The Best Products I Bought in 2015

Thursday, December 24, 2015

The Best Products I Bought in 2015

Compared to previous years, I think that I didn't buy many products this year because I felt like I had already owned something that I really needed in my everyday life. I didn't buy many clothes, cosmetics and so on. Yet, I was able to find some great items that ended up having changed my life better. :) I'm going to share the best 5 products I bought in 2015 with you. :)

1. Canon DSLR Camera

This year, I decided to upload coffee recipe videos on my YouTube Channel periodically. After uploading several videos, I told my husband that I wanted blurred and sharpened background effects in my videos. That's why we ended up buying a new camera, Canon EOS Rebel SL1 Digital SLR, to make better videos. Indeed, I am really satisfied with this purchase. Even though we are still learning how to use our digital single-lens reflex camera, I think the qualities of our videos have significantly improved. :)

This is one of my video which was recorded with my Canon DSLR camera.

Since I am a blogger, I frequently take photos everywhere, so this camera has changed quality of my blog too. :) As I mentioned in my previous entry, when we traveled Seattle this year, we were able to take the beautiful night view photos of Downtown Seattle skylines. :)

Then, we bought Canon telephoto zoom lens, Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS II, for this camera and were able to take photos of a total lunar eclipse in September. :)

The only downside of having this camera is that the camera is too big to take casual photos such as foods at restaurants. I still use my iPhone to take quick photos outside.

2. Pyrex Glass Containers
My husband and I decided to make the switch to glass containers from plastic ones because glass ones last so long and are safer to use. We ended up purchasing the set of Pyrex glass containers, Pyrex 18 Piece Simply Store Set with Colored Lids.

A few weeks after I purchased these, I found that Pyrex released limited edition items in vibrant colors for their 100 year anniversary. I thought I should get their limited ones, Pyrex 100 4-cup 100th Anniversary Storage Dishes! I eventually purchased all 5 limited ones too.

When I purchased these 14 containers, I thought that I probably wouldn't need so many containers. However, we actually use all of them. My husband uses them as lunch boxes every day, and I use them to store leftover meals. When I cook, I store extra chopped green onions in my Pyrex container and eat them up with miso soup within a few days. When I make ice cream, I use the biggest one to store ice cream mixture in freezer. When I make casserole, I use it as a bake wear and put it into oven. :) These are very useful containers, and we are really satisfied with them. :)

3. Cooking Book
As I mentioned in my previous entry, I bought these books at 99 Cents Only Store in January this year, and I really love these books. :) Specifically, I love Mexician Cooking and Italian Cooking, and I've cooked some recipes referred to the books. These are very thin and only have 21 recipes each, so I think I can try almost all of them some day. :) Trying new recipes are very fun and makes me happy. :)

These are photos of some of meals I've cooked and referred to the books.

From Classic Recipes Mexican Cooking Book :

Guacamole

Chicken Tortilla Soup

From Classic Recipes Italian Cooking Book :

Chicken Cacciatore

Italian Mushroom Risotto

Chicken and Tomato Pasta

4. Caramel Syrup

I bought a Hershey's Caramel Syrup for my first time because I wanted to make Caramel Frappuccino, which is one of my favorite Starbucks drinks. When I first bought it, I didn't think I could use it up this year. However, I used it for caramel Frapuccino, caramel macchiato and slated caramel mocha, and I ended up purchasing three bottles of caramel syrup in total this year! I didn't know I could make so many caramel coffee drinks!

These are my coffee drink recipe videos. They are so delicious. :)))

5. Mason Jars

I found that a regular mouth mason jar can turn into a compact blender with using my Oster blender, and this hack is very useful when I want to make just one cup of Frappuccino. I don't have to wash both a blender jar and a tumbler. I only need to wash a compact mason jar, so I can save my time and water. :) In addition, I use mason jars as containers for coffee beans. Because mason jars are pretty air tight, they keep my coffee beans fresh longer. Furthermore, my husband takes a mason jar with extra brewed coffee to work. After finishing drinking coffee of his tumbler, he opens the mason jar and pours coffee into his tumbler. He told me that he enjoys the smell of coffee when he opens the lid. That's why we have many mason jars in different sizes now! Mason jars are very inexpensive but very useful. :)

This is my coffee video which shows how to turn mason jars into a coffee grinder and compact blender.