I was thinking about how I missed having an indoor thermometer that measures humidity. It’s such a small specific thing, one I’d never think of getting unless pushed to it (which I was by one particularly dry winter). But I like having one now.

What are your small, “random” or “junk drawer” type of gadgets that you actually use or like having around?

  • Rob T Firefly@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    If you like boiled eggs, you need a boiled egg timer.

    It’s a clear “egg” made of heat-tolerant plastic with a color-changing temperature gauge visible inside. You throw it into the pot when boiling eggs and it lets you know when the eggs are soft boiled, medium boiled, or hard boiled. It’s very readable even in boiling water, and the results are always perfectly accurate. These things are totally worth the few dollars they cost.

    • mysticpickle@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      I dunno. No matter how “heat tolerant” plastic claims to be repeated exposure to high heat seems like it’d increase the chance you’d be dosing all your foods with micro plastics and other plastic related chemicals.

      Like I’d never put anything made of plastic that touches food in the microwave myself, heat resistant or not :#

    • Player2@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      May I suggest an actual timer? Almost all of us already have one, it’s even more precise, and does not require additional plastic waste. 7:30 makes a perfect medium egg every time.

    • PineRune@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I got an egg cooker that came with a small measuring cup for water, which told you how much to put in for soft/medium/hard-boiled. It’s about $10 and cooks up to 7 at a time. Others can do more. I’m never cooking eggs in a pot again, as long as I have this.

      • ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 months ago

        I’ve seen those, and while the appeal of something I can set and not have to turn off at an exact time is there, I always felt like cleaning it looks like a bigger hassle than cleaning a small pot.

        The one I remember seeing had you puncture the base of the eggs, and then they sit on a plastic tray over a heated metal pad. The metal pad is attached to the heating element so you can’t just scrub that with soapy water if any egginess sticks to it. The plastic tray also looked like it had a lot of nooks and crannies where all sorts of eggy proteins can get stuck.

        That and single-purpose appliances don’t really appeal to me as I don’t have much space. Not to discount how helpful they are for people with different physical needs than me, but I don’t know.

        I eat enough hard boiled eggs that I consider getting one every so often, which is why this comment is as unnecessarily long as it is.

        • PineRune@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          If you’re just hard-boiling, it shouldn’t get dirty at all. It just steams the eggs, and I keep the side with the hole facing up so nothing has come out. I’ve only scrubbed it once, and that was from the hard water buildup I got.

    • marx2k@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Got a few cheap ones from Amazon Each one worked once and the egg still came out harder than was supposed to