Wrought Iron Shelf Unit for Counter/Desk Review

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(More customer reviews)I purchased for my kitchen. This shelf is very attractive and just the size and look I wanted for my countertop. I would purchase from this company again without hesitation. I got exactly what I wanted and the price was right.

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Our hand wrought iron pieces are made for us in the Lancaster County, PA. Amish community. With classic style and functional design, these versatile pieces blend into most decorating schemes, This is solid iron-not wire. These pieces are finished in Satin Black and work well in any room. This is our new small Baker's Rack or Counter Shelf. It is just over 12 inches wide and 9 3/4 inches front to back. The total height is 15 1/2 inches at the back to the top of the scrolls. This has 2 shelves which are 6 inches apart and measure 11 3/4 inches by 9 1/2 inches. Paper measures 11 by 8 1/2 and fits nicely. This is a great way to display your baskets and organize the kitchen or your desk as well! It also is great in the bath for towels and toiletries.

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Mikasa Garden Harvest 5-Piece Place Setting, Service for 1 Review

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(More customer reviews)We have used our Mikasa Garden Harvest dinnerware for every-day use for 9 years and have been very pleased. However, I would suggest that before you purchase, you make sure your dishwasher can accommodate the large (11") dinner plates.

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Subtle coloration and a softly matte texture create a feeling that is welcoming and casual. Celebrating the bounty of Mother Nature is a theme uniquely appropriate for dining rooms and kitchens and this design will harmonize with dEcors both modern and traditional. The mix and match possibilities within the Garden Harvest Collection will please those who like to create a unique expression of style.

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Excalibur 3900 Deluxe Series 9 Tray Food Dehydrator - Black Review

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(More customer reviews)I've used virtually every dehydrator on the market and even a few home-made versions. Trust me when I say that this dehydrator is the best you can get for the money.
The round tower-type dehydrators are inexpensive for a good reason: they aren't worth it.
-The trays are flimsy and crack too easily.
-The holes on these trays are too big to use with herbs or diced foods, so you must use the mesh inserts.
-You only have about 1/2" of space between trays, so you cannot dry bulky items--like flowers or granola.
-When it comes to fruit leather, the only thing more inefficient than the round shape is the hole in the middle. Yes, I know they come with fruit leather trays, but have you ever tried to store fruit leather pealed off of the tray and rolled up? A shredded mess to begin with and a sticky mess once they've stored for a while.
-With the motor on the bottom any food or juices that fall through the cracks shortens the life of the machine.
-The drying process in these tower-types is not uniform--the bottom trays dry quicker than the top trays, the center dries quicker than the edges.
-Some models have only recently started adding temp controls. Still, it does little good because there is more heat on the bottom than the top.
-The motor is loud--I had one model I had to run on the porch because it was so loud.
The two round models I bought died within a year and a half of use.
The next best dehydrator on the market is the L'Eqip. It is much quieter, comes with a healthy 10yr warranty and has temperature controls. But it is a hybrid with many of the faults of the round models and few of the benefits of the square-shaped Excalibur. It still has a hole in the middle. It still dries unevenly. It has deeper trays but you still can't dry flowers. It still has a motor on the bottom. I have a friend who dried berries in her L'Equip. They leaked on the motor and it died the first summer of use. Now granted, the folks at L'Equip stood by their machine and replaced it for her with no hassle, but how many times do you want your summer-time dehydrating held up while you wait for your replacement to come?
The Excalibur is perfect for anyone who is serious about dehydrating. Here are the features that I like:
-Heat source and fan are in the back, forcing air to distribute evenly throughout the chamber. Other than the way you place the food, there is no reason for uneven drying spots.
-Love the timer. I can set it and leave. It'll turn off automatically whether or not I'm there. That means 'round the clock drying during the height of your summer harvest. Put the food in when you go to bed, wake up to dried food and put another batch in.
-Temp control lets you choose low heats for herbs and flowers, higher temps for fruits and jerky.
-Love the square trays. For fruit leather I line the trays with plastic wrap and spread the fruit puree out. When it's dry I cut the leather into 2" wide strips, roll them up and secure with the tail end of the plastic wrap. The plastic peels off easily when it's time to eat.
-BIG trays--you can pack a LOT of food into this. This is especially important at the height of the summer harvest when there's a non-stop stream of food that needs drying. (This is also the one single thing that is in my negative column--the trays don't fit flat in my kitchen sink, making them a little hard to wash. I solve this by washing them in my outdoor garden sink--old fashioned tubs on a stand. Since I like the big trays, I really shouldn't complain.)
-Mesh liner on all trays. I can dry herbs, diced onions and finely chopped fruits without having it fall to trays below. No food cross-contamination means I can dehydrate more than one thing at a time.
-Removable trays. If I have bulky items--flowers, herbs, granola, etc--I can just remove every other tray and have another 1/2" or more room.
-Makes a great proofing box for sourdough. Also good for culturing yogurt, esp if you like to make it in larger containers. For both sourdough and yogurt, make sure it is covered so that the moving air doesn't dry it out.
-10 yr warranty. I've had mine for almost 15 yrs and it's still going strong. Every year the money I save on herbs alone pays for what it originally cost me. That means this machine has paid for itself 15 times over.
If you're at all serious about dehydrating, don't waste your money like I did--get the best from the get go. That's the Excalibur.
(Written by Ross' wife. He's also happy that I like it so well and have gotten so much good use from it.)


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Excalibur 3900 Deluxe Series 9 Tray Food DehydratorThe 3900 Deluxe Series is a 9-Tray food dehydrator that is great for families that love eating healthy!Drying food is fun! The Excalibur Dehydrator allows you to dry anything evenly and efficiently. The unit can dry all fruits, vegetables, meats, and more! Make fruit leathers and home-made jerky - FRESH! The Excalibur has a trademarked horizontal-airflow drying system which dries foods perfectly evenly on all the trays.Dehydrating is a great way to add a new way of consuming foods without damaging valuable nutrients which may be lost during high heat cooking! Dried foods are a great treat to snack on because they hold almost all of their nutritional value and flavor.This unit differs from other dehydrators because of its unique horizontal drying system in the rear of the unit. This provides a sure way to provide an even dehydration process as the warm air removes moisture and is pushed out the front of the machine. There is also no need to rotate trays because of the horizontal drying.Includes instruction manual with over 50 recipes!

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Organic Kamut Seed- 1 Lb- Kamut (QK-77) Grain Seeds- For Flour, Bread, Baking, Cooking, Food Storage, Sprouting Review

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(More customer reviews)The Kamut we wanted to sprout then dry the sprouts, grind to flour with them, add them to our sprouted wheat flour, to add extra protein to our sprouted whole wheat bread. We want the burst of extra nutrition that grains gain from being sprouted.
The Kamut sprouted very well and has a great taste to add flavor to our sprouted wheat home bread and can be a flavorful part of a breakfast cereal as we make our own granola.

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Kamut - Triticum turanicum
Kamut is an ancient strain of wheat related to durum wheat. It is also known as QK-77. An individual grain of Kamut looks like regular wheat only the individual grain seed is more than twice the length of regular wheat.
Kamut allegedly an ancinet grain grown by the egyptians. The story goes that a jar of the grain was discovered in an egyptian tomb and sprouted. It is sometimes called 'King Tut's Wheat'.
Kamut grain is just as versatile as wheat and can be used from everything from sprouting, to kamut flour to beer making.
Kamut contains 30% more protein than wheat and some people who are intolerant of wheat find that they have less trouble with Kamut. Indeed it's popularity is due in large part because some people with allergy can tolerate Kamut (but check with your doctor first if you do have a wheat allergy). It contains less fiber and gluten than wheat. It is higher in lipids, amino acids, vitamins and minerals than regular wheat.
You can substitute Kamut and Kamut flour for any recipe calling for wheat or wheat flour. It makes bread that is a little more dense and heavy than bread made with wheat.
Kamut is a flavorful grain that is naturally less bitter and sweeter than wheat. If you bake with it you might experiment with using less sugar than usual.

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Baobob Tree 8 Seeds - Monkey Bread Tree - Adamsonia Review

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(More customer reviews)Very hardy seeds! :) No shipping protection! :(
I only planted two of the seeds in ordinary potting soil (which came with "6 months" fertilizer already in it), and in about a week one of the seeds has stuck out a fat white shoot and started digging.
You will not receive instructions, and unfortunately your seeds will not arrive with any protection from the cold or from crushing injury during shipment. HIRTS, please at least wrap the little guys in bubble wrap, the receipt does not protect from harm. I ordered the baobabs, phantom miracle tree, and eucalyptus. The baobabs made it fine because the seeds are big and hard, and the eucalyptus seeds are smaller than mustard seeds so they use quantum tunnelling to escape harm, but one of the phantom miracle seeds was crushed almost to dust.
That's a sad sight to see because I think of them all as babies. All seeds arrived in tiny zip lock baggies wrapped in a folded receipt. Somebody please update if they change this practice because I am thankful somebody is offering these interesting plant seeds.
The growing baobab is a healthy little guy, very thick shoot, and I have a feeling it's going to take over the world in a few more weeks.
I'm naive about plants in general and very much a beginner with bonsais, so this is a surprise. This is my first seedling ever, and I'd never even heard of a 'baobab' before stumbling into it here on Amazon while digging for unusual fruit trees.
The pictures melted my heart in an instant and I had to try.
After ordering, I researched what I was getting into and took the advice of others for planting: With a pair of large scissors I scraped at the side of both seeds to make a light notch, about 1.5 mm wide. NOT deep through the shell, but mostly just getting the gunk off the exterior and making a weak spot. There's a different color underneath and I was disturbed when I saw it, thinking maybe I'd killed the poor things by cutting too deep.
I filled up a coffee mug with water and heated it in a microwave for about a minute. I made sure the water was only hot to the touch, not scalding. If I couldn't stand to keep my finger in it deep for too long, I wasn't dropping a seed in it. Bathwater hot.
I took a half-sheet of a paper towel and stuffed it down to the bottom of my coffee mug to keep the seeds off the bottom, dropped the seeds in on top, and put the mug of water & seeds on my coffee warmer for a timed hour. It's a cheap warmer and coffee is always lukewarm even when the warmer is on high.
After an hour of "cooking," I dug a little hole about an inch deep in the soil they were headed for, and carefully stuck both seeds in the hole and covered them over. Then I poured the hot water from the mug over the soil to give them a running start. I have not watered them since because the soil stayed wet all week, nothing else in the soil to dry it out.
This Friday, about a week from planting, I gently shifted the soil to see if anything was afoot down there, and I found a baby baobab!
I'm currently replanting the guy in a bigger pot. The first pot was a standby empty pot but small, I didn't expect success, and I figure it's a big tree naturally and even as a bonsai it probably needs some respect. For the replanting I'm going to try a 50/50 "desert sand" mixed with the original rich potting soil. If you research it, you'll find that they do not need a "dry season"... people have found that they keep growing year-round as long as your "rainy season" (artificial or not) keeps going.
Other growers prefer the natural approach and are so rough they throw the poor thing in the basement under a table on its side for half the year to simulate a dry season. Supposedly that abused/natural baobab picks up and carries on the next year when righted and watered and given sun again. This tree is a survivor, and I'm glad it's one I'm trying for.
If it helps: The pot with baobab seeds has been in a cold office all week. This is destined to be an office bonsai, it's the only "property" I have, and I can't help my own environment. It's winter time (Virginia), it's chilly, and the building turns the heat off at night and over the weekends.
I placed the pot with seeds under a 24/7 fluorescent desk lamp, and that's where it's been all week. Even with the chill, and even though it's normal rich potting soil which is still wet, and even though I'm an idiot with plants, I've got a happy little seedling trying to take off! With only a first time ever 2-seed try, YAY!
Thank you Hirts for a chance at something unusual, shipping methods aside.
---
Technically it's Baobab/Adansonia but perhaps spellings are interchangeable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baobab

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Adansonia digitata is a tree of the African tropics. It is seldom more than 40 feet tall but has an enormously thick trunk which can be as much as 30 feet in diameter, making it almost as wide as it is high. The spongy tissue of the trunk holds water which enables the tree to withstand drought conditions. Baobab bark is used as a source of fiber for ropes and for paper-making. The tree has large white hanging flowers and fruits known as "monkey bread". Fruit pulp is used to make a lemonade-like drink. Makes a great house plant or patio plant!

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