In general, I am against kitchen tools with only one designated purpose, such as (and I am not making these up):

garlic press, tomato corer, avocado slicer, cherry pitter, apple corer, mushroom slicer, lettuce knife, pickle picker, potato masher, citrus zester, strawberry huller, orange peeler, cookie dough scooper, chili twister, truffle shaver, ice cream scoopers (that’s what spoons are for!), and those little things you jam into the ends of corn-on-the-cob

I will make allowances for pizza cutters and cheese slicers, and I will even condone the use of a vegetable peeler as it is a multi-use utensil. In the past, I placed melon ballers in the former category of needless tools with limited purposes, but now I see it is a tool with immense possibility.

10 things to do with a melon baller:

Scoop melons (duh), as well as soft cheeses, butter, and ice cream (take that ice cream scooper!)

Seed melons, cucumbers, zucchini, squash, peppers, and pumpkins

Core pears, apples, and even pineapples if you try hard enough

Remove pits from peaches, plums, nectarines, and apricots

Measure ground coffee

Plant seeds

Create perfect cookie dough balls (talk about portion control)

Make twice baked potatoes

Use as a tool to make sand or snow sculptures

Shape meatballs

And the 11th thing to do with a melon baller…

Stir tea when you run out of clean spoons


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