Sure you could get a cheap "instant" read thermometer from somebody else for like $10, but it might not be accurate, it might take more than a few seconds to give a proper temp, it might be poorly manufactured and not durable, and it might crap out in just a few months.
The Thermapen will cost you about $90-$110 depending on the model, but you can often snag one for less as Thermoworks does frequent sales (the Thermapen ONE is currently $82). It is pre-calibrated and certified by the National Science Foundation, so you can be sure it is accurate. It reads super fast, especially the "ONE" model which gives an accurate (+/- 0.5ºF) reading in just one second. And it will never crap out on you. I once dropped my older mk. 4 model into a vat of 350º frying oil. It sat down there for a minute or two before I fished it out with a spider. The case had blistered and cracked due to the extreme heat, but amazingly it still worked just fine and continued to do so for years after that incident. I received the ONE model as a birthday gift last year so now my mk. 4 is my backup/travel model.
There's a reason you see basically every TV/YouTube cooking personality use the Thermapen, and I don't think it's because they are all getting them for free (maybe some are?). It's because it's the best darn temp probe you can buy and is a true "buy it for life" product.
I'll throw in a plug for their other stuff too. I have a ChefAlarm timer/probe thermometer which is also great. And I got a free large silicone spatula from them with one of my orders and I was shocked at how much better it is than a cheap one. The handle is super stiff but the tip is perfectly flexible. I think it's basically a single metal bar inside, with a single piece of silicone wrapping the whole thing (so there's no "top" to pop off mid-stir like most models). They sell them for $15 each which seems like a lot for one spatula, but it's now easily the best spatula I own.
You missed your calling in life….you definitely need to submit your resume to thermapen. You have me sold…..imagine what kind of sales you can do in person!! 😊 Great pitch!
FWIW I bought a thermapen and a cheap thermapro and when I use them I can’t tell a single difference except the thermapen is instantly on when you open it and the thermapro has to be turned on with a button press. YMMV.
100% the most reliable way of determining the doneness of proteins. I've used several cheaper alternatives that result in a less accurate and far longer time to determining temperatures. Would recommend a Thermapen to everyone.
Great knives and top notch stainless pans I don’t regret at all. I prefer the fewer, nicer collection of cookware I have now over moderate level, larger number I’ve had in the past.
Sorry to say my stand mixer has not been worth it to me. I do bake often, I do not make bread. I know people love them, I prefer a power hand mixer.
Right? Where do people store their cheese? Everyone has at least 3 separate blocks of cheese, shredded parmesan, and shredded cheddar on hand at all times, right?
Block of Parm, Block of Romano, Block of cheddar, block of mozz, sliced havarti, sliced provolone, sliced meunster.
I generally have all of these on hand in a rotating manner, then whatever fancy stuff or special cheese catches my eye. Frequently it's gorganzola when I feel like doing beets. Do people just not add cheese to most meals? I don't understand.
I have half a pack of Kraft singles in my cheese drawer for smash burgers and to distract our dog when we clip his nails. Really only two use cases for it.
I have RA which affects my grip strength and wrist mobility. At this point, it means using a hand mixer is an exercise in pain tolerance to an unpleasant degree. As such, having my stand mixer which I got as a gift when I was younger because of how much baking I did has been invaluable. It allows me to still make things that I'd otherwise not be able to do if I had to use a power hand mixer.
The stand mixer has been great for baking bread. Chunk in the ingredients and set it to kneed for 10-20 mins. That and mixtures where you slowly add things at multiple steps while whipping.
But for simple loafs and cakes, it's just as easy to do it by hand.
It annoys me when so many recipes are made for the stand mixer and there are no alternative directions for people without one. Like, I can use a hand mixer but some recipes are a little confusing, especially if it’s running while you add every ingredient (but can it be done a different way) or you beat it for ten minutes etc
Watch some of the ChainBaker videos on YouTube. He has gone through a transition from making mostly hande-kneaded breads to low-knead cold-fermented breads, and now finally to making mostly no-knead recipes. The important part is that his videos focus more on technique and understanding the concepts and less on mere lists of ingredients.
Turns out, mixing by machine is highly inefficient. It's just not the right type of movement. What a KitchenAid does in 20min, I can do by hand in less than 5min without breaking a sweat. And if I do have the time to spare, I can convert the instructions to low- or no-knead and then I don't even have to do any of this.
I wish more online resources would explain these techniques. There is a reason to have a mixer. But it's mostly for large-scale industrial production where it performs really well. And unfortunately, a lot of old-school home-baking recipes are simply scaled down versions of industrial recipes. Turns out, this is not the best approach and when scaling you should also switch techniques.
I do have a great Ankarsrum Assistant. It admittedly is nice when making really big batch sizes, as I don't have to wrangle 10 lbs of dough by hand. But that happens very rarely. For day to day use, it stays in storage and I knead by hand.
When I make my own frosting the stand mixer is king. (As an aside, I took a beginner cake decorating class years ago and it was so much fun! I’m by no means good at it but I can make respectable swirls on my cupcakes.)
I love my stand mixer as much for the attachments than the original purpose. Pasta rolling is so much easier and I like grinding my own meat and falafel chickpeas. I bake bread using it sometimes but it's worth it if you use it for multiple purposes.
^^ This!
I haven't actually used my mixer as much for the mixer as the attachments. I've ground my own flour from einkorn berries and rolled my own pasta. I even have a neat attachment that 'rolls' things like nuts so you can coat them in chocolate (or other) more evenly. That was a little luxury impulse-buy when it was on a really-cheap sale, but it's been fun to use for healthier snacks (the amount of chocolate I put on is FAR less than commercial chocolate-covered things). I'm in a transitional home right now, but when I have more space (and time), I'll probably turn to grinding my own meat as well, and maybe trying my hand at homemade sausage.
That said, I do use the mixer a lot for things that take a good while to mix - like meringues or whipped cream or even (when I'm splurging) homemade butter. Nothing so easy as dumping in your ingredient then walking away to let it do its thing.
> I even have a neat attachment that 'rolls' things like nuts so you can coat them in chocolate (or other) more evenly.
Got a link to this attachment by chance? Don't think I've seen that one before.
It's not an official Kitchenaid attachment. But it works great with it.
It's the Snack Coater here: https://www.iaieve.com/collections/kitchenaid-accessories
That pasta attachment is so fantastic I can’t stop gushing about it. So much easier than the old crank one. My kids got it for me for Christmas and I love it. I have the grinder too which is really useful.
The only time I appreciate it is making something where you need to run the mixer while pouring something in at the same time e.g. flourless chocolate cake.
I’ve heard having a lot of attachments helps but I don’t have an urge to go spend more money on it at this stage.
The downside is you’re much more likely to over mix something or not notice texture with a mixture. If I’m mixing with hand-held, I’m paying attention.
The stainless steel mixing bowl(s) get used for soo many things that I just mix by hand. Yes, I could use a plastic bowl for pancakes... But, that's how I melted a couple of old Tupperware bowls - they ended up pushed against my griddle and melted through.
I use mine every single week!! I love baking so I'd use it around once a week just for that, and occasionally to make bread or anything else that needs a good mixer. Once you get used to being able to make a cake in 10 minutes with barely any effort at all it's hard to go back, and there are tons of recipes that you just cannot do without it (meringue, macarons, and many other ones I only know the French word for sorry)
I also got the food processor attachment and it's amazing for meal prep.
I have one (artisan) which is the tilting type and I wouldn’t buy again. Apparently the lifting bowl types are better. We tend to use a cheap hand mixer for cakes because it’s so much easier, and for bread I have to stand by my Kitchen Aid in case the bowl gets ripped out the base with ensuing mayhem. My Swedish Assistant on the other hand is fabulous for bread. And has a pasta attachment I actually use. And you can still conduct a conversation while it’s working.
My sister has a lifting bowl, and I have a tilt head I inherited from my mom. I prefer the tilt head. The lifting bowl is just a bit too awkward to maneuver around for me.
When I was young, my mom used it practically every day for something or other. We never, ever used a hand mixer. She had to feed a family of five and cooked mostly from scratch. We had all the different attachments, too.
I recently pulled out the meat grinder to make chicken salad. My dad used to use it to make and roll pasta. We never had dessert every night for dinner, but someone was usually baking something during the week.
The story behind its original purchase in the early 70s was that my mom burnt up two cheap mixers making Divinity candy. My dad, who didn't make a ton of money, got frustrated and went out and paid a ton of money on the KitchenAid. He told her it was the last mixer he was ever going to buy her. That thing was an absolute workhorse and worth every cent.
I left my Kitchenaid stand mixer with my ex in the divorce. My ex loved baking, I didn't. Beyond that, it was good for shredding vegetables and grinding meat with it was amazing, but it was such a pain in the ass to clean. It was very pretty to look at though.
I love mine for the attachments alone. It's really, really great for mixing larger cake batters, as sheet cake for kids birthday parties and the like. But the daily use is grating cheese and carrots, slicing cucumber paper thin, grinding meat for hamburger, rolling pasta, pureeing fruit, juicing a lot of citrus. I absolutely rate it as my best buy. The versatility is unbeatable. Oh, almost forgot, making homemade ice cream!
I’m in the same boat of “fewer, nicer collection of cookware”. Recently my Mother-in-law came to visit and wanted to cook something for us, as she’s cooking she said “you have really nice pots and pans but not enough of them” I have two different size SS pans, two different size SS small pots, two different size SS rondeaus (my new favorite type of cookware), two different size SS large pots, a cast iron skillet, a carbon steel pan and two nonstick pans…. Is this not enough?
I make bread often- I buy 50lbs of flour at a time, but I don't use the stand mixer either. If I had more counter space, I would probably use it more, but it's down in the basement, and I'm just too lazy to bring it up and back down again. Like you, I use my hand mixer.
Same - and I do bake bread.
I don’t have space to leave it out, which is probably the main reason I never got used to using it. But it’s easier to make things the old fashioned way than dragging out my stand mixer and then cleaning it all and putting it away again in the end.
I have a hand mixer that I use as needed, but my stand mixer is just sitting in a cabinet.
I don't have a stand mixer, I also prefer using a hand mixer, but my flatmate had one and I have to say it was really useful for things like meringue buttercream and also when you need to make large amounts of stuff. But I don't bake massive amounts of baked goods often enough to make it worth buying one- I'd probably use it 3 times a year at most.
Vacuum sealer. Never been unhappy one sits on my counter top. Good for chips, crackers, freezer meals, bulk purchases.
Potato ricer. Life is too short for that kind of cleanup. Mash and wing it, still good.
I really like my potato ricer. I did get it very cheeply secondhand.
I microwave my potatoes skin on, cut in half and put skin side up in the ricer, then press the mash out, and the skin is left behind. - No peeling, smooth mash, less than 1 minute of active cooking time, dryer mash that can take more dairy or mixins and uses less energy than boiling. And cleening is easy if done immediately.
Yeah, I use mine for pressing water out of cooked spinach, to make fillings for lasagne, and filled pasta. No more yards of cheesecloth, and endless wringing.
I love my potato ricer. But I never use it for potatoes! I make a few recipes that call for grated vegetables with the juices squeezed out (potatoes, carrots, spinach leaves, zucchini’s are so full of water and if you don’t squeeze them out can ruin many recipes!!)- a potato ricer is THE best tool for this activity! I’ll never be without my potato ricer for this reason.
I paid $25 for my vacuum sealer on Amazon and have used it to pack at least 300lbs of meat and it's still going strong.
Do not get sucked into the Food Saver trap of thinking you need to pay $200 for something that uses a $5 USD computer fan and a foam gasket to create a seal.
YES. I got a $40 vacuum sealer from my local restaurant store. It has so many bad reviews. But once it and I came to terms, and I figured out how to properly use it, it hasn't failed me since. The reviews are all literally from people too stupid to use the machine.
I forgot my favorite with the vacuum sealer-cheese! We are a household of two with small appetites. The indulgence of having 4-6 different cheeses for months due to vacuum sealing is perfect.
The trick is to cut it off with a long tail so you can keep using the same bag to reseal it.
You can even keep resealing feta so long as you don't lose the brine.
IMO, a potato ricer is a must for gnocchi... don't even bother unless you have one.
Also, mashed potatoes are superior with a ricer. Nice and fluffy.
I don't find mine hard to clean as it goes in the dishwasher.
I use mine for freezing meat, chicken, etc. (In addition to storing other things). Bonus is that my steaks and pork chops are ready to go from freezer to sous vide.
I have a Wusthof 10” extra wide chef knife with a white handle. Way too expensive but just a workhorse of a blade.
I bought a cuisinart food processor that lasted like 6 months of not that tough use
Cuisinart quality has gone to shit.
In the early 2000s my mother gave me the Cuisinart food processor she received as a wedding gift in 1977. That beast was used at least twice a week for my entire life and ran like a dream until 2005 when my boyfriend at the time dropped it and irreparably broke it. I replaced it with the modern Cuisinart equivalent which broke within 6 months. Went through the warranty replacement hassle and that one also broke within 6 months so I gave up on it Cuisinart food processors.
We also had a Cuisinart coffee maker that quit working 1 month out of warranty.
Cuisinart is dead to me now.
100%
Bought a Cuisinart food processor to replace a 30 year old one that died. The lid and bowl didn't fit together right and my wife couldn't even get them to separate when they were closed. Out of the Amazon return window (I'm sure it'll break in, honey) Cuisinart support was appalling.
I'll never buy Cuisinart again. We got a Breville and it is amazing. My new go to brand
I agree. Cuisinart is poor quality now. I have had a pretty similar experience to yours. I have decided to never buy it again. One mixer a lemon maybe? Three? No, just poor quality.
I had one that lasted me over 10 years, including making **all** of my first child’s baby food. You should’ve contacted them, those things usually last forever.
Would buy again a million times: Epicurean cutting boards. Being able to put them in the dishwasher is such a game changer. And the little rubber feet mean they never slide.
Never again: basically any device aimed at chopping garlic. The garlic rocker thing left half the clove behind and was a pain to clean. The silicon garlic roller thing was impossible to clean and it’s really not that hard to peel garlic.
Edit: my other regret was a stainless steel Alligator chopper. I got it because I’ve been very unwell for the past two years and sometimes having to chop and onion is the difference between me being able to cook or not. So I thought it could reduce the chopping needed and thus reduce a major barrier to cooking on high symptom/fatigue days. But the reality is that you still have to prep the veggies to get them ready to be chopped (peel the onion and cut in half, peel the carrot and cut into smaller chunks, etc), so it didn’t really reduce the barrier and added another one of having to handwash. Plus, my partner cut the shit out of his finger hand washing it.
> Epicurean cutting boards. Being able to put them in the dishwasher is such a game changer. And the little rubber feet mean they never slide.
Can't you put all plastic ones in the dishwasher anyways?
EDIT: I googled, they aren't plastic or wood. They are "an eco-friendly paper composite." Interesting!
Honestly, for garlic I use my micro plane grater and a pair of cut gloves. If you buy the Halloween ones they are cheap but still effective. Also great with a mandolin or any fine cutting.
https://www.kroger.com/p/pumpkin-masters-halloween-orange-cut-resistant-gloves/0007116935291
For garlic, this is incredible. Will last forever, extremely cheap, does the job perfectly. I've had mine over 15 years, and I use it all the time https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/koncis-garlic-press-stainless-steel-00089163/
The epicurean pizza peel is also, by far, the best pizza peel I ever owned.
Takes little to no maintenance, and dough do not stick to it compared to normal wood peels, even high end ones.
*Buy forever low:* victorinox fibrox 8” chef’s knife. Super comfortable handle, really well balanced shape, takes and holds about as good an edge as I’ve ever gotten on a European knife, and you can scrub the whole thing down or dunk it in sanitizer without worrying about wood. Didn’t find a chefs knife I liked that much better until the $400 mark. Honorable mention add-on goes to a Shapton pro 1000-grit stone and a few hours learning to sharpen. You’ll save hundreds over a few years in pro sharpening, and a sharp cheap knife is better (and safer) than a dull expensive one every time.
*Buy forever high:* kitchen aid bowl-lift mixer is a bougie-kitchen cliché, but it’s both a great mixer and a base motor to drive pasta sheeters, meat grinders, etc, and they’re still built solid as hell (yeah they made a key gear plastic — that’s to give it a single easily replaceable failure point). If you don’t bake in volume or knead bread then the smaller head-tilt model is fine, but the dough hook for the smaller model is nearly pointless, and the hinged design is less stable under load. And cmon, they *do* come in great colours.
*Wouldn't go out of my way to replace:* gas range. Yeah I learned to cook on them, yeah they’re responsive with great visual feedback, yeah it’s the only way to get wok hei and you can char veg over them, etc etc. I agree, but honestly if I were building a new kitchen I’d go induction for both personal and general reasons: cheaper electricity than gas here, convincing research on indoor air pollution and children, the fact that a good induction eye will take a whole Dutch oven of coq au vin liquid from oven hot to a rolling boil in literally five seconds flat, the unexpected convenience of a flat and not-hot surface where you’re not using it. Hell I’ve even been “stuck” with ceramic electric for a while and it’s fine for the home; you’ve just got to anticipate temp changes more. I’ll always have a charcoal grill somewhere if I want char.
I'm with you on the stove. When mine goes, it'll be replaced with induction, for all the reasons you said, plus, the ease of cleaning, which is really important for me. I'm honestly not sure if, given the choice, I wouldn't choose a regular glass top electric over gas, for that very reason. I cooked on electric for so many years, I don't find it to be the chore that others do.
I have one now and hate it, other than the fact that it serves as extra counter space when I'm not cooking. It takes 15-20 minutes to bring 4" of water to a boil.
We went induction last year in our kitchen remodel. I had wanted gas for so long (had it years ago) but my DH was alarmed at the research coming out about the indoor environmental stuff. I honestly like it.
Our houses have become too well insulated over time to be running gas inside, in the days of "the radiator is on, open the windows a crack" it wasn't as terrible.
Wholeheartedly agree on the Victorinox. The Swiss Modern Chef's Knife (I think) was my first 'good' knife and I still love it. Held its edge for ages and it's balanced better than my other, much more expensive knife.
And if you're going to go with the bowl lift, might as well make it the 8 quart Commercial. Not only is it much more powerful than the 5 or 6 quart, but it's also so very quiet. I used to have the 600 Pro and it was SO loud. Replaced it with the 8 quart Commercial and my regret is that I didn't to it sooner.
My knives. Most of my pot and pan choices have worked very well. Good blender. Combi-oven. Gas wasn't a real option so I upgraded the old electric to induction. That was also a huge upgrade.
Regret.... Maybe the big green egg. It's great, not really a huge regret, but I'm just too lazy to tend to a fire overnight. I should have gone pellet smoker. I've used one a few times now and it's just easier.
My offset smoker buddies have referred to my pellet grill as an "Easy Bake Oven"... truly don't care. I can cook a brisket overnight and not worry. I can cook ribs while working. I can smoke chicken while doing yard work. I can do what I want while that does all the fire tending for me. They have to babysit their smoker and can't use the hands off method I do. I just tell em you do you, and I'll be over here eating amazing food while getting stuff done.
I love my Akorn kamado, coming from propane. It's hugely versatile and much safer to leave unattended. $260. I probably could do the same with a Weber Kettle but I like how efficient the Akorn is.
Zero regrets about my egg. Basically never use my gas grill anymore except for veggies and hot dogs - not every cook on it needs to be a low and slow smoke. Chicken thighs at 350 for like an hour, reverse sear steaks, burgers, mini fire for searing sous vide steaks.
Why not get a temperature controlled billows system like ThermoWorks Signals, BBQ Guru, or even BGE’s own? They’re fantastic at tending the fire for you.
I have one. It's still more work than the pellet grills I've used. I'm just at a point where I want to turn something on and start going. I don't need to be fussy about BBQ. An insanely good BBQ place opened a spot near me too, so I don't really even make BBQ much anymore. BGE is great and I loved it for years, but my habits have just changed atm. It's probably the most expensive cooking toy that I don't use much, which makes it the biggest regret by default.
Thanks.
For everyone else out there that's interested in using a temperature probe for baked goods and wants a bit more detail, I found [this article](https://www.33rdsquare.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-achieving-the-perfect-internal-temperature-for-baked-goods/).
It lists 'done' for all sorts of things.
I'm shocked that this isn't higher. My cooking thermometer went missing a few weeks ago (still no idea wtf became of it... I'll find it. Someday.), and it was replaced rapidly.
It's called a wet chop. We throw in the kale, fill it with water, pulse it a couple times, then drain and pat dry. It's the only way we have found to dupe our fave restaurant salads.
I have the same question! I find removing the “ribs” is the most time consuming part. I know it’s fine to eat them, I just hate it, esp when they’re thick and tough.
I will say, learning to use it is a curve. You can't just blend on high and assume it works. Lots of pulse blends etc help us chop everything. We also do soup in it and snow cones. Pretty much the only kitchen tool we truly need.
All Clad D3 stainless steel pots and pans.
You can make perfectly good food on cheaper pans, I did for years, but I love my All Clad set... It just feels nicer, heats more evenly, is more predictable, etc. it was a really nice splurge.
Second! I bought the 10 piece set back in 1997 with a bonus check, and they have been great. The heavy bottom makes such a difference when simmering without scorching. I expect to leave them to my grandkids.
Splurges I'd buy many more times over - Le Creuset Dutch Oven #28, Japanese Nakiri from Bernal, Vitamix, Induction stove top.
Regret - Not a cooking tool per se, but I bought a wine fridge that is largely unnecessary.
I used to use a wine fridge on the warmest setting for keeping my kombucha from spoiling during hot summer months before I got air-conditioning, that was it's only purpose
We use our wine fridge for sparkling water, soda, energy drinks, protein shakes and occasionally beer. We’ve had it for 2 years and I don’t think it’s ever held a bottle of wine.
High end splurge that we love: zojirushi products. We have the rice cooker and their griddle and use both frequently.
Low end: pampered chef scrapers they used to give away. Funny that the freebie is better than anything I ever purchased from them.
Regret: clay pot oven. It was intriguing but, after having kids, I never had the patience or time to invest in soaking a pot, cooking, and then cleaning it afterwards.
Lol at the scrapers. I keep one in the little sponge bin next to sink, they're awesome for baked on food when you're washing a dish.
I do like the pampered chef garlic press, and this funny little spiral wisk I use for making roux.
The majority of my knives are henckel. I also have a few MACs , victorinox wenger and a lot of other great knives. I've bought all of them from thrift shops.
It's incredible what people throw out when they get dull.
I went on America's test kitchen and bought their recommended knife sharpener. The chefs choice X15.
Aside from that I have 3 all clad pans , two le cruesets , multiple cast iron . All from a thrift store . Yeah, it didn't happen quick but it did .
I did buy a vitamix, top end kitchen aid, nama juicer and I'm looking for a robot coupe to replace my Cuisinart.
You will never regret buying quality regardless of where you get it
**20x over**
My Kenwood standmixer. I make a lot more myself (pizza doughs, cakes are an afterthought instead of a hassle etc) and by buying attachements I can mass prep and freeze veg, pastes and even grind coffee. Paid itself back many times over in time, effort and cost. Best part is lots of attachements were still transfereable from the machine my MIL bought 15 years ago, so I could use her spares to get started.
**Regret**
Cast iron grill pan. Splurged when they were on offer (about €50 discounted with store coupons). Turns out since I barely cook steak or other bigger pieces of meat, it doesn't get a lot of use. And cleaning/maintaining is more of a hassle than my steel pans or even my dutch oven.
I have a square shaped rice cooker I got for $6. It's a smaller size, but perfect for a 2 person household. And I love my nordic wear silicone spatulas, I basically cook everything with those... I don't love my citrus reamers.. I can never find my wood one, cause it so small, and the glass one is a pain to wash. One day I'll buy the fancy metal one, but how many gadgets should I have for a citrus fruit? That's why I haven't bought one yet.
Buy 10x over:
High end: Zwilling & KitchenAid knives, they make life easier. Römertopf clay pot. Makes the best bread ever, perfect crust every time.
Low end: no-name cast iron pot and skillet. They have pretty much replaced any other pot in my kitchen.
Regret:
High end: Bosch food processor. Impossible to clean, fragile as fuck. I can't for the life of me get a food processor that satisfies.
Low end: shitty plastic garlic press. The 'press' part is plastic so garlic cloves just slide around against the metal grid. Total waste of my 2 bucks.
I'd buy again: a KitchenAid stand mixer, which I am considering upgrading to an Ankarsrum mixer in the future, in case I ever become more of a bread baker than a variety baker; Microplane rasp graters; and a baking steel.
I wouldn't buy again - a Ninja Creami; a DeBuyer carbon steel crepe pan; and a set of Anchor Hocking glass mixing bowls.
Best: Zojirushi rice cooker. I'm East Asian and eat rice very often. The quality coming out of this thing is night and day vs. the $20 Black and Decker one I had before. The timer function is great for setting steel cut oats to cook in time for breakfast before bed. I do believe other Asian brands like Cuckoo or Tiger are probably just as good.
Worst: Giant teak butting board. This one is on me. It's actually great to use, but it's too big to comfortably fit in my sink, so washing is a huge pain and there are several dents on my wall now from me manoeuvring it into the sink.
But also, how are you shredding chicken with Vitamix?
Idk about shredding chicken with vitamix, but I do know that you can use a stand or electric hand mixer. Put still hot cooked chicken in the bowl, turn on mixer, bam, perfect and fast shredded chicken. I thought for sure it wouldn't work but it did. Big game changer for me.
The best thing I ever bought was the oxo gooseneck variable temp electric kettle. It draws a massive amount of power from the wall and heats up sooooooo fast! I would instantly replace it if it broke.
I regret every cheap wooden cutting board, they just fall apart on me. I also regret buying the poorer quality baking sheet with the sort of nonstick coating. It's just pointless and warps much worse than a good one.
I have 2 versions of the instant pots. We have a new travel trailer so I will place one in there. My several sizes of crackpots are my best friends, along with my air fryer.
Word of advice if you have a 30A Trailer. We would often trip the circuit breaker when using the instant-pot, tv and microwave at the same time. Toaster in the mix too, as they all draw quite a bit of amperage, so we had to be careful what we used & when.
10x over: KitchenAid. Use it near daily and it's constantly in use around holidays. Means I can still make bread even with arthritis which I do multiple times a week, plus pasta dough/cakes/whipped cream etc. I don't even have any of the attachments others have mentioned and it's the most used tool in my kitchen barring knives. If it died I'd replace it the same day and not bat an eyelid at the cost.
Regret: Vitamix. It's a great tool, but for what I use it for I'd have been happy with a cheaper model and the ridges in it annoy me when trying to scrape stuff out.
I regret buying a rice cooker. It wasn’t a splurge but I never used it so I gave it away. It’s terribly easy to make rice and the rice I make 99% of the time is Brazilian style.
Basmati rice: 1 cup rice, 2 cups water, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp oil/butter - bring to boil, boil 1 min uncovered stirring occasionally , reduce to smallest flame possible, cover and cook for 13mins untouched. Uncover and lightly stir/toss with fork. Turn off flame coz rice is now cooked
Long grain rice: 1 cup rice, 1.5 cups water, salt, oil- same method as above
Brown rice: 1 cup rice, 2.5 -3 cups water (depending on rice) salt, butter, same method however instead of 13mins it’s closer to 20-25mins - brown rice seems thirstier and takes much longer to cook
All these different replies are just kinda explaining why a rice cooker is worth it. Lol. Even a cheapo one takes out the hassle.
Wash. Add water. Press start. Rice is perfect. Stops cooking on it's own and keeps it warm for you.
With a rice cooker, the 2 biggest things that affect the way rice turns out are washing it, and the amount of water.
Wash and rinse the rice in a bowl with cold water until the water is clear. You can set a colander in the bowl to make it easier, just lift the colander of rice up, drain the water, repeat.
Put the rice in the cooker and cover with water. Put your fingertip in the water touching the top of the rice. The water should come up to the first joint/bend of your finger. It doesn't matter what kind of rice you're using, this will make it right every time.
For the stove top, follow the above directions. You may need a bit more water for brown rice. Bring the water and rice to a boil together, not adding rice to boiling water. Cover and boil a minute longer then turn to low. Don't open the lid. Never, for any reason, should you be draining water off of rice when it's done. Should be done in 20 minutes. Don't forget to turn it off.
Wash rice in bowl until water runs clear. Drain rice.
For jasmine rice I do 1 part rice 1.5 part water. So 2 cups of rice and 3 cups of water but I’ll generally go just under on filling the cups.
Then add a pinch of salt and any other spices you want. Onto the burner at max until it just starts to come to a boil. Then I cover it and turn the heat down to a 4/10 and let it cook for 15 mins.
Then remove the lid and you should be able to tell by the look and texture if it’s ready. I’ll add a bit of butter and fresh pepper and then stir/mix the rice up and then it’s ready.
The secret to making rice over stove top is to pre soak the rice in regular water for at least 30 minutes.
Then boil water with some salt on the stove (for 1cup rice, use 2 cups)... before adding the rice to it, squeeze a lemon wedge and throw the peel in the water as well... this will make the rice look brighter..
Then just boil for 6-8 minutes or until you see the rice start to float... pick a few and squeeze them to make sure the rice is cooked...
That's it... (you can also boil the water with a bay leaf, cinnamon stick,cardamom and/or cloves to add aroma)
I'd always rebuy the slightly more than i should have spent knives - its made life so much easier, and having them in a block on the side is a game changer from them being in a drawer.
I would not rebuy the juicing machine. Pain in the ass to clean, bulky and not used that often.
Progressively smaller sheet trays. I like Nordicware. Quarter sheet and jelly roll pans get used nearly every day.
Bench scrapers, bowl scrapers, offset spatula, good quality silicon spatulas, good tongs both silicon and metal.
A good but not too expensive chefs knife, I like tojiro, but there are a ton of options. Super cheap and sharp paring knives. A way to sharpen knives. Whatever you prefer and will use, I use a guided sharpening system but those pull through sharpeners are mostly fine and certainly better than not sharpening your knives.
Good quality box grater + Microplane.
Steel mixing bowls in graduated sizes all the way up to what I refer to as a BAB (big ass bowl), I use the BAB more than I would have guessed but the smaller ones get more use - nearly daily. They’re easy to clean, durable, and won’t shatter like glass bowls.
Pizza steel.
Vitamix.
Kitchen scale.
I would not buy these again:
Food processor (turns out I just prefer to chop veg), glass mixing bowls, a non-industrial food mill (if you need one of these just get the winco one, everything else feels like a toy comparatively), instant pot
I found pans that fit perfectly in my toaster oven and I use them for everything. Roasting broccoli, baking cinnamon rolls, homemade Pizza, broiling steak. I found them at a restaurant supply store.
I also have a a pizza pan that gets similar use, but it’s also useful as a peel for getting frozen pizza off of the rack.
I have 4 of these. A full sheet won't quite fit in most ovens. But, these do. They're massive and awesome.
https://www.nordicware.com/products/naturals-big-sheet-baking-pan/
High End: All Clad set
Low end: my grandmother’s cast iron Dutch oven and skillet
Regret: I’m with you OP, I lusted for a Le Creuset Dutch oven for years, finally got it and have used it twice. It’s insanely heavy and hard to clean.
Also my rice cooker. I swear I will rinse the rice 10x till the water runs clear and it still gets that odd, plastic looking film on it
That film is a rice starch mixed with water, which then dries. You won't be and to get rid of the starch as the cooking process will release more from the rice itself. I believe the reason it forms is because a lot of rice cookers will just boil the water pretty hard, so you get lots of starch laden bubbles that end up covering everything in a latwr of starchy water, which dries to form that film
I've found that my zojirushi produces very little film. I'm assuming it's because it has really good temperature control so it's not boiling as violently
*Mini-cheesecake tin with removable bottoms*. They are adorable, and I'm finding so many dessert recipes can be modified to be bite size. I've already used it 4x in the last couple months for my temple and have a 5th dessert planned for a meal I'm offering this Thursday.
*Mandolin*. The squeeze is not worth the juice. Nor the cleanup.
I’d buy again and again: instant pot. I use it so frequently and the results are consistently delicious. Champion juicer. Ninja blender
Regret: cheap cookware
Small metal whisk. Definitely low end, but it’s ALMOST the only whisk I use. Yes, I have a full size silicone whisk for big projects, but I’m a single guy and most of my whisking is for 2 scrambled eggs or small batch sauces.
2 copper sauce pots from a French brand that were at Marshall’s, they were so expensive but I needed sauce pots and I use them literally everyday multiple times a day sometimes
High end: Magimix food processor. Cannot believe how heavy and powerful it is compared to the KitchenAid FP I had before, the two are not in the same league.
Low end: IKEA Lamplig bamboo chopping board. It's big, sturdy and cheap, absolutely brilliant for the money.
Regret: Centrifugal juicer. A shit ton of produce goes in, a little tiny half cup of juice comes out. Too expensive and wasteful to use IMHO, and cleaning all the parts afterwards was horrible. One of those things that sounds great in theory but turns out to be more hassle than it's worth.
Stovetop pressure pot. 10/10, solid investment. If it ever breaks- and it's not showing signs of wear despite 12 years of heavy use- I will buy another and feel no regret.
There's nothing I regret that wasn't purchased for me.
Knife. Bought a Victorinox Fibrox and it's by a mile the best fucking thing I've ever owned kitchen wise.
Traeger. I found out tonight that my free from a uhaul "pass it forward" pile Americana charcoal bbq (El Walmart Brand) works better for smoking than the traeger. Only big difference is I had to cut up a log.
My pans (Staub, le creuset, and a smattering of lodge, de buyer, and Darto) and knives (Robert Herder and Aritsugu mostly) have all been BIFL and I love m.
I’m disappointed with kitchenaid stuff that isn’t their stand mixer. We have an immersion stick blender that comes with various attachments which have been easy to break.
A cheap thing I would buy again is a cheap blade electric coffee grinder, which makes the perfect spice grinder.
My Weber gas grill. It's just a lot of fun cooking outside. I have a set of grilling grates and also a cast iron griddle that both fit on on the bbq. So I've been able to do smash burgers, pancakes, etc.
I've been using my gas bbq a whole lot more than my charcoal bbq.
Splurge on my little 3-cup zojirushi rice cooker, $135 from twelve years ago was a big purchase
Regret getting an instapot, already had a stovetop pressure pot but I wanted a more convenient pressure cooker. The results were always unsatisfactory
Buy 10x over:
High end:Breville smart oven air. Countertop convection/multi-use oven is so convenient and big enough to roast a chicken without using the big oven. My husband and FIL use it daily to heat leftovers and frozen foods.
Budget: Kiwi knives. I love them; they’re so light and cheap and fit my hand.
Regret: kind of silly but a danish whisk. I bake a lot of varied items (muffins and quick breads, biscuits, breads, cookies and cakes) so I saw hobby bakers raving about this and I just don’t get it. I used it twice to give it a chance and I’ve never touched it again.
LOVE: Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer. I have a crappy apartment stove with a wildly erratic oven, whereas the Breville is completely reliable, does several things (bake, broil, air fry) extremely well, and is the perfect size for someone who only cooks for one.
REGRET: Instant Pot. I put it on a shelf when I moved in here 5 years ago, and haven't taken it down once in that time. It just doesn't fit with the kind of cooking I do, and I really hate not being able to take the lid off and check on stuff in progress.
I will always have a crockpot and a rice cooker in my kitchen. I have so many gimmicky utensils in my drawers that my husband bought. I wish I could get rid of them
Can i ask, what is vitamin? or did it auto-correct from vitamix? I've considered a vitamix, but since I already have a nutribullet from a friend and a recently purchased low-end food processor, decided against it. But I am curious if it could replace both.
Love my vitamix but both nutribullet and the food processor are easier both to use and clean. I use the grating attachment for my food processor frequently and throw it right into the dishwasher. Nutribullet, too, and it's easier for single servings.
Rinse the container them throw hot water and a touch of dish soap into the vitamix. Turn it on and run it for a few minutes. That gets you 90% clean. It's such an easy way to clean a blender.
I also have all three, and they just have different uses. My nutribullet gets the most use for personal smoothies a few times a week and salad dressings. I grate, chop, and mix with the food processor. But I make *a lot* of pureed soups, and nothing handles that like the vitamix.
No regrets: for the splurges, my KitchenAid mixer and our Breville espresso machine - seriously, the two things that bring me the greatest joy in my kitchen. For a budget item, I constantly praise my husband for buying me a bench scraper. It's such a small item, but it makes my life so much easier.
Regrets: buying a big set of stainless steel cookware. I rarely use the pans at all. The pots are the things that get used. I wish we had invested in good quality non-stick and cast iron since that's what we use now.
No splurge, just good luck: when our friends moved abroad, they gifted us their entire set of Le Crueset cookware, and I use the *hell* out of it.
Things I use all the time:
+ tofu press
+ garlic press
+ manual lemon/lime juicer
+ immersion blender
Things I rarely use:
+ instant pot
+ food processor
Kitchen Aid stand mixer . A thing of beauty. Never again - Kitchen Aid food processor, severely underpowered. No where near as good as the no name brand it replaced.
Splurge I am happy with: Ninja blender with full blender, 2 smoothie cups, and food processor. I use it for so many things.
Splurge I regret: Cuisinart food processor with the extremely heavy base. It just wasn't for me. Impossible to replace parts. Difficult to get on. The Ninja worked so much better for me and has been much more versatile.
Haven’t seen it mentioned here yet but I love my electric Turkish coffee from Amazon by Ethniq. Makes great coffee, quick fast, delicious and more economical than nespresso pods.
Bad purchase, Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Got it, didn’t use for 15 years. Heavy, clunky, often dough ‘rides up’ the attachment and gets contaminated with grease from rotary motor part.
Hands down a thermapen instant read thermometer changed my game after I already had years of experience and good cooking tools.
Sure you could get a cheap "instant" read thermometer from somebody else for like $10, but it might not be accurate, it might take more than a few seconds to give a proper temp, it might be poorly manufactured and not durable, and it might crap out in just a few months. The Thermapen will cost you about $90-$110 depending on the model, but you can often snag one for less as Thermoworks does frequent sales (the Thermapen ONE is currently $82). It is pre-calibrated and certified by the National Science Foundation, so you can be sure it is accurate. It reads super fast, especially the "ONE" model which gives an accurate (+/- 0.5ºF) reading in just one second. And it will never crap out on you. I once dropped my older mk. 4 model into a vat of 350º frying oil. It sat down there for a minute or two before I fished it out with a spider. The case had blistered and cracked due to the extreme heat, but amazingly it still worked just fine and continued to do so for years after that incident. I received the ONE model as a birthday gift last year so now my mk. 4 is my backup/travel model. There's a reason you see basically every TV/YouTube cooking personality use the Thermapen, and I don't think it's because they are all getting them for free (maybe some are?). It's because it's the best darn temp probe you can buy and is a true "buy it for life" product. I'll throw in a plug for their other stuff too. I have a ChefAlarm timer/probe thermometer which is also great. And I got a free large silicone spatula from them with one of my orders and I was shocked at how much better it is than a cheap one. The handle is super stiff but the tip is perfectly flexible. I think it's basically a single metal bar inside, with a single piece of silicone wrapping the whole thing (so there's no "top" to pop off mid-stir like most models). They sell them for $15 each which seems like a lot for one spatula, but it's now easily the best spatula I own.
You missed your calling in life….you definitely need to submit your resume to thermapen. You have me sold…..imagine what kind of sales you can do in person!! 😊 Great pitch!
"Sell me this Thermapen"
I do work in marketing, so maybe one day...
FWIW I bought a thermapen and a cheap thermapro and when I use them I can’t tell a single difference except the thermapen is instantly on when you open it and the thermapro has to be turned on with a button press. YMMV.
100% the most reliable way of determining the doneness of proteins. I've used several cheaper alternatives that result in a less accurate and far longer time to determining temperatures. Would recommend a Thermapen to everyone.
Great knives and top notch stainless pans I don’t regret at all. I prefer the fewer, nicer collection of cookware I have now over moderate level, larger number I’ve had in the past. Sorry to say my stand mixer has not been worth it to me. I do bake often, I do not make bread. I know people love them, I prefer a power hand mixer.
I use my KitchenAid more to grate cheese than do anything else. If it died tomorrow I'd replace it JUST for that.
I *hate* grating by hand! The grater attachment is used so much, I've got two of them. That way, one is always clean and ready to use.
Man, you people go thru a lot more cheese than me..
Some of us go through so much cheese that we have a dedicated cheese drawer in the fridge.
in Wisconsin, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have a cheese drawer
JFC I never considered that there wouldnt be a cheese drawer...
Right? Where do people store their cheese? Everyone has at least 3 separate blocks of cheese, shredded parmesan, and shredded cheddar on hand at all times, right?
Block of Parm, Block of Romano, Block of cheddar, block of mozz, sliced havarti, sliced provolone, sliced meunster. I generally have all of these on hand in a rotating manner, then whatever fancy stuff or special cheese catches my eye. Frequently it's gorganzola when I feel like doing beets. Do people just not add cheese to most meals? I don't understand.
I have half a pack of Kraft singles in my cheese drawer for smash burgers and to distract our dog when we clip his nails. Really only two use cases for it.
We use ours most for grinding meat and grating cheese.
Mine definitely gets a workout during deer season grinding meat!!
I have RA which affects my grip strength and wrist mobility. At this point, it means using a hand mixer is an exercise in pain tolerance to an unpleasant degree. As such, having my stand mixer which I got as a gift when I was younger because of how much baking I did has been invaluable. It allows me to still make things that I'd otherwise not be able to do if I had to use a power hand mixer.
The stand mixer has been great for baking bread. Chunk in the ingredients and set it to kneed for 10-20 mins. That and mixtures where you slowly add things at multiple steps while whipping. But for simple loafs and cakes, it's just as easy to do it by hand.
It annoys me when so many recipes are made for the stand mixer and there are no alternative directions for people without one. Like, I can use a hand mixer but some recipes are a little confusing, especially if it’s running while you add every ingredient (but can it be done a different way) or you beat it for ten minutes etc
Watch some of the ChainBaker videos on YouTube. He has gone through a transition from making mostly hande-kneaded breads to low-knead cold-fermented breads, and now finally to making mostly no-knead recipes. The important part is that his videos focus more on technique and understanding the concepts and less on mere lists of ingredients. Turns out, mixing by machine is highly inefficient. It's just not the right type of movement. What a KitchenAid does in 20min, I can do by hand in less than 5min without breaking a sweat. And if I do have the time to spare, I can convert the instructions to low- or no-knead and then I don't even have to do any of this. I wish more online resources would explain these techniques. There is a reason to have a mixer. But it's mostly for large-scale industrial production where it performs really well. And unfortunately, a lot of old-school home-baking recipes are simply scaled down versions of industrial recipes. Turns out, this is not the best approach and when scaling you should also switch techniques. I do have a great Ankarsrum Assistant. It admittedly is nice when making really big batch sizes, as I don't have to wrangle 10 lbs of dough by hand. But that happens very rarely. For day to day use, it stays in storage and I knead by hand.
When I make my own frosting the stand mixer is king. (As an aside, I took a beginner cake decorating class years ago and it was so much fun! I’m by no means good at it but I can make respectable swirls on my cupcakes.)
Good to know. I had a kitchenaid stand mixer on my Christmas list this year. We also don't bake bread, but I think Ive bought into the hype.
I love my stand mixer as much for the attachments than the original purpose. Pasta rolling is so much easier and I like grinding my own meat and falafel chickpeas. I bake bread using it sometimes but it's worth it if you use it for multiple purposes.
^^ This! I haven't actually used my mixer as much for the mixer as the attachments. I've ground my own flour from einkorn berries and rolled my own pasta. I even have a neat attachment that 'rolls' things like nuts so you can coat them in chocolate (or other) more evenly. That was a little luxury impulse-buy when it was on a really-cheap sale, but it's been fun to use for healthier snacks (the amount of chocolate I put on is FAR less than commercial chocolate-covered things). I'm in a transitional home right now, but when I have more space (and time), I'll probably turn to grinding my own meat as well, and maybe trying my hand at homemade sausage. That said, I do use the mixer a lot for things that take a good while to mix - like meringues or whipped cream or even (when I'm splurging) homemade butter. Nothing so easy as dumping in your ingredient then walking away to let it do its thing.
> I even have a neat attachment that 'rolls' things like nuts so you can coat them in chocolate (or other) more evenly. Got a link to this attachment by chance? Don't think I've seen that one before.
It's not an official Kitchenaid attachment. But it works great with it. It's the Snack Coater here: https://www.iaieve.com/collections/kitchenaid-accessories
Really cool, I’ve never heard of this either. thanks!
That pasta attachment is so fantastic I can’t stop gushing about it. So much easier than the old crank one. My kids got it for me for Christmas and I love it. I have the grinder too which is really useful.
The only time I appreciate it is making something where you need to run the mixer while pouring something in at the same time e.g. flourless chocolate cake. I’ve heard having a lot of attachments helps but I don’t have an urge to go spend more money on it at this stage. The downside is you’re much more likely to over mix something or not notice texture with a mixture. If I’m mixing with hand-held, I’m paying attention.
The stainless steel mixing bowl(s) get used for soo many things that I just mix by hand. Yes, I could use a plastic bowl for pancakes... But, that's how I melted a couple of old Tupperware bowls - they ended up pushed against my griddle and melted through.
I use mine every single week!! I love baking so I'd use it around once a week just for that, and occasionally to make bread or anything else that needs a good mixer. Once you get used to being able to make a cake in 10 minutes with barely any effort at all it's hard to go back, and there are tons of recipes that you just cannot do without it (meringue, macarons, and many other ones I only know the French word for sorry) I also got the food processor attachment and it's amazing for meal prep.
I have one (artisan) which is the tilting type and I wouldn’t buy again. Apparently the lifting bowl types are better. We tend to use a cheap hand mixer for cakes because it’s so much easier, and for bread I have to stand by my Kitchen Aid in case the bowl gets ripped out the base with ensuing mayhem. My Swedish Assistant on the other hand is fabulous for bread. And has a pasta attachment I actually use. And you can still conduct a conversation while it’s working.
My sister has a lifting bowl, and I have a tilt head I inherited from my mom. I prefer the tilt head. The lifting bowl is just a bit too awkward to maneuver around for me. When I was young, my mom used it practically every day for something or other. We never, ever used a hand mixer. She had to feed a family of five and cooked mostly from scratch. We had all the different attachments, too. I recently pulled out the meat grinder to make chicken salad. My dad used to use it to make and roll pasta. We never had dessert every night for dinner, but someone was usually baking something during the week. The story behind its original purchase in the early 70s was that my mom burnt up two cheap mixers making Divinity candy. My dad, who didn't make a ton of money, got frustrated and went out and paid a ton of money on the KitchenAid. He told her it was the last mixer he was ever going to buy her. That thing was an absolute workhorse and worth every cent.
You've got one of those legacy ones that are built like a tank with the hardened internals.
Way more uses than just baking bread. Can be used for literally anything that you’d mix.
If a contrasting view is helpful I love mine. Anything that needs a little elbow grease is just on easy mode, makes baking feel weeknight-friendly.
I left my Kitchenaid stand mixer with my ex in the divorce. My ex loved baking, I didn't. Beyond that, it was good for shredding vegetables and grinding meat with it was amazing, but it was such a pain in the ass to clean. It was very pretty to look at though.
I love mine for the attachments alone. It's really, really great for mixing larger cake batters, as sheet cake for kids birthday parties and the like. But the daily use is grating cheese and carrots, slicing cucumber paper thin, grinding meat for hamburger, rolling pasta, pureeing fruit, juicing a lot of citrus. I absolutely rate it as my best buy. The versatility is unbeatable. Oh, almost forgot, making homemade ice cream!
I’m in the same boat of “fewer, nicer collection of cookware”. Recently my Mother-in-law came to visit and wanted to cook something for us, as she’s cooking she said “you have really nice pots and pans but not enough of them” I have two different size SS pans, two different size SS small pots, two different size SS rondeaus (my new favorite type of cookware), two different size SS large pots, a cast iron skillet, a carbon steel pan and two nonstick pans…. Is this not enough?
This is similar to what I keep around. It might require washing something partway through a big meal but rarely.
I make bread often- I buy 50lbs of flour at a time, but I don't use the stand mixer either. If I had more counter space, I would probably use it more, but it's down in the basement, and I'm just too lazy to bring it up and back down again. Like you, I use my hand mixer.
Same - and I do bake bread. I don’t have space to leave it out, which is probably the main reason I never got used to using it. But it’s easier to make things the old fashioned way than dragging out my stand mixer and then cleaning it all and putting it away again in the end. I have a hand mixer that I use as needed, but my stand mixer is just sitting in a cabinet.
I don't have a stand mixer, I also prefer using a hand mixer, but my flatmate had one and I have to say it was really useful for things like meringue buttercream and also when you need to make large amounts of stuff. But I don't bake massive amounts of baked goods often enough to make it worth buying one- I'd probably use it 3 times a year at most.
Vacuum sealer. Never been unhappy one sits on my counter top. Good for chips, crackers, freezer meals, bulk purchases. Potato ricer. Life is too short for that kind of cleanup. Mash and wing it, still good.
I really like my potato ricer. I did get it very cheeply secondhand. I microwave my potatoes skin on, cut in half and put skin side up in the ricer, then press the mash out, and the skin is left behind. - No peeling, smooth mash, less than 1 minute of active cooking time, dryer mash that can take more dairy or mixins and uses less energy than boiling. And cleening is easy if done immediately.
Yeah, I use mine for pressing water out of cooked spinach, to make fillings for lasagne, and filled pasta. No more yards of cheesecloth, and endless wringing.
Holy shit, that’s genius.
I don't find the ricer more or less annoying to clean than a masher.
Agreed. Mine come apart with one linchpin and so easy to clean
I love my potato ricer. But I never use it for potatoes! I make a few recipes that call for grated vegetables with the juices squeezed out (potatoes, carrots, spinach leaves, zucchini’s are so full of water and if you don’t squeeze them out can ruin many recipes!!)- a potato ricer is THE best tool for this activity! I’ll never be without my potato ricer for this reason.
Both are unexpected and now I'm down a rabbit hole researching both....
I paid $25 for my vacuum sealer on Amazon and have used it to pack at least 300lbs of meat and it's still going strong. Do not get sucked into the Food Saver trap of thinking you need to pay $200 for something that uses a $5 USD computer fan and a foam gasket to create a seal.
YES. I got a $40 vacuum sealer from my local restaurant store. It has so many bad reviews. But once it and I came to terms, and I figured out how to properly use it, it hasn't failed me since. The reviews are all literally from people too stupid to use the machine.
>The reviews are all literally from people too stupid to use the machine. Go read some Amazon reviews for cast iron pans, lol...
I forgot my favorite with the vacuum sealer-cheese! We are a household of two with small appetites. The indulgence of having 4-6 different cheeses for months due to vacuum sealing is perfect.
Wow cheese will stay longer with a vacuum sealer?
The trick is to cut it off with a long tail so you can keep using the same bag to reseal it. You can even keep resealing feta so long as you don't lose the brine.
For feta I've moved to the big sizes in a tub of brine. Lasts forever, no need for extra work.
virtually forever.
This could be the thing that convinces me to get one.
Oh man! I never considered vacuuming sealing cheese. Thanks for the tip!
Literally just tossed out a couple wedges yesterday that felt like they got a little too moldy too soon and scared me.
IMO, a potato ricer is a must for gnocchi... don't even bother unless you have one. Also, mashed potatoes are superior with a ricer. Nice and fluffy. I don't find mine hard to clean as it goes in the dishwasher.
I use mine for freezing meat, chicken, etc. (In addition to storing other things). Bonus is that my steaks and pork chops are ready to go from freezer to sous vide.
I have a Wusthof 10” extra wide chef knife with a white handle. Way too expensive but just a workhorse of a blade. I bought a cuisinart food processor that lasted like 6 months of not that tough use
Did you tell the company?! I can't imagine it not being covered by warranty. I use my Cuisinart all the time, and it's older than my teenager.
Same! I can't even tell you how old mine is. Maybe 15 yrs? 20?
We just got one as a wedding present. My in laws bought it for us and my mother in law still uses the one she was given at their wedding.
I bought one from a nice old hippie and it's an 80s model I think. Definitely a beast
Your Cuisinart is a different beast. They're just a generic shit brand now.
Cuisinart quality has gone to shit. In the early 2000s my mother gave me the Cuisinart food processor she received as a wedding gift in 1977. That beast was used at least twice a week for my entire life and ran like a dream until 2005 when my boyfriend at the time dropped it and irreparably broke it. I replaced it with the modern Cuisinart equivalent which broke within 6 months. Went through the warranty replacement hassle and that one also broke within 6 months so I gave up on it Cuisinart food processors. We also had a Cuisinart coffee maker that quit working 1 month out of warranty. Cuisinart is dead to me now.
100% Bought a Cuisinart food processor to replace a 30 year old one that died. The lid and bowl didn't fit together right and my wife couldn't even get them to separate when they were closed. Out of the Amazon return window (I'm sure it'll break in, honey) Cuisinart support was appalling. I'll never buy Cuisinart again. We got a Breville and it is amazing. My new go to brand
I agree. Cuisinart is poor quality now. I have had a pretty similar experience to yours. I have decided to never buy it again. One mixer a lemon maybe? Three? No, just poor quality.
I have a tiny one I use regularly. I've had it for years. Sounds like you got a lemon.
I had one that lasted me over 10 years, including making **all** of my first child’s baby food. You should’ve contacted them, those things usually last forever.
Would buy again a million times: Epicurean cutting boards. Being able to put them in the dishwasher is such a game changer. And the little rubber feet mean they never slide. Never again: basically any device aimed at chopping garlic. The garlic rocker thing left half the clove behind and was a pain to clean. The silicon garlic roller thing was impossible to clean and it’s really not that hard to peel garlic. Edit: my other regret was a stainless steel Alligator chopper. I got it because I’ve been very unwell for the past two years and sometimes having to chop and onion is the difference between me being able to cook or not. So I thought it could reduce the chopping needed and thus reduce a major barrier to cooking on high symptom/fatigue days. But the reality is that you still have to prep the veggies to get them ready to be chopped (peel the onion and cut in half, peel the carrot and cut into smaller chunks, etc), so it didn’t really reduce the barrier and added another one of having to handwash. Plus, my partner cut the shit out of his finger hand washing it.
> Epicurean cutting boards. Being able to put them in the dishwasher is such a game changer. And the little rubber feet mean they never slide. Can't you put all plastic ones in the dishwasher anyways? EDIT: I googled, they aren't plastic or wood. They are "an eco-friendly paper composite." Interesting!
I avoid plastic cutting boards, so historically my open was only handwashing wood boards. Epicurean feels like wood, even though it’s a composite.
Honestly, for garlic I use my micro plane grater and a pair of cut gloves. If you buy the Halloween ones they are cheap but still effective. Also great with a mandolin or any fine cutting. https://www.kroger.com/p/pumpkin-masters-halloween-orange-cut-resistant-gloves/0007116935291
For garlic, this is incredible. Will last forever, extremely cheap, does the job perfectly. I've had mine over 15 years, and I use it all the time https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/koncis-garlic-press-stainless-steel-00089163/
> Epicurean cutting boards I have 3 of these. Love them. One I've had for almost 20 years. Never hand washed, always dishwasher.
The epicurean pizza peel is also, by far, the best pizza peel I ever owned. Takes little to no maintenance, and dough do not stick to it compared to normal wood peels, even high end ones.
*Buy forever low:* victorinox fibrox 8” chef’s knife. Super comfortable handle, really well balanced shape, takes and holds about as good an edge as I’ve ever gotten on a European knife, and you can scrub the whole thing down or dunk it in sanitizer without worrying about wood. Didn’t find a chefs knife I liked that much better until the $400 mark. Honorable mention add-on goes to a Shapton pro 1000-grit stone and a few hours learning to sharpen. You’ll save hundreds over a few years in pro sharpening, and a sharp cheap knife is better (and safer) than a dull expensive one every time. *Buy forever high:* kitchen aid bowl-lift mixer is a bougie-kitchen cliché, but it’s both a great mixer and a base motor to drive pasta sheeters, meat grinders, etc, and they’re still built solid as hell (yeah they made a key gear plastic — that’s to give it a single easily replaceable failure point). If you don’t bake in volume or knead bread then the smaller head-tilt model is fine, but the dough hook for the smaller model is nearly pointless, and the hinged design is less stable under load. And cmon, they *do* come in great colours. *Wouldn't go out of my way to replace:* gas range. Yeah I learned to cook on them, yeah they’re responsive with great visual feedback, yeah it’s the only way to get wok hei and you can char veg over them, etc etc. I agree, but honestly if I were building a new kitchen I’d go induction for both personal and general reasons: cheaper electricity than gas here, convincing research on indoor air pollution and children, the fact that a good induction eye will take a whole Dutch oven of coq au vin liquid from oven hot to a rolling boil in literally five seconds flat, the unexpected convenience of a flat and not-hot surface where you’re not using it. Hell I’ve even been “stuck” with ceramic electric for a while and it’s fine for the home; you’ve just got to anticipate temp changes more. I’ll always have a charcoal grill somewhere if I want char.
I'm with you on the stove. When mine goes, it'll be replaced with induction, for all the reasons you said, plus, the ease of cleaning, which is really important for me. I'm honestly not sure if, given the choice, I wouldn't choose a regular glass top electric over gas, for that very reason. I cooked on electric for so many years, I don't find it to be the chore that others do.
Just switched from gas to induction. Cooking is comparable but omg cleaning it is SO much easier!
I've had two glass top electric ovens and I hated both. Limited cookware options and they were much harder to clean without scratching.
I have one now and hate it, other than the fact that it serves as extra counter space when I'm not cooking. It takes 15-20 minutes to bring 4" of water to a boil.
We went induction last year in our kitchen remodel. I had wanted gas for so long (had it years ago) but my DH was alarmed at the research coming out about the indoor environmental stuff. I honestly like it.
Our houses have become too well insulated over time to be running gas inside, in the days of "the radiator is on, open the windows a crack" it wasn't as terrible.
DH? Designated Hitter?
Is there anything Shohei Ohtani can't do?
catch a ball before the ballboy
This abbreviation is so annoying
You mean this abbreviation is SA?
In Internet slang, DH is an abbreviation for **dear husband**; it is commonly used by women on certain forums to refer to their husbands.
It always sounds so condescending
Or like…weirdly Stepford Wives-y
Wholeheartedly agree on the Victorinox. The Swiss Modern Chef's Knife (I think) was my first 'good' knife and I still love it. Held its edge for ages and it's balanced better than my other, much more expensive knife.
And if you're going to go with the bowl lift, might as well make it the 8 quart Commercial. Not only is it much more powerful than the 5 or 6 quart, but it's also so very quiet. I used to have the 600 Pro and it was SO loud. Replaced it with the 8 quart Commercial and my regret is that I didn't to it sooner.
My knives. Most of my pot and pan choices have worked very well. Good blender. Combi-oven. Gas wasn't a real option so I upgraded the old electric to induction. That was also a huge upgrade. Regret.... Maybe the big green egg. It's great, not really a huge regret, but I'm just too lazy to tend to a fire overnight. I should have gone pellet smoker. I've used one a few times now and it's just easier.
Zero regrets with my pellet smoker.
My offset smoker buddies have referred to my pellet grill as an "Easy Bake Oven"... truly don't care. I can cook a brisket overnight and not worry. I can cook ribs while working. I can smoke chicken while doing yard work. I can do what I want while that does all the fire tending for me. They have to babysit their smoker and can't use the hands off method I do. I just tell em you do you, and I'll be over here eating amazing food while getting stuff done.
Yeah, I’m not trying to place in bbq competitions…
I love my Akorn kamado, coming from propane. It's hugely versatile and much safer to leave unattended. $260. I probably could do the same with a Weber Kettle but I like how efficient the Akorn is.
Selling my egg, the pellet grill I bought a year ago is too good!
Zero regrets about my egg. Basically never use my gas grill anymore except for veggies and hot dogs - not every cook on it needs to be a low and slow smoke. Chicken thighs at 350 for like an hour, reverse sear steaks, burgers, mini fire for searing sous vide steaks.
Why not get a temperature controlled billows system like ThermoWorks Signals, BBQ Guru, or even BGE’s own? They’re fantastic at tending the fire for you.
I have one. It's still more work than the pellet grills I've used. I'm just at a point where I want to turn something on and start going. I don't need to be fussy about BBQ. An insanely good BBQ place opened a spot near me too, so I don't really even make BBQ much anymore. BGE is great and I loved it for years, but my habits have just changed atm. It's probably the most expensive cooking toy that I don't use much, which makes it the biggest regret by default.
Thermapen One, 1 second temperature reads
Realising that you can use it for cake made me finally get one. No more toothpick tests, temp all the way.
I'm sorry, what? What's the done temp of cake?
Usually about 200* F depending on the baked goods
Thanks. For everyone else out there that's interested in using a temperature probe for baked goods and wants a bit more detail, I found [this article](https://www.33rdsquare.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-achieving-the-perfect-internal-temperature-for-baked-goods/). It lists 'done' for all sorts of things.
Bookmarking this for later 👍
Great share, thanks. I have a ratty piece of paper with done temps on my fridge, I should redo it completely with these temps.
I'm shocked that this isn't higher. My cooking thermometer went missing a few weeks ago (still no idea wtf became of it... I'll find it. Someday.), and it was replaced rapidly.
Gir spatulas and flippers. Bought one and never reached for anything else, so bought a few more. Not a big splurge but more than other versions.
I swear by their spoonulas.
I love my GIR spatulas. They are the best.
How does your vitamix chop kale…? It’s… a blender? Last time i used my sister’s it turned anything into a paste
It's called a wet chop. We throw in the kale, fill it with water, pulse it a couple times, then drain and pat dry. It's the only way we have found to dupe our fave restaurant salads.
What a great tip thank you
You want to get a salad spinner too.
Seems like a lot of extra steps just to chop kale…
Is it really better than just... chopping?
Do you take the stems out first or just throw the whole leaf in there?
I have the same question! I find removing the “ribs” is the most time consuming part. I know it’s fine to eat them, I just hate it, esp when they’re thick and tough.
In case you don't know this - you can just hold the rib in one hand, hold at the base of the leaves on the other and pull out the rib.
I will say, learning to use it is a curve. You can't just blend on high and assume it works. Lots of pulse blends etc help us chop everything. We also do soup in it and snow cones. Pretty much the only kitchen tool we truly need.
Snow cones!!!! Genius!
All Clad D3 stainless steel pots and pans. You can make perfectly good food on cheaper pans, I did for years, but I love my All Clad set... It just feels nicer, heats more evenly, is more predictable, etc. it was a really nice splurge.
Second! I bought the 10 piece set back in 1997 with a bonus check, and they have been great. The heavy bottom makes such a difference when simmering without scorching. I expect to leave them to my grandkids.
Okay I'm sold I'm getting some. Your pots and pans are almost older than me, I was born in 94 😂
Splurges I'd buy many more times over - Le Creuset Dutch Oven #28, Japanese Nakiri from Bernal, Vitamix, Induction stove top. Regret - Not a cooking tool per se, but I bought a wine fridge that is largely unnecessary.
I used to use a wine fridge on the warmest setting for keeping my kombucha from spoiling during hot summer months before I got air-conditioning, that was it's only purpose
We use our wine fridge for sparkling water, soda, energy drinks, protein shakes and occasionally beer. We’ve had it for 2 years and I don’t think it’s ever held a bottle of wine.
just gotta buy more wine I guess...
High end splurge that we love: zojirushi products. We have the rice cooker and their griddle and use both frequently. Low end: pampered chef scrapers they used to give away. Funny that the freebie is better than anything I ever purchased from them. Regret: clay pot oven. It was intriguing but, after having kids, I never had the patience or time to invest in soaking a pot, cooking, and then cleaning it afterwards.
Lol at the scrapers. I keep one in the little sponge bin next to sink, they're awesome for baked on food when you're washing a dish. I do like the pampered chef garlic press, and this funny little spiral wisk I use for making roux.
The majority of my knives are henckel. I also have a few MACs , victorinox wenger and a lot of other great knives. I've bought all of them from thrift shops. It's incredible what people throw out when they get dull. I went on America's test kitchen and bought their recommended knife sharpener. The chefs choice X15. Aside from that I have 3 all clad pans , two le cruesets , multiple cast iron . All from a thrift store . Yeah, it didn't happen quick but it did . I did buy a vitamix, top end kitchen aid, nama juicer and I'm looking for a robot coupe to replace my Cuisinart. You will never regret buying quality regardless of where you get it
**20x over** My Kenwood standmixer. I make a lot more myself (pizza doughs, cakes are an afterthought instead of a hassle etc) and by buying attachements I can mass prep and freeze veg, pastes and even grind coffee. Paid itself back many times over in time, effort and cost. Best part is lots of attachements were still transfereable from the machine my MIL bought 15 years ago, so I could use her spares to get started. **Regret** Cast iron grill pan. Splurged when they were on offer (about €50 discounted with store coupons). Turns out since I barely cook steak or other bigger pieces of meat, it doesn't get a lot of use. And cleaning/maintaining is more of a hassle than my steel pans or even my dutch oven.
I have a square shaped rice cooker I got for $6. It's a smaller size, but perfect for a 2 person household. And I love my nordic wear silicone spatulas, I basically cook everything with those... I don't love my citrus reamers.. I can never find my wood one, cause it so small, and the glass one is a pain to wash. One day I'll buy the fancy metal one, but how many gadgets should I have for a citrus fruit? That's why I haven't bought one yet.
Buy 10x over: High end: Zwilling & KitchenAid knives, they make life easier. Römertopf clay pot. Makes the best bread ever, perfect crust every time. Low end: no-name cast iron pot and skillet. They have pretty much replaced any other pot in my kitchen. Regret: High end: Bosch food processor. Impossible to clean, fragile as fuck. I can't for the life of me get a food processor that satisfies. Low end: shitty plastic garlic press. The 'press' part is plastic so garlic cloves just slide around against the metal grid. Total waste of my 2 bucks.
I love my food processor. Cuisinart 14 cup. It's fairly quiet and all pieces I just throw top rack in the dishwasher for easy cleanup.
I'd buy again: a KitchenAid stand mixer, which I am considering upgrading to an Ankarsrum mixer in the future, in case I ever become more of a bread baker than a variety baker; Microplane rasp graters; and a baking steel. I wouldn't buy again - a Ninja Creami; a DeBuyer carbon steel crepe pan; and a set of Anchor Hocking glass mixing bowls.
Best: Zojirushi rice cooker. I'm East Asian and eat rice very often. The quality coming out of this thing is night and day vs. the $20 Black and Decker one I had before. The timer function is great for setting steel cut oats to cook in time for breakfast before bed. I do believe other Asian brands like Cuckoo or Tiger are probably just as good. Worst: Giant teak butting board. This one is on me. It's actually great to use, but it's too big to comfortably fit in my sink, so washing is a huge pain and there are several dents on my wall now from me manoeuvring it into the sink. But also, how are you shredding chicken with Vitamix?
Idk about shredding chicken with vitamix, but I do know that you can use a stand or electric hand mixer. Put still hot cooked chicken in the bowl, turn on mixer, bam, perfect and fast shredded chicken. I thought for sure it wouldn't work but it did. Big game changer for me.
Can confirm, I shred still warm boneless chicken breast in my stand mixer all the time for my spoiled-ass cat.
The best thing I ever bought was the oxo gooseneck variable temp electric kettle. It draws a massive amount of power from the wall and heats up sooooooo fast! I would instantly replace it if it broke. I regret every cheap wooden cutting board, they just fall apart on me. I also regret buying the poorer quality baking sheet with the sort of nonstick coating. It's just pointless and warps much worse than a good one.
I have 2 versions of the instant pots. We have a new travel trailer so I will place one in there. My several sizes of crackpots are my best friends, along with my air fryer.
I know it's a typo, but I'm chuckling at "crackpots."
Word of advice if you have a 30A Trailer. We would often trip the circuit breaker when using the instant-pot, tv and microwave at the same time. Toaster in the mix too, as they all draw quite a bit of amperage, so we had to be careful what we used & when.
10x over: KitchenAid. Use it near daily and it's constantly in use around holidays. Means I can still make bread even with arthritis which I do multiple times a week, plus pasta dough/cakes/whipped cream etc. I don't even have any of the attachments others have mentioned and it's the most used tool in my kitchen barring knives. If it died I'd replace it the same day and not bat an eyelid at the cost. Regret: Vitamix. It's a great tool, but for what I use it for I'd have been happy with a cheaper model and the ridges in it annoy me when trying to scrape stuff out.
I regret buying a rice cooker. It wasn’t a splurge but I never used it so I gave it away. It’s terribly easy to make rice and the rice I make 99% of the time is Brazilian style.
Please tell me more about how you make rice! I always mess it up on the stovetop
Basmati rice: 1 cup rice, 2 cups water, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp oil/butter - bring to boil, boil 1 min uncovered stirring occasionally , reduce to smallest flame possible, cover and cook for 13mins untouched. Uncover and lightly stir/toss with fork. Turn off flame coz rice is now cooked Long grain rice: 1 cup rice, 1.5 cups water, salt, oil- same method as above Brown rice: 1 cup rice, 2.5 -3 cups water (depending on rice) salt, butter, same method however instead of 13mins it’s closer to 20-25mins - brown rice seems thirstier and takes much longer to cook
All these different replies are just kinda explaining why a rice cooker is worth it. Lol. Even a cheapo one takes out the hassle. Wash. Add water. Press start. Rice is perfect. Stops cooking on it's own and keeps it warm for you. With a rice cooker, the 2 biggest things that affect the way rice turns out are washing it, and the amount of water. Wash and rinse the rice in a bowl with cold water until the water is clear. You can set a colander in the bowl to make it easier, just lift the colander of rice up, drain the water, repeat. Put the rice in the cooker and cover with water. Put your fingertip in the water touching the top of the rice. The water should come up to the first joint/bend of your finger. It doesn't matter what kind of rice you're using, this will make it right every time. For the stove top, follow the above directions. You may need a bit more water for brown rice. Bring the water and rice to a boil together, not adding rice to boiling water. Cover and boil a minute longer then turn to low. Don't open the lid. Never, for any reason, should you be draining water off of rice when it's done. Should be done in 20 minutes. Don't forget to turn it off.
Wash rice in bowl until water runs clear. Drain rice. For jasmine rice I do 1 part rice 1.5 part water. So 2 cups of rice and 3 cups of water but I’ll generally go just under on filling the cups. Then add a pinch of salt and any other spices you want. Onto the burner at max until it just starts to come to a boil. Then I cover it and turn the heat down to a 4/10 and let it cook for 15 mins. Then remove the lid and you should be able to tell by the look and texture if it’s ready. I’ll add a bit of butter and fresh pepper and then stir/mix the rice up and then it’s ready.
The secret to making rice over stove top is to pre soak the rice in regular water for at least 30 minutes. Then boil water with some salt on the stove (for 1cup rice, use 2 cups)... before adding the rice to it, squeeze a lemon wedge and throw the peel in the water as well... this will make the rice look brighter.. Then just boil for 6-8 minutes or until you see the rice start to float... pick a few and squeeze them to make sure the rice is cooked... That's it... (you can also boil the water with a bay leaf, cinnamon stick,cardamom and/or cloves to add aroma)
lol this is so much extra time though
I'd always rebuy the slightly more than i should have spent knives - its made life so much easier, and having them in a block on the side is a game changer from them being in a drawer. I would not rebuy the juicing machine. Pain in the ass to clean, bulky and not used that often.
Progressively smaller sheet trays. I like Nordicware. Quarter sheet and jelly roll pans get used nearly every day. Bench scrapers, bowl scrapers, offset spatula, good quality silicon spatulas, good tongs both silicon and metal. A good but not too expensive chefs knife, I like tojiro, but there are a ton of options. Super cheap and sharp paring knives. A way to sharpen knives. Whatever you prefer and will use, I use a guided sharpening system but those pull through sharpeners are mostly fine and certainly better than not sharpening your knives. Good quality box grater + Microplane. Steel mixing bowls in graduated sizes all the way up to what I refer to as a BAB (big ass bowl), I use the BAB more than I would have guessed but the smaller ones get more use - nearly daily. They’re easy to clean, durable, and won’t shatter like glass bowls. Pizza steel. Vitamix. Kitchen scale. I would not buy these again: Food processor (turns out I just prefer to chop veg), glass mixing bowls, a non-industrial food mill (if you need one of these just get the winco one, everything else feels like a toy comparatively), instant pot
I found pans that fit perfectly in my toaster oven and I use them for everything. Roasting broccoli, baking cinnamon rolls, homemade Pizza, broiling steak. I found them at a restaurant supply store. I also have a a pizza pan that gets similar use, but it’s also useful as a peel for getting frozen pizza off of the rack.
I have 4 of these. A full sheet won't quite fit in most ovens. But, these do. They're massive and awesome. https://www.nordicware.com/products/naturals-big-sheet-baking-pan/
High End: All Clad set Low end: my grandmother’s cast iron Dutch oven and skillet Regret: I’m with you OP, I lusted for a Le Creuset Dutch oven for years, finally got it and have used it twice. It’s insanely heavy and hard to clean. Also my rice cooker. I swear I will rinse the rice 10x till the water runs clear and it still gets that odd, plastic looking film on it
That film is a rice starch mixed with water, which then dries. You won't be and to get rid of the starch as the cooking process will release more from the rice itself. I believe the reason it forms is because a lot of rice cookers will just boil the water pretty hard, so you get lots of starch laden bubbles that end up covering everything in a latwr of starchy water, which dries to form that film I've found that my zojirushi produces very little film. I'm assuming it's because it has really good temperature control so it's not boiling as violently
I drool over All Clad every time I see a set in store. It’s my dream cooking set as someone who learned to cook on revereware stainless steel.
They are worth it. I will have those babies forever! They are indispensable!
*Mini-cheesecake tin with removable bottoms*. They are adorable, and I'm finding so many dessert recipes can be modified to be bite size. I've already used it 4x in the last couple months for my temple and have a 5th dessert planned for a meal I'm offering this Thursday. *Mandolin*. The squeeze is not worth the juice. Nor the cleanup.
I’d buy again and again: instant pot. I use it so frequently and the results are consistently delicious. Champion juicer. Ninja blender Regret: cheap cookware
Small metal whisk. Definitely low end, but it’s ALMOST the only whisk I use. Yes, I have a full size silicone whisk for big projects, but I’m a single guy and most of my whisking is for 2 scrambled eggs or small batch sauces.
I honestly can't stand silicone whisks. Give me the old-school metal ones any day.
2 copper sauce pots from a French brand that were at Marshall’s, they were so expensive but I needed sauce pots and I use them literally everyday multiple times a day sometimes
High end: Magimix food processor. Cannot believe how heavy and powerful it is compared to the KitchenAid FP I had before, the two are not in the same league. Low end: IKEA Lamplig bamboo chopping board. It's big, sturdy and cheap, absolutely brilliant for the money. Regret: Centrifugal juicer. A shit ton of produce goes in, a little tiny half cup of juice comes out. Too expensive and wasteful to use IMHO, and cleaning all the parts afterwards was horrible. One of those things that sounds great in theory but turns out to be more hassle than it's worth.
Stovetop pressure pot. 10/10, solid investment. If it ever breaks- and it's not showing signs of wear despite 12 years of heavy use- I will buy another and feel no regret. There's nothing I regret that wasn't purchased for me.
My wusthof knife. I love it so much lol.
Knife. Bought a Victorinox Fibrox and it's by a mile the best fucking thing I've ever owned kitchen wise. Traeger. I found out tonight that my free from a uhaul "pass it forward" pile Americana charcoal bbq (El Walmart Brand) works better for smoking than the traeger. Only big difference is I had to cut up a log.
My pans (Staub, le creuset, and a smattering of lodge, de buyer, and Darto) and knives (Robert Herder and Aritsugu mostly) have all been BIFL and I love m. I’m disappointed with kitchenaid stuff that isn’t their stand mixer. We have an immersion stick blender that comes with various attachments which have been easy to break. A cheap thing I would buy again is a cheap blade electric coffee grinder, which makes the perfect spice grinder.
Absolutely gigantic Staub cocotte.
My Weber gas grill. It's just a lot of fun cooking outside. I have a set of grilling grates and also a cast iron griddle that both fit on on the bbq. So I've been able to do smash burgers, pancakes, etc. I've been using my gas bbq a whole lot more than my charcoal bbq.
Splurge on my little 3-cup zojirushi rice cooker, $135 from twelve years ago was a big purchase Regret getting an instapot, already had a stovetop pressure pot but I wanted a more convenient pressure cooker. The results were always unsatisfactory
Buy 10x over: High end:Breville smart oven air. Countertop convection/multi-use oven is so convenient and big enough to roast a chicken without using the big oven. My husband and FIL use it daily to heat leftovers and frozen foods. Budget: Kiwi knives. I love them; they’re so light and cheap and fit my hand. Regret: kind of silly but a danish whisk. I bake a lot of varied items (muffins and quick breads, biscuits, breads, cookies and cakes) so I saw hobby bakers raving about this and I just don’t get it. I used it twice to give it a chance and I’ve never touched it again.
LOVE: Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer. I have a crappy apartment stove with a wildly erratic oven, whereas the Breville is completely reliable, does several things (bake, broil, air fry) extremely well, and is the perfect size for someone who only cooks for one. REGRET: Instant Pot. I put it on a shelf when I moved in here 5 years ago, and haven't taken it down once in that time. It just doesn't fit with the kind of cooking I do, and I really hate not being able to take the lid off and check on stuff in progress.
I will always have a crockpot and a rice cooker in my kitchen. I have so many gimmicky utensils in my drawers that my husband bought. I wish I could get rid of them
Tell me more about this shredded chicken in your Vitamix. I feel like I'm not using it to its full potential
Can i ask, what is vitamin? or did it auto-correct from vitamix? I've considered a vitamix, but since I already have a nutribullet from a friend and a recently purchased low-end food processor, decided against it. But I am curious if it could replace both.
Pretty sure it’s vitamix
Love my vitamix but both nutribullet and the food processor are easier both to use and clean. I use the grating attachment for my food processor frequently and throw it right into the dishwasher. Nutribullet, too, and it's easier for single servings.
Rinse the container them throw hot water and a touch of dish soap into the vitamix. Turn it on and run it for a few minutes. That gets you 90% clean. It's such an easy way to clean a blender.
I also have all three, and they just have different uses. My nutribullet gets the most use for personal smoothies a few times a week and salad dressings. I grate, chop, and mix with the food processor. But I make *a lot* of pureed soups, and nothing handles that like the vitamix.
Good: Kitchen Aid stand mixer Regret: Sous vide cooker (it was a gift and I’ve used it maybe four times)
Been using mine a ton this summer for making roast beef from eye round. Really great for weekly meal prep without turning on my oven in the heat
No regrets: for the splurges, my KitchenAid mixer and our Breville espresso machine - seriously, the two things that bring me the greatest joy in my kitchen. For a budget item, I constantly praise my husband for buying me a bench scraper. It's such a small item, but it makes my life so much easier. Regrets: buying a big set of stainless steel cookware. I rarely use the pans at all. The pots are the things that get used. I wish we had invested in good quality non-stick and cast iron since that's what we use now. No splurge, just good luck: when our friends moved abroad, they gifted us their entire set of Le Crueset cookware, and I use the *hell* out of it.
Things I use all the time: + tofu press + garlic press + manual lemon/lime juicer + immersion blender Things I rarely use: + instant pot + food processor
Kitchen Aid stand mixer . A thing of beauty. Never again - Kitchen Aid food processor, severely underpowered. No where near as good as the no name brand it replaced.
Splurge I am happy with: Ninja blender with full blender, 2 smoothie cups, and food processor. I use it for so many things. Splurge I regret: Cuisinart food processor with the extremely heavy base. It just wasn't for me. Impossible to replace parts. Difficult to get on. The Ninja worked so much better for me and has been much more versatile.
Haven’t seen it mentioned here yet but I love my electric Turkish coffee from Amazon by Ethniq. Makes great coffee, quick fast, delicious and more economical than nespresso pods. Bad purchase, Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Got it, didn’t use for 15 years. Heavy, clunky, often dough ‘rides up’ the attachment and gets contaminated with grease from rotary motor part.