christine-murphy dot net

Sometimes, you find you need a part for an appliance, but have no luck finding it at a local store. You might think that you need to replace the entire appliance. But this is not necessarily so…before you shop for a new blender, food processor, shaver, or whatever, swing on over to Goodmans.net to see if they have the part you need!

I have a Hamilton Beach blender, that I’ve had for over 10 years now. It still works fine, the only problem is that there’s this plastic screw ring thingy on the bottom of the blender jar that cracks ever few years and needs to0 be replaced. This thing, to be exact.

Goodman’s is the only place that I have found that sells just this one part. You can’t even get the screw thingy by itself from Hamilton Beach’s website, you have to buy a whole kit that comes with a blade and a top. That kind of sucks if you don’t NEED those parts. It’s only that one part that cracks.

I discovered Goodman’s about five years ago, when that blender part cracked the first time. I was thinking that I’d have to buy a whole new blender, as many companies tend to make the parts different for each and every model of something. Braun has become notorious for doing that with their electric razors, this is why Mike won’t buy Braun any more. But I was able to find a replacement foil and cutter for his last Braun shaver at Goodman’s, and that one held out until the shaver finally died.

Anyway, five years later, that same blender part cracked again…I guess five years is the limit for these things. This time, I ordered TWO of the part, so now I’m set for the next ten years, or until the blender up and croaks, whichever comes first.

The one downside with this company is that the shipping costs are a bit steep, if I had just ordered one $3.00 screw ring, it would have cost more to ship it than the actual cost of the item. What I did was order a bunch of stuff at the same time, to make the cost worthwhile. Mike’s Remington shaver was dying, and there is really no way to open it up and replace the battery. You have to take it to a repair shop for that, and we decided it would just be cheaper to buy a new shaver. I got him the same one, since he already had a replacement screen and cutter for that model, still in the package (and also bought from Goodman’s). So now he can make use of those parts on the new shaver, and it made the high shipping cost worthwhile.

Despite the high shipping costs, it is probably still worth it to seek out replacement parts there, than to buy a whole new whatever. I paid $50.00 for that blender ten years ago, I got it on QVC, and at the time, it was a higher-end Hamilton Beach. So, even with the shipping, buying the part (or even two, as I did this time) is far cheaper than buying a similar quality blender.

Shipping is fast. You can choose UPS or USPS Priority Mail. Being able to choose your shipping method is a HUGE plus for me, as I often need to be able to ship to our P.O. box. I had our last order shipped to the P.O. box, and it arrived in three business days, as advertised.

This may not be the place for buying nice bridesmaid gifts…there are lots of other sites for that. But for some of life’s little necessities, such as spare parts, I highly recommend Goodman’s!

…but it ‘s been a busy past five days. Wednesday, we went up to Manchester, NH, for the Eastern League All-Star Game. We stayed overnight at the Hilton Garden Inn near the ballpark, and had a room with a view of said ballpark. That was a great time!

We came home on Thursday, but not for long…Friday, we headed up to Maine, with plans to go to a Portland Sea Dogs game. That game got rained out, though. Still, we stayed overnight in York Beach, and the next day, Saturday, went to the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, as well as Federal Jack’s brewpub.

Came home again Saturday night, only to go out again Sunday, back to Manchester, for a Fisher Cats game. That was just a day trip, though.

It was all a great time, except for the rainout, and I hated to see the long weekend end. Still, I feel like I need some bodybuilding supplements, to get some more energy!

But yeah, I’m still alive!

A few weeks ago, they were giving out free packages of these Entenmann’s Little Bites products, outside of MerchantsAuto.com Stadium, after the Fisher Cats game.  These were full-sized boxes, and they had a choice of Blueberry Muffins or Brownies.  Mike took a box of blueberry muffins, and I got brownies.

I’ll tell you, right off the bat, I am NOT a fan of single-serve packages like this.  Too much packaging = more garbage, and a higher price tag.  I don’t know what these are retailing for, as the boxes we got didn’t have prices on them.  But I do know that, as a rule, Entenmann’s stuff is not cheap.  But usually, it’s worth it, because of the excellent quality.  We especially love their Rich Frosted Donuts.  I have a box in my kitchen right now, the price on it is $4.29 for eight full-sized donuts.  I am guessing that the Little Bites are selling for over three bucks, at least.

The Little Bites are clearly being marketed towards families with children.  I guess that’s why they were giving them out at a minor league ballpark, as there are always lots of kids there.

And it clearly shows in the quality of the product.  It seems to me that Entenmann’s cut corners in the quality department here, figuring that these are mostly for kids.  Why do some people ASSume that kids only like crap food, and don’t like good stuff?  Yeah, it’s true that too many parents are feeding their kids nothing but junk food these days, so perhaps Entenmann’s is just giving these people what they want?

Both the brownies and the muffins were okay, I guess, but not what we’d expected from this brand.  They were more like the cheapo Little Debbie brand than Entenmann’s.  Personally, I’d save a few bucks and buy Little Debbie instead of these.

If you love the GOOD Entenmann’s stuff, as we do, just buy that instead of the Little Bites.  If you want small portions to put in a kid’s lunch box, they make smaller donuts called Popettes.  These don’t come in single serve packs, so you’re not paying for extra packaging.  Just put a couple of them into a baggie, or better, yet, a reusable Tupperware kind of container, and there you have it…a mini-snack for the lunch box.  I think you can also buy a big Entenmann’s brownie (although I could not find it on their website), which is probably a LOT better than the Little Bites, and just cut it up into smaller pieces.

So there you have it – these were okay, and we ate them because they were free, but we would not buy them.  If you’re looking for snacks on the cheap, go for the Little Debbie, if you want to pay more for the good stuff, buy that and skip the Little Bites.

Click image for larger version of recipe, will open in new window.

You won’t need to take a diet pill after eating this dish…it’s a very light, healthy summer dish. It’s something that you wouldn’t want to make any other time of year, at least not here in New England, because the zucchini and tomatoes are out of season, and not as good as they are right now.

When I made it, the store didn’t have any bone-in thick chops. Why are these so hard to find? I used boneless center-cut chops that were about 1/2 inch thick, so I had to reduce the cooking time by a few minutes.

Enjoy!

Oh, and I’ve added a new sub-category for these “Get Inspired” posts, so that they will all be easier for you to find. I have a whole bunch of these recipe cards that I haven’t tried yet, so there will be much more coming in the future.  Look under *categories* in the sidebar.

Please click on above image for much larger, readable, printable version (opens in new window).

This is another excellent “too hot to cook” recipe. I made this last night, and we liked it a lot.

I used Chinese cabbage here, which is also called bok choy. It doesn’t look like a regular cabbage…this is what a whole “head” of it looks like…

I used the whole head, rather than the 1/2 the recipe specified. After you rip off all of the icky outer leaves and all, that’s about what you have left, anyway. You can cut up and use the stems in the salad, too, they are nice and crispy, like celery. Just lop off that yucky looking core thing on the bottom.

Here in the Boston area, we can easily get just about any Oriental ingredients, even in regular supermarkets. Since these recipe cards are put out by Shaw’s, which is a regular supermarket, they carry all of the ingredients needed. Most grocery stores have at least a small ethnic foods section, and ingredients like soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and hoisin sauce are fairly common Chinese ingredients.

Use FRESH ginger root, not the powdered stuff used for baking. There really is a big difference. Find it in the produce section, where you can buy just a small piece if you want to. This is what it looks like…

Peel it and chop it fine, as shown, or better yet, grate it. If you hvae one of those Microplane graters, this is a good time to use it.

As I said, we really liked this salad, and would definitely make it again! Enjoy!