After introducing myself, I thought I would introduce my cooking life. This first post is about my most used kitchen tools.
Primary tools.
Calphalon - Contemporary Nonstick Sets - 10 Piece Set. We later purchased the Calphalon - Contemporary Stainless Basics - Stock Pots with Calphalon - Inserts and Double Boilers Stainless Inserts - 8 qt. Pasta Insert
This cookware is at the center of our (mine and my wife’s) cooking. Like most non-stick cookware, sometimes it does not brown as well as we’d like. This causes us to have to use a little bit of oil to aid in carmelization. Since aerosol oil sprays leave a film on the non-stick surface, we have a pump action spritzer bottom filled with canola oil. We use a combination of silicon spatulas and wooden tools with this cookware.
Cuisinart CA4 20-pc. Knife Block Set with Bonus Cutting Board: Red - Cuisinart Cutlery Sets
This set is a very good set, and we’ve been quite pleased. Really, I’m just excited that we’ve got a block, because trying to organize our knives in such a way that they didn’t dull would be very frustrating. They have the features the professionals say knives should have: forged, stainless blades; tines that extend to the base of the handle; a comfortable grip; and a good center of gravity for control.
KitchenAid Online Store | Professional 5™ Plus Series Mixers - KV25G0XBU
This stand mixer is perhaps the best stand mixer ever. I know it’s my wife’s favorite kitchen appliance, because it makes any kind of mixing so much easier (and she just likes the way it looks on our counter!). We’re hoping to get the ice cream attachment for Christmas so we can experiment with making ice cream!
Other tools. We also have several other tools that I make sure to keep available. I have a large plastic cutting board that I use as my general purpose board. We have a wooden cutting board that is limited to vegetables or bread only and two small plastic boards that we can throw in the dishwasher.
Our kitchen contains some of the standard items, too: vegetable peelers, thermometers, colanders, citrus reamers, tongs. I’m also hoping that we receive a potato ricer for Christmas, too! We don’t have a large food processor, but we have one that is sufficient for our every day needs (it has only about a 3 cup capacity, so we’re talking really small–when I chopped up mushrooms, I had to do so in batches).
We do have some cookware that I didn’t mention before. We have a cast iron skillet that we use primarily for making corn bread. (It just tastes better to me from a cast iron skillet!) We also have a cast iron griddle that I didn’t think we could really use well, until we moved to a place with a gas stove–now, we’ve only used that once to make flank steak, but I see many more uses for it in the future. We have one of those Pampered Chef Pizza stones, but I actually don’t like the texture of pizza baked off the stone; it remains in the oven as a heat regulator and the only thing I actually cook on it is rustic style bread.
The cost. You might look at some of these items and realize that just the three primary tools I’ve listed could set you back an easy $1,000. I have to confess that we actually received most of these as wedding gifts, or purchased them with gift cards from our wedding. Before we were married, I didn’t have the chance to purchase any of these items (because I knew we were getting married soon after I moved). I had some very basic pots and pans, and three knives: a six inch santoku, a bread knife, and a paring knife. These three knives and the very basic pots and pans suited me just fine for a year and a half before “me” became “we,” so you don’t have to spend a fortune to outfit your kitchen.
What about you? What tools do you use in your kitchen? Are there any that we’re missing here that we just have to have?
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