Sustainable Tool: Spaetzle Maker

I've never been a big fan of "unitaskers."  Ever since I heard Alton Brown make fun of kitchen tools that do one thing and one thing only, I've tried to avoid their siren song.  As of recently, I think I owned only two:  my cherry pitter (because when you need it, you need it) and my ice cream maker (which also makes frozen yogurt, so I guess it is a duotasker).

I just added a third:  a spaetzle maker from Lehman's. (Note: This is not an affiliate link, and I don't get money from Lehman's.)

Although I think we're all trying to cut our carbs, I do really enjoy pasta.  A reasonable compromise seems to be to cut down our consumption and to make my own, thereby ensuring that our pasta is made with organic flour and farm eggs from pastured hens, and without a side of Round-up.  But I always hated forcing the batter through the screen of a grater or a pot strainer, and I'd leave my spaetzle-making to the weekends.

Enter the spaetzle maker.  Just mix up some fairly loose batter, fill that little hopper on top, then move the hopper back and forth across the grater.  The grater is sturdy and hooks onto nearly any size pot.  The gap between the hopper and the grater allows just enough batter to be forced through the grater to make perfect-sized droplets.  I was able to make a batch in just minutes.

The spaetzle maker does have a few grooves that are a bit challenging to clean, but I think if I did a better job of rinsing before putting it in the dishwasher, it would clean up better.  The hopper comes off to facilitate this cleaning.

While I'm still going to try to reduce our carbs, I feel better knowing that I can replace more store-bought pasta with homemade.  Now that's an improvement!