apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I think my favorite kitchen appliance right now is my Gaggia espresso machine. Right next to that is my coffee roaster and good burr grinder. All of which are completely worth it in my mind. Freshly pulled espresso from beans roasted the day before and ground just minutes ago? Nothing in this world is better. (I sip just such espresso as I type this, in fact!)

Another thing in my kitchen I use all the time is my immersion blender. I make a lot of soups and I love that I can just stick my immersion blender straight in the pan and get a beautiful creamy and silky smooth soup in just a couple of minutes. The $40 I paid for it is worth it to not have to blend the soups in stages in my regular blender.

He's a vegetarian; I'm not, but we've agreed that I won't cook meat at home (he's not going to eat it, so it's no big deal for me to confine my meat to restaurants and take out), so an instant-read thermometer is useless to me. But I use my toaster almost every day. I'm not firing up the broiler and getting crumbs in my oven for toast.

On the other hand, my mortal & pestle? My microplane grater? I'm amazed how often I use them.

I agree on most of the items -- my Le Creuset Dutch Oven is my very favorite cooking tool. And my chef's knife is a close second. But I also use my little chopper a lot (especially, since I only have an immersion blender and not a regular one).

They didn't mention a toaster oven, and I use mine all the time. It's great for toast (obviously), but I frequently use it to roast vegetables or desserts when I don't want to heat up the whole kitchen. Since we don't have a microwave, it's great for re-heating leftovers too.

Also, I don't really cook meat at home, but I frequently use my instant read thermometer for bread or frying.

Wow, obviously this guy is a way fancier cook than I am. If I ever bought a mortar and pestle I know it would sit in my cabinet unused. I agree, however, about the knives, the dutch oven and the microplane. But what would I do without a toaster?

I really don't like non-stick pans, and have been told they won't last more than a few years unless you like eating flakes of the coating, so I agree with his comments there.

In a vegan household, I use a food processor and blender almost daily, so those items are indispensable.

Having a mortar and pestle sounds so romantic, but I can't think of a single use for them. My next purchase is going to be a microplane.

I don't really like kitchen essential lists like these because it really comes down to how and what you normally cook. For example, I have a dutch oven, but I rarely use it. My toaster, on the other hand, gets used on a regular basis for homemade English muffins and such.

My most useful gadgets:
-an immersion blender, plus the mini chopper attachment
-a stand mixer (probably gets used the most)
-a chef's knife and a bread knife
-coffee grinder and maker (agree with the good coffee bit!)
-the toaster
-heat-resistant spatulas

My most used stuff:

cast iron skillet
8" and 10" chef's knives (paring knife? Where's the fun in that?)
medium pot
cake pans and cookie sheets, but rarely for lunch/dinner
microplane (for lemons, cheese, etc)

As someone living without a toaster, god, I want a toaster. My folks joked that they'd get me a camping toaster so I can toast over my gas stovetop and I hope they do! Toast under the broiler is a pain in the butt and toast on a cast iron skillett just isn't the same.

I think a mortar and pestle is kinda silly unless you're grinding your own spices and who makes mayonaise (you're not fooling anyone by calling it aoili) in one? I use a blender if I'm going to make my own.

Kitchen scale: Great if you're dieting, otherwise not needed. I know measuring by weight is better but I've never noticed a difference so why would I bother? I do like it for figuring out if buying the brussels sprouts on the stalk was cheaper per pound than buying them loose, though.

Corkscrew: even though I don't drink wine and don't often have it in the house, nothing sucks worse than trying to open a corked bottle without a corkscrew. You might as well get a good one for that price. Heck, get two and stash one in your purse. You'd be surprised how often that comes in handy.

Creme-brulee torch: He's right, blow torches are way more fun. ^_^

For non-food items, I cannot live without:

Mortar and pestle (I actually have three; one granite Mexican one, I soapstone from Cameroon, 1 marble; if I had to pick only one, I'd go w/ the marble. This is imperative for me since I actually grind most of my own spices. I love the smell, the flavour, the primal feeling and the cost of grinding spices over pre-ground)
12" skillet
Dutch oven
Pressure cooker/canner
Scale (this is imperative for baking)
Graters (I use a microplane, a rotary and those lovely Ikea ones y'all recommended. Thanks for that, btw)
Knives of course
Ceramic casserole dish (I use this as a casserole, small roasting pan and tagine without having to keep so much in my house)

Food items I cannot live without:

Assorted dried mushrooms - I buy these in bulk to reduce cost and find they really bridge the gap when I'm feeding vegetarians and omnivores.
Saffron - While I don't use it often, good saffron is readily discernible from the cheaper stuff. I get it from saffron.com
Vanilla beans - I also buy these from saffron.com
Good oils and vinegars - provide diversity and a wider range of homemade condiment options
Preserved lemons
Bottled lemon juice - I know, I know. But this is the trade-of for me, since a bottle is 2 bucks (for regular strength, not concentrated) and fresh lemons run so much more
Crystal's hot sauce
Salts
Assorted dried vegetables for times I'm broke and can't go to the store.

My Le Creuset dutch oven that I received last Christmas has become my most used kitchen tool (beating out the food processor). Besides using it to make delicious loaves of bread almost weekly, it has been employed constantly in the making of soups, stews, sauces, and braises. And although I don't yet have a fancy pants dining room, it holds its own as a piece of serving-ware, a piece that I would not hesitate to display on my future dining room table.

I feel adding my list would be redundant at this point - good knives, a good cutting board, quality olive oil..etc etc...

But there's no point in having good coffee if you don't have a thermal pot into which it brews. Nothing tastes worse than coffee that's burned before you're on your second cup because it's been sitting on a hot plate. Seriously worth the investment if you're a coffee drinking. And for what it's worth - my mother in law uses one of their coffee makers for heating water for tea since the water doesn't boil and therefore won't char the tea leaves (or whatever it is that happens when you pour boiling water over leaves.)

I'm a chef and could go crazy in williams and sonoma over various kitchen gadgets, most of which I would probably never use. My top (most frequently used) items would have to be:

a good chefs knife
sharpening steel
food processor
non-stick/cast iron skillet
box grater
wine/bottle opener
coffee grinder (for grinding flax seeds and whole spices)

The biggest argument to the whole "2 knives" thing is that my wife and I (and often our friends, too) often cook together. Need enough to go around. When we got married this summer, we got a nice 8-pc. Henckels set and already had a Henckels 8" santoku, and sure some get used more than others but we do use most of them on a regular basis.

We also got a Le Cruset dutch oven that we use constantly. I love it for when I make up pots of chili.

A number of the other indispensable items mentioned we picked up the other day when we finally got around to making some wedding gift returns and got the electronic scale and instant read thermometer.

My most used items are dependent upon the season and therefore my style of cooking: my microplane grater, tongs, heat resistant spatulas, coffee-maker and cuisinart probably get the most year-round use. But in the winter, the immersion blender and my le creuset oval dutch oven and cast iron dutch oven get alot of use as I am making more braises, bread and soups.

The article mentioned making your own red wine vinegar. Does anyone haev a good tips/recipe/website where I can learn how to do this? Thanks!

I think that the food item to spend money on is good parmesan cheese--it really does make all the difference. every once in a while I run out of the good stuff and have to make do with the stuff I can get at the regular grocery store and nothing I make tastes as good.

and, like most others, I love my le creuset. I very carefully thought about what I would use most often and I bought a skillet, a buffet casserole, and a small dutch oven. they have all become crucial and I can't imagine how I cooked before them.

I love Fondue, and I actually make it a couple times a year....but not the cheese or chocolate (I love those too, but that's just silly) I have an entree fondue pot....with a gas flame - heats the oil that cooks the food. Love it, especially for nice crisp "winter" SOUTH FLA nights. :)

What about things like bundt pans, griddle pans, & magic bullet.

I am a sucker for kitchen gadets and have a hard time not buying all of those gadgets.

Am I the only one who can't live without a crock pot? I use it every day! It subs for a rice steamer, it cooks dried beans with zero hassle, and it makes lasagna while I go to work! I even do baked goods in it on occasion, which means I can wake up to fresh, hot craisin-oatmeal bread on a weekday. It may very well be the only thing between me and the McDonald's dollar menu on most days.

It was even more useful when I ate meat.

I too will never part with my immersion blender. I bought the cheapest one three years ago ($20), and I think it only has another year left on it. For people who bought a more expensive one, how well is it holding up?

My garlic press. I do what I can to put garlic in everything, if possible, plus onions.

Space is almost of more value than money in my kitchen. So anything that is worth giving up space for, is worth getting high quality. Not top quality, usually, but high quality. After all with a lot of products it seems to me that you can pay 50 to 100% more money for 20% (or less) more quality. Sometimes high quality is actually pretty cheap, as with lodge and pyrex. My "high end plastic-handled" knives are a perfect compromise for us. The list goes on for almost everything in the kitchen.

I think the one thing I did genuinely splurge on, and that I'm really glad I did, was our big maple cutting/kneading board.

Mollyjade, I got a $60 immersion blender and after a few months, it started making a horrible noise and smoking (sure sign of a bad motor).