Manual ways of reducing melon rinds and such involve a heavy knife, or, if you want to take out your aggression on the fruit, a machete. My mother had a manual meat grinder when I was a kid, and I've seen vegetable slicers of the same sort. If one of those can reduce carrots to slivers, it would do the same for melon rinds. Paper can be hand-shredded or you can use a paper cutter to cut it into strips and then cut the strips crosswise. Either way, it's a lot of work, and I don't know if most people are willing to put that much effort into it. Generally, if something requires a little personal effort and a little electricity, it's more likely to get done than if it requires a lot of manual effort and time and no electricity. If that were not the case, "labor-saving" electrical devices would never have become popular. To be completely honest, I do have a powerful blender with a container dedicated to compost. I tend to use it when I'm cleaning out the fridge and getting rid of all the leftovers that are growing green fuzzy things. I'll usually wind up with a bucket full of nasty slurry, which then gets dumped into the compost pile and covered with shredded leaves or wood chips. My blender can handle meat and bones as well as veggies, enabling me to compost things that are usually on the "do not compost" list by breaking them down into tiny particles which rot quickly before attracting flies. Most of the time, however, I just dump things into the compost without shredding. I think that the energy used in shredding is offset by the energy used in manufacturing a black plastic bag, using a big smoke-belching diesel truck to take the bag to the landfill (or the incinerator), and then using a big smoke-belching diesel bulldozer to bury the bag in the landfill (or using more fuel to burn it); either way the organic material will be lost to the ecosystem., and in the case of the incinerator, which is where my trash would go, the carbon is emitted as CO2. IMO, it's much better to have it in the garden nurturing the roses, no matter how it got there.

MyFamily... My stick blender is a Cuisinart 1 speed, where part detaches and goes in the dishwasher, and came with a 2c measure that works great for dressings and milkshakes without a bunch of extra cleanup. Right now I've been using it for fruit leathers with extra applesauce, mixing in frozen fruit. It originally came from a grocery store giveaway, where you collect so many stickers and get a free appliance. I was very skeptical about whether it would last, as it was a cheaper appliance to start with (I think $35ish without the stamps), but it has held up well to regular use for 2 years. My DH is also a chef, so we do use it for some fancier soup type applications, and it's worked very well at creating the needed consistency. If it conks out, we'll probably just get another cheapo--I can't think of anything I use it for that I would want an extra speed, or bells and whistles for. As far as standing on its own--not sure where that would be useful, as I am pretty mobile with ours, and I like how small it is to store--have a small plastic tote that we keep it in on top of the cupboards. It's one of those appliances that I may not have chosen to purchase at the time, but now that we've had it I wouldn't live without.

I'll admit, I don't bake my eggshells...but I buy local eggs, and wash very thoroughly (if they had salmonella, my dogs would get it from the eggs, which I also feed raw). But I would imagine birds would be much more sensitive to anything on them than my dogs might be, so baking is a good idea. I had read that the baking was just to remove mineral oils put on the shell to help preserve the eggs and dry the shells out well, not to guard against salmonella. I just wash them out well with hot water, then store in the fridge until they're really dry. Then I grind them way down into a powder for the dogs...since I mix it with their raw food (one of my dogs can't have whole raw bones, so it replaces the calcium). It takes no time at all in the magic bullet to grind them to powder, if that's what you decide to do. I actually bought the food processor specifically to make dog food with (pulverizing veggies/chopping meat). I can't imagine using the MB for that...it would take me hours with those small quantities! :-)

Cookie - Oster works. I've got an old chrome beehive Osterizer, and a newer (early 2000's) model. Blades and jars are all interchangable. Cathy - The recipe I used is from maangchi.com which I found thanks to Gina W. I left out the carrots and green onion and just threw approximate measurements of everything else in the blender. Then stir-fried the beef, while she calls for grilling. Although she doesn't specify it in the text version of the recipe, Asian or Korean pear is preferred. I don't particularly love pears generally but these are so good that I really look forward to eating the half that I don't use in the marinade! Marinade (for 1 pound of beef): ý cup of crushed pear ü cup onion purée 4 cloves of minced garlic 1 chopped green onion 2 tbs soy sauce 2 tbs brown sugar (or 1 tbs of brown sugar and 1ý tbs rice syrup) a pinch of ground black pepper 1 tbs toasted sesame oil several thin slices of carrot Here is a link that might be useful: full version and other Korean recipes here