Drinking wine-in-a-box is a time-honored tradition that everyone has partaken of at some point in their lives. Cheap, portable and plentiful, the ultimate party wine is an easy choice for entertaining on a budget. Which is why the Jakob Wagner Baggy Wine Coat from Menu makes so much sense. Featuring room for an ice pack, along with a rubber base, the wine accessory offers a stylish alternative to the bulky box that the wine comes in. And considering that many winemakers are now putting better quality wines into bags, your friends will never have to know exactly what the swill is you decided to serve them.

Tags: bags, Better Gifts, Menu, wine

Kitchen gadgets that offer quick and reliable usage are practically indispensable. When it comes to prep work, slicing is usually best handled by a knife. That is, unless the desired result is super thin slices—the kind a mandoline can easily provide.

There’s nothing fancy about the Progressive International HGT-11 Folding Mandoline Slicer. For less than $15, however, it can do so much: thick slice, thin slice, super thin, thick julienne, thin julienne, and super thin julienne. When said and done, just pop it in the dishwasher for easy cleaning. It even folds for convenient storage. Just try doing that with a fancy knife.

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Tags: Cheap Gifts, cutting tool, mandoline, Progressive, slicer

Perhaps more so than any other game, tic-tac-toe ends up as a draw. However, when using the Tic-Tac-Toe Plate don’t expect snacks to go unfinished. Featuring square and circle one-ounce indentations (the circles won) the ceramic platter makes for a unique serving device—or at least one where everybody can end up a winner.

Tags: ceramic, Mid-Range Gifts, plates, platters

Slow cookers aren’t technological marvels; they consist of basically just a heating element and a stoneware cooking vessel. That being said, the food that they are capable of producing can most definitely marvel.

It should come as little surprise that hearty slow-cooked meals are such winter favorites; just pop some ingredients into the countertop appliance, turn it on, and let it cook. Best of all, with a no-nonsense appliance comes a no-nonsense price: For less than $15, right now you can pick up the Crock-Pot SCR300SS 3-Quart Round Manual Stainless Steel Slow Cooker.

Tags: Cheap Gifts, Crock-Pot, slow cooking, stoneware

A little known fact about witches: they occasionally fall into vessels of liquid. Naturally, it has something to do with always hovering about a boiling black cauldron; accidents do happen, after all. Apparently they are quite the winos too, as a Witches Legs Wine Bottle Stopper would seem to imply.

To witches, the best part of wine is the eye of newt and lizard’s leg sloshing about the bottom of the bottle. (It’s a special brew.) Unfortunately in their upside-down, topsy-turvy world, the best way to get at it is to just dive in. While wine-related mishaps increase every year about this time in the witch community, their loss is your gain. Just don’t eat the worm.

Tags: bottles, Cheap Gifts, TGIF, wine

There can’t be much mystery surrounding the invention of the double burger. After one bite of the very first burger, that lucky individual is likely to have asked how it could be made better. The answer, clearly, would have been—then as it is today—to add a second patty. It is a natural expectation, therefore, to expect the same out of our burger accessories.

The Double Plastic Hamburger Press features the ability to press two patties at a time, giving burger-makers the logical kitchen gadget they need to get the job done right the first time. While there may not be much speculation as to how long it took to discover that two patties were indeed better then one, there does remain some question as to if they had fries with that.

Tags: burgers