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Some Best Kitchen Utensils, Tools & Gadgets to Have in Your Kitchen

3K views 20 replies 10 participants last post by  Contrary Housewife 
#1 ·
#2 ·
Which ones do you find most useful? While having a spatula and a blender are an obvious must for me, there's a lot on the list I can (and have) lived without for years. Egg slicer? Wasabi grater? Just clutter to me.

I'm curious to know who uses a meat shredder, or an egg separator, or a heated butter spreader.
 
#3 ·
The page won't load for me. I could only see the first 2 things.

I have a lot more specialty gadgets than I really should. Some I don't use much, but enough I don't want to get rid of them.

I do use an egg slicer. I recently bought another one for the camper, too.

I have a stick blender I almost never use. I don't use my regular blender much either.

Never heard of a heated butter spreader.

Don't have a panini press but do have a Foreman grill with lots of different plates that can do the same thing. Also 3 cast iron grill pans and 2 meat presses that would do the same thing, and 3 or 4 stovetop griddles.

I use my KA mixer every time I bake bread in loaves, and I make almost all our bread. I do have 2 Pullman pans and 2 glass Bake A Round pans, and bought a vintage glass Fire King loaf pan for making muffin bread in the microwave. I use the bread machine to make buns, but when that dies I won't replace it since I have the mixer now.

Wish I could see the article so I could discuss. Maybe it will cooperate later.
 
#7 ·
I use those rubbery gritty pads to open jars. They are hard to find, however.

I have a gravy separator that looks like a measuring cup with a long tube attached so the fat stays at the top and the gravy stays at the bottom. As the cup is tilted, the gravy from the bottom pours out first. To be honest, I barely use it. Most of my gravies are from a mix. If I do make it from scratch, I refrigerate it and skim the fat.
 
#8 ·
I love my gravy separator! I just used it this evening to de-fat some home made chicken stock.
 
#9 ·
Did not read the article, but I use the small hand mixer and Cuisinart w/ plastic blade a lot more than my KitchenAid mixer. I do use my blender for puree'ing soups and making milkshakes (ice cubes, not ice cream.) I also use pastry cutter, vegetable peeler, instant thermometer, biscuit cutter. I use my bread machine frequently both for yeast and quick breads. I got a silicone bundt pan a few years ago and got rid of the old metal one.
We have a pasta machine and used it for a while but it makes a terrible screeching noise now and I keep trying to get rid of it. Hubby keeps saying he will look at oiling the motor or something. We use the waffle maker a few times a year. I don't have a toaster oven but keep thinking it would be nice.
 
#10 ·
We had a small toaster oven for years and used it all the time. It was the right size to make a frozen pizza, if we broke the pizza in half so each half fit on one rack of the oven. Then we upgraded to a countertop convection oven and use that a lot, too. IMO, small countertop ovens with fans (convection ovens) work best because it helps eliminate hot spots. I know our small ovens have saved us a lot on fuel because of not having to heat the big oven.

I love my pasta machine, but I use it mostly for making crackers. It's the crank style, so no motor. I also like my tortilla press for crackers that don't work in the pasta machine, pita bread, and other stuff I am too lazy to roll out.

I use my veggie peeler.

My ulus are great when my wrists are bothering me.

I use my hand mixer when making batches too small for the KA.

Love my Tupperware orange peelers! And the rest of my T-ware. And Corningware. And cast iron. I use my grill pans a lot.

I use a vegetable peeler, but not for potatoes since I don't peel those.

I use rice cookers, but keep looking for ideas to make them multitaskers.

Got rid of most of my 'good' dishes and only kept Mom's wedding china and silver.

I often use a book stand for cookbooks, or a cassette tape case as a stand if I'm using a recipe on my phone.
 
#11 ·
OMG! That tupperware orange peeler is worth its weight in gold. I don't understand how nobody else makes one.

I got rid of the hand mixer when I got the Kitchenaid. I use a whisk a lot. In fact I have 3 of them so one is always clean.

I wish I could use my pasta roller more, but we limit pasta night to twice a month, because of DH's diet. Otherwise I'd make ravioli every week.
 
#12 ·
There are other orange peelers, but they're hard plastic and I end up breaking them. Those have a zester on the end, too. I bought a dozen T-ware peelers and have them in the camper, picnic bags, etc. Don't want to have to use anything else.

My most used Tupperware are several dozen Square Rounds in various sizes. They fit in the door of our big freezer and work great for packaging freezer meals. I use those for all kinds of stuff.

I also use our 2 sets of Pyrex food storage in various sizes and shapes a lot.
 
#14 ·
I quit reading the article at the dehydrator......"If you compare dehydrating and canning, obviously, dehydrating takes less time. No sterilizing. No belching. Nothing. If you know the dangers of canning you wouldn’t prefer it at any cost. "

The canner is one of my best kitchen gadgets. I may spend a day in the kitchen canning but then I have lots of eat-n-eat meals on the shelf. Dehydrator, Kitchen Aide, Ninja, coffee bean grinder for making veggie powders, a good spatula for cleaning out jars/cans, hand held peeler (hubby uses this more than I do) and I have the counter attaching apple/potato peeler for peeling large batches, a collapsible funnel for canning and a magnate stick for getting the lids out of boiling water.

I have a panini press but only used it in the camper when I was traveling for work, now it sits in the cupboard collecting dust.
 
#15 ·
I still can't read the article, but that seems like a dumb thing for them to say about canning. Besides, if meats are not dehydrated at a high enough temp, they can be dangerous, too.

I have two dehydrators and a really nice Jerky Cannon. Again, I don't use them much but often enough I want to keep them. One only gets hot enough for veggies, but the other can dry meat. All their parts work on either one, which is why I bought the second one NIB for $20. Much cheaper than buying all the parts separately.
 
#17 ·
Thanks for sharing that. It is interesting to see what others find most useful. I never could get used to wooden spoons. I use good quality heat resistant plastic, and try not to leave them in the food, and I love my silicone spatulas. Nothing sticks! They are so easy to clean. Totally agree with you on the pot holders. I make my own and I make them oversized.
 
#20 ·
I use my KA mostly for bread. That alone has paid for the mixer several times over by now. Husby uses it to make cookies and stuff.

I have been thinking about getting a meat grinder for the KA. 99% lean ground turkey is $4/lb if I can find it on clearance. I can often get chicken breast $1.69/lb. A grinder would pay for itself.
 
#21 ·
Depending on what you need the ground turkey for you can do it reasonably well with just a food processor. Cut it into cubes and then pulse until the consistency is what you want. I did this in college with a cocktail blender (when the only appliances I had were that and a toaster oven) and made ground chicken and pork back in the days when all you could get in stores was ground beef.

I wish I could find grandma's old hand crank meat grinder. It's in a box somewhere...
 
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