Seeding hot peppers can be time consuming. Make the process less complicated by using a small melon baller scoop. And alleviate the stinging pain of particularly hot chilies by wearing gloves.

Maybe you were inspired by my post last month, asking for fresh pumpkin recipes. Or maybe one showed up in your CSA box and has been sitting on your counter for the last week, gazing at you serenely as you try to figure out what to do with it. However you came to be in possession of a cooking pumpkin, now that you have one, you've got to determine how to deal with it.

Apartment Therapy Kitchen has a post up today on the best way to crack open a cooking pumpkin, so that you can extract the seeds (delicious toasted with a little butter and salt) and roast/steam/bake the flesh for delicious eating. Their pictures take you through the process of cutting open the pumpkin and are really helpful if you're feeling a little daunted by your pumpkin's tough exterior.

The butter slicer we saw a couple of days ago might be helpful when you're baking and are trying to cut off just the right amount for your recipe, but its not the most practical tool to have around when you just want to butter your toast. The One Click Butter Cutter is somewhat unnecessary if you own a knife, but is a useful gadget in its own way, not to mention that it's fun to use. With the push of a button, it dispenses one standard "pat" of butter - slightly less than 2/3 tsp, so you get 5 pats per tablespoon of butter. You can store a stick of butter in the butter cutter in the refrigerator, so it is always ready to go.

The gadget could come in handy at breakfast or when you're cooking and need to grease the pan, just for sheer convenience. In addition, it is a great way to consistently use portion control with butter, since you know exactly how much you're going to get from each slice without having to measure it out yourself.

[via book of joe]

For years, chefs, food writers and even food scientists have said that cutting boards made of wood will absorb bacteria, and plastic ones will allow bacteria to flourish on the surface, lurking in each tiny cut. Each material has been declared worse in turns. Do plastic cutting boards really harbor more bacteria than wooden ones? Are wooden ones worse?

It looks like the food scientists at Cook's Illustrated have debunked this food myth, because according to their tests, the answer is "no". They collected the used cutting boards of several of their staff members, but found little bacteria on them. The boards, two wooden and two plastic, were then taken to a lab where they were inoculated with one drop of solution containing millions of bacteria. The bacteria were allowed to sit on the boards for 40 minutes, but after washing the boards with hot, soapy water, fewer than 100 bacteria from the original sample remained on each type of board.

While bacteria remained on each board, the amount was small and nearly equal for both materials. This shows that it doesn't matter what the board is made out of, but how you care for it. After each use, particularly if raw meat has touched the board, cleanse it with warm, soapy water. The FDA recommends sanitizing your boards in a solution of 1 tablespoon bleach to 1 gallon water.