A Fully Stocked Kitchen [Part Five- Tools, Gadgets, and Appliances]

When last we met in this series, I covered the basic equipment needed to stock a kitchen: pots, pans and knives. As I've previously mentioned, I am a strong proponent of multitasking tools and thus, I am not much of a fan of terribly specialized uni-tasking items. Kitchen gadgets can make you nuts if you let them and while they sure do seem like must haves when you look through the pages of the cooking store catalogs, I assure you, there are other tools that can handle the tasks of those "one-hit wonders."  In addition to the pots, pans and knives, you'll want some hand tools or utensils, some appliances and perhaps a few gadgets here and there as well.

Utensils & Hand Tools:

• Measures: 
• Measuring spoons - I recommend 2 sets because, invariably, in the midst of baking you've used that teaspoon for a liquid ingredient and then you need to measure some dry ingredient. Who wants to stop and wash and dry at that point? 
• Dry measuring cups - again 2 sets of standard measures(1/4, 1/3, 1/2/, and 1 C) and one set of the "unusual" measures ( 2/3, 3/4 &1 1/2 C)
• Liquid measures - Glass is preferred. I have a 1 C, 2 C and a Granddaddy 1 Qt. liquid measure. These are great, not only for measuring liquids, but also for mixing up/whisking together salad dressings, etc.
• Implements: The following would be what I consider to be the most frequently used items in my stable of tools. I do have a pretty varied assortment of truly non-essential items that I would consider to be on the tier of "nice to have" rather than "must have" items.
• Bowl-scraper: These flexible slices of plastic are great for getting every last bit of batter out of a bowl. Additionally, they are sturdy enough to cut through bread or pizza dough or even brownies. I find they are a great help mate when moving chopped ingredients from the cutting board into the pan or pot.
• Tongs: One of the most useful tools in the kitchen. You can use these to turn meat,  to toss salads, to gracefully grab vegetables or long noodles, to move pans around in the hot oven and even to serve prepared foods. Stainless steel with strong and tight graspers is a must; if you like, you can get the tongs with cushioned handles, but plain are just fine as well.
• Whisk :  again, stainless is a great choice. This tool is perfect for emulsifying salad dressings and serves equally well to mix up dry ingredients when baking (sometimes in place of sifting a quick whisk will do well.)
• Heat-resistant spatulas: Back in the day, the only choice was plain ol' rubber spatulas that, over time, would deteriorate, get brittle and break (and often times, have a peculiar smell of their own and/or take on the smell of the things they'd been used to mix up.) Now, the high heat silicone variety are temp. safe to about 500F, retain their flexibility well and are less prone to absorbing the flavors of your foods.
• Wooden spoons: The mainstay of my mother's kitchen, wooden spoons are wonderful as they do not conduct heat very well, so handles stay cool and the wood will not cause scratches on your cookware. The con is, of course, that they do take on the flavor of whatever you're cooking so it is advisable to have a couple for just savory dishes and a couple for your sweets (no garlic tomato sauce flavor leeching into your ice cream!)
• Nesting mixing bowls: I have a set of melamine bowls that I got when I first got married. They are fine, but if I were to know then what I know now, I would go for a set of glass mixing bowls and at least one metal bowl. The glass are great since they can go into the microwave (if you want to soften or melt butter). The metal is far more durable than the tempered glass, and can be used over a pot of simmering water in place of a double boiler.
• Stainless steel mesh colanders: fabulous for washing fruits and vegetables; depending on how fine the mesh is, could possibly stand in for a sifter. Some people prefer to forego the colander and instead, use a long-handled strainer over a bowl. This one is purely personal preference although, the long-handled strainer or sieve will definitely have a super fine mesh that could eliminate the need for a separate flour sifter.
• Graters: a large box grater- perfect for shredding a bunch of cheese for enchiladas & a smaller hand-held grater which is wonderful for doing a quick shred of cheese over a salad or grilled corn or to grate small amounts of vegetables.
• Vegetable peeler: If you're like my mother, you'd not need one of these. She uses a paring knife to take the peel off of potatoes and apples etc. Me? I'm not that confident in my knife skills. I have a standard vegetable peeler to do this job.
• Garlic Press: Yes, this is an essential in my kitchen. Sure, you can mince garlic with a knife and a board, but I find a quick press to be so much simpler. This is also one of my very few kitchen splurges. Typically, I'm very frugal when it comes to my kitchen purchases but after breaking a couple of well-rated presses, I coughed up a good amount of dough for this: Rosle Garlic Press For me, it has been well worth it.

Appliances

Again, Spartan that I am, my must have list is pretty short. Most of these are "either; or" not "and"

• Blenders
• Immersion-stick blender - hands-down, this is my favorite purchase of all-time (even more than the garlic press, I think) I have a very basic model that was about $29. It is a dream to use when making hummus, or anything at all that needs to be pureed. For so many years, I shied away from any soup recipe that listed that the soup needed to be pureed in a blender and then returned to the pot. The thought of transferring hot soup, small batch by small batch, into my standard blender and risking the hot-soup-on-the-ceiling-explosion was just too much to bear. Once I got this thing, Creme of Cauliflower Soup(which is a revelation) became a kitchen reality. 
• High-powered blender - (Vita-mix or the like) I don't have one, but everyone that I know that does is completely mesmerized by the thing. Vita-mix groupies are a large and vocal bunch.
• Food-processor - I guess, not truly a blender, but more of a multi-purpose appliance, these also have strong proponents. I suppose, since I started out married life with very minimal kitchen space, that I had to be very judicious with my choices and had to decide what I really loved enough to grant it some prized counter space. I've been able to get by without using one and have found traditional work-arounds for most every technique/application
• Mixers
• Hand mixer - I started with one of these. Mine has a whisk attachment (great for whipped creme) as well as dough hooks (worst idea ever - who is going to stand forever trying to knead bread dough with that thing?) I use it for quick mixing jobs.
• Stand mixer - (Kitchen-aid or such) I was gifted one of these for Mother's Day when we moved back to Texas. I do love it a lot. It works really well as a mixer. The dough hooks make sense since it does all of the kneading work for you. It is also wonderful as it provides the motor and power for a fairly large library of attachments: grain mill(don't have), food grinder(have and have used to grind meat for dumplings), shredder/graters(fabulous for grating lots of cheese for fondue or pimiento cheese and for shredding potatoes for latkes), sausage stuffer(have, but have yet to get up the nerve to go buy casings), pasta rollers (love! enough said) and an ice cream freezer(pretty dang fabulous.) So, if you were to buy all of those separately, each one would be with its own motor and housing and take up a huge amount of space. This is far more economical when it comes to space.
• Miscellaneous
• Panini Grill - not essential, per se, but a nice thing to have, I guess. It has saved me on many a night when I didn't know what to make exactly. When you take your usual sandwich of sandwich meats and cheeses and a few savory condiments and drizzle it with olive oil and then press and grill it, magic happens and a very Gestalt result with the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.
• Waffle Maker - again, pancakes are great, but waffles are just a little more special. A waffle maker can stand in as a sandwich press in a pinch as well.
• Crock pot/slow cooker - Personally, I don't get the fascination with these things. For me, it is just as easy to use a dutch oven and the stove top or oven to do a slow braise. But, since so many people seem to love them and swear by them, I'm including it on the list.

Want to enter for a chance to win one of my favorite kitchen helpmates?

 Take a look at the contest. Each action will earn you an entry for one of five custom-colored bowl scrapers. This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw as will the color of the scraper the winner will receive, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected. 
(When prompted to enter a comment for an entry, remember to click on the comments link below.)

Happy Cooking,

 sld

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