Product Review: Tracfone, A Great Cell Phone Value at $100 Per Year

I've had a pre-paid Tracfone for several years now. Each year, I spend about $100 to get a year's worth of service and a chunk of minutes. Usually I get 400-800 minutes, depending on the deal. I never use up the minutes, and they roll over from year to year. I have almost 1500 minutes amassed on my phone right now. Most years I've also gotten a new phone included in the price. I think I'm on my third phone now.

Now, if you are a heavy cell phone user, a Tracfone won't be for you. But, if you need it just for emergencies or occasional use, it's a great value. My phone will text, but I never use that feature. I've used it while travelling and my service has been excellent...just as good as my husband's employer-supplied Verizon phone.

None of my Tracfones have come with a belt clip or a car charger, but I've gotten those pretty cheap on eBay.

You can buy Tracfones at WalMart and other places, but I just order mine from Tracfone's website. You may want to keep an eye on their deals for a couple of weeks so you know which deals are the best.

Product Review: Coleman Thermoelectric Cooler

Coleman 40-Quart Thermoelectric Cooler - PowerChill

This weekend, we will be headed out for our first camping trip of the season. It got me thinking about my favorite camping item. The Coleman Thermoelectric Cooler has been wonderful for our family. It works great for both camping and road trips! It has paid for itself many times over because we have lunch from the cooler instead of a restaurant when we're on the road.

This cooler fits just right in the back end of our Dodge Grand Caravan and plugs into the van's nearby power supply. We keep it horizontal (with the door opening on top), but it also works vertically, if you want it that way. At the campground, we leave generally leave it in the van but plug it into the campground electricity. When we're staying in a motel, it's easy enough to carry into our room to plug in.

You will want to make sure you get the optional power supply so that you can plug it into a standard electric outlet. It comes with an removable/adjustable shelf, but I always leave that at home. This cooler doesn't hold as much as our old Coleman Green Steel Belted Cooler, but we can pack just as much (maybe more!) since we don't need to have room for ice. And, there is no more yucky water in the bottom of the cooler making our lunch meat and Hershey bars soggy!

The cooler keeps the food about 40 degrees below the ambient temperature. So, most of the time that is plenty cool enough. Once in awhile, if we are camping when it is really hot (above 90 degrees), I take a little extra care with the cooler. By mid-morning, when it is really starting to get warm, we put the cooler in the shade and cover it with a couple of towels. Also, if I know it is going to be a hot weekend, I start out with some things frozen (like hot dogs, scrambled eggs, water bottles). They help keep the cooler chilled, and they're thawed by the time we're ready for them.

It is so great not to have to worry about keeping enough ice and dealing with the water mess. We've owned our cooler for more than 5 years, and it is still going strong.

Product Review: KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker Attachment - KICA0WH

As long promised to you, I offer my review of the KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker Attachment.

While vacationing in Seattle last summer, I was a guest at a dinner party where the hostess served homemade cinnamon ice cream on top of apple pie. Wow, what a knockout combination! When I found out that she had some new-fangled Cuisinart ice cream maker that didn't require salt or ice, I had to know more about it.

During my research, I found that KitchenAid has an ice cream maker attachment for their stand mixers that works on the same principle. The key to this new generation of ice cream makers is the insulated bowl. You put the bowl in the deep freeze overnight or longer. This cold, insulated container takes the place of the salt and ice in the ice cream freezing process. I already own a KitchenAid stand mixer, and I wished to avoid taking up more counter and cabinet space with gadgets, if possible. So, I eventually decided on the KitchenAid attachment instead of the Cuisinart ice cream maker.

I've continually heard good things about the Cuisinart, and I include a link here for your convenience. But, I cannot offer anything but hearsay on the Cuisinart.

Since Christmas, I have been the owner of the KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker Attachment. I told my husband and kids that I would have to practice quite a bit to get the recipe just right. They were going to have to be good soldiers and eat all of the practice batches. They didn't disappoint me.

I started out with Rebecca's cinnamon ice cream recipe without the cinnamon. It had been so good in Seattle that I was pretty sure I couldn't go wrong. The first batch was a hit!

It was so rich and creamy. I just knew that we couldn't consume something like that too frequently. So, I began to tweak my recipe. To be honest, I am still tweaking, but we haven't had a bad batch yet. I'll be posting some of my recipes and hints here in the future.

It is important to understand that homemade ice cream is different than store bought ice cream. At the end of churning, it will be the consistency of soft-serve ice cream or maybe an extremely thick milkshake. You can eat it soft right away, or you put it in the freezer to "ripen" and harden. After being fully frozen, it is very hard. See my tip about softening prior to serving.

The bottom line is that I have been very, very pleased with the performance of the KitchenAid attachment. My current recipe makes almost a half gallon of ice cream, and that is just about all the bowl can reasonably hold. I wish it were bigger, so I could make a full gallon at a time (we have a big family). All of the pieces, except for the bowl itself, are dishwasher safe. The bowl washes up easily in warm soapy water. Usually I have to wipe some ice cream off the post of the mixer also. But, overall, cleanup is pretty simple.

Highly recommended!

Here are some of my related posts:

Homemade Ice Cream is Too Hard
Making Ice Cream: Some Useful Tools
A Good, Basic Ice Cream Recipe to Start With
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About The CommonSenseMom's Homemade Ice Cream

Now, Here's a Handy Little Gadget

Paul received this Sony Car FM Stereo Transmitter as a Christmas gift from his employer, and it has been a great addition to our vehicular travels.

Here's how it works. You take the audio output from something like a CD player, MP 3 player, or DVD player and connect it to this gizmo. This device then transmits the audio signal on a short-range FM signal of your choosing. Then you tune your car radio to the corresponding FM frequency, and presto!, the audio is heard through your vehicle's sound system.

We first used it with our portable DVD player to broadcast the sound throughout the van. Next, I got the bright idea that it could save my voice when reading aloud in the van. Paul did a little work with Radio Shack and came up with a clever system for doing just that. More details on that to follow.