vegetables (asparagus, broccoli, etc) can be cooked in the dishwasher, sealed in a foil packet with butter, though you’ll have to take them out before the dry cycle kicks in or they’ll be overdone.

Step 1: Pull out three 12-inch square sheets of aluminum foil, and coat the shiny side of two of them with butter, oil or that aerosol spray stuff. Put both salmon fillets on one of these sheets and season with lime, salt and pepper.

Step 2: Put the other coated sheet of foil, coated side down, on top of the fillets, then press the two sheets of foil together and roll tightly from all four sides. Make sure your foil doesn’t tear or your dishwasher will smell like fish for at least a week. Wrap the last sheet of aluminum foil around the packet, as a last measure to keep your landlady from knowing you put fish in her dishwasher.

Step 3: Stick the double-wrapped foil packet on the top shelf of your dishwasher. (You can also stick dishes in there if you want.) Turn on the dishwasher, both a wash and a dry cycle. The key, says the original recipe, is to disable the Energy Star power saver mode (it won’t get hot enough) but to use the regular cycle instead of “pots and pans” (which makes it too hot).

Step 4: Start making your sauce. I followed the sauce instructions from Salon to a tee—it’s an easy sauce to make and tastes pretty good, though I think it’d be better on a taco than on delicately steamed fish. It’ll be done by the time your fish is out of the dishwasher.

Step 5: Here’s where things started to go wrong for me. The first dishwasher I tried is probably 30 years old and on a normal cycle can barely clean dishes. After a full wash and dry, my first attempt at dishwasher steamed salmon yielded…

Sashimi. Dammit. Lucky for me, I happened to move that very weekend, and my new place has a newish dishwasher that I immediately broke in by following steps 1 through 3. Little did I know that this was no ordinary dishwasher.

There must have been some kind of nuclear reaction happening in this dishwasher because it overcooked the crap out of my fish. We’re talking straight-up cat food here. At least I could just stick the undercooked fish in a frying pan and then have dinner. Not very MacGyver, but still dinner. This time, the dried-out piece of gross orange fish carcass was in no way salvageable.

The Results: After two disasters in a row, I can pronounce dishwasher salmon too finicky to be worth MacGyvering. I’m sure I could have played around with it and gotten it right (ruining several whole salmon in the process), but I just don’t think it’s worth it. Dishwashers are just too varied in heat to reliably steam fish, even one as forgiving as salmon. If you have tried it yourself, and can shed some light, please share in the comments.

After the bland success of coffee-maker poached chicken, dishwasher salmon was a big disappointment.

Taste Test is our weeklong tribute to the leaps that occur when technology meets cuisine, spanning everything from the historic breakthroughs that made food tastier and safer to the Earl-Grey-friendly replicators we impatiently await in the future.

Gallery haters take note, to skip the slides and jump to a single long post, click here.

Equipment: Just your bog-standard, hotel-issue drip coffee maker. Mine was $25. They’re all pretty much the same.

Ingredients:
• Boneless skinless chicken breasts (tenders are smaller and cook faster)
• 1-2 pats butter or margarine
• ~ 1/2 cup couscous
• Water
• Seasonings—I used one of Trader Joe’s herb/spice blends

Notes: MacGyver Chef is about doing something with as little gear as possible. So even though I have a full kitchen at my disposal, I limited all prep to the coffee maker and its carafe. I used this guide from WikiHow as a starter, though I veered from the recipe in flavoring the chicken and in my choice of a side. Remember to salt and pepper everything—this dish dangerously toes the line between edible and horribly bland, so season the crap out of it.

Step 1: Measure out about a centimeter of water in the carafe and dump it in the coffee maker’s reservoir to heat up. Then stick your chicken and butter in the carafe and douse it with seasoning. Flip the coffeemaker on and hot water will soon flow into the carafe.

Try to get the water to cover less than half the chicken; we’re poaching, not boiling, so if the water gets too high, dump the excess out in the sink. Let it cook 15 minutes on this side, stirring once so the butter mixes in with the poaching liquid.

Step 2: Flip your chicken. You’ll notice here that the chicken is cooking, but there’s no Maillard reaction (that’s what Alton-Brown-loving nerds call browning). Coffee makers just don’t get hot enough to brown meat. I later tried to pan-fry a cutlet on the burner and it refused to take on any color even then. It’s probably just as well, because if the coffeemaker got hot enough to brown meat, it’d burn the crap out of your coffee—and your mouth. Let it cook for another 15 minutes on this side, then remove from the carafe. It’s time to prep your side dish.

Step 3: I chose couscous. The original recipe suggested instant mashed potatoes, but it also used the word “flakes” to describe these so-called potatoes, which is creepy enough to be discouraging. I decided to try an entirely different starch. Couscous cooks incredibly fast and all it takes is hot liquid, which coincidentally we already have. Taste your liquid, and if it needs more seasoning, adjust it. I found mine needed extra everything: herbs, salt, pepper and even a little more butter.

Step 4: Dump in couscous in a 1:1 ratio with the liquid. I just eyeballed it, but be careful not to put in more couscous than liquid or it’ll end up crunchy. Put the couscous-filled carafe back on the burner and let it sit for about five minutes or until the liquid’s all absorbed.

Step 5: Finally, plate it up and serve with wine. I selected a Cabernet Sauvignon from the esteemed Charles Shaw (2008, an excellent year) to pair with the dish. It didn’t seem to complement the chicken until I’d drunk three-quarters of the bottle, at which point it became delicious. Such is the subtlety of this particular bottle, I suppose. If you’ve got more than $2 to spend on wine, a Chardonnay might be the more obvious choice.

Glory shot. If I’d had any, I’d have steamed some asparagus in the basket where the coffee usually goes. (To steam veggies, you just run water through the machine a few times.) I could have then layered it with the chicken and couscous for some color, but one can’t be too picky.

The Results: Well, it tasted like poached chicken breast. That’s pretty much the most boring way to prepare the most boring cut of any animal I can think of, but the coffee maker did a perfectly fine job of it. The chicken was moist and the texture was about right, and it is an incredibly easy way to make a meal. I could see this recipe being useful if you’re stuck in a hotel room somewhere—and just happen to have a raw chicken breast on you.

Tomorrow’s MacGyver Chef recipe will be an urban-legend favorite: Fish steamed in the dishwasher. Stay tuned.

Taste Test is our weeklong tribute to the leaps that occur when technology meets cuisine, spanning everything from the historic breakthroughs that made food tastier and safer to the Earl-Grey-friendly replicators we impatiently await in the future.