I decided for no apparent reason to make a list of our kitchen gadgets, and how often we use them. Begin pointless infodump!

Electric gadgets:

• Blender – We made smoothies and stuff with this for about a year after we got it, but that ended suddenly. Has been used maybe once or twice in the past couple of years.
• Food processor – Used once a week or so for things like pureeing pumpkin or potato for soup, chopping nuts, pureeing fruit, etc.
• Microwave oven – Used a few times a week, mainly to reheat food, but also sometimes to melt butter, or cook vegetables like cauliflower or broccoli.
• Electric wok – We used to use this a lot for stir fries, but it’s large and stored inconveniently so we’ve moved away from it. Gets pulled out maybe once a month or two.
• Ice cream maker – Used to make a batch of ice cream every few weeks. We’ve got a lot of use out of this!
• Electric hand mixer – Used frequently for beating ice cream mixture (see above), cake batters, pancakes, whipping cream, etc.
• Sandwich press – Used two or three times a week for hot sandwiches, mostly on weekends.
• Toaster – Used nearly every day to make toast.
• Electric kettle – Used daily to make tea and coffee.
• Electric scales – Battery operated. Used to measure ingredients when baking cakes and stuff.

Non-electric gadgets:

• Garlic press – Used this a couple of times, years ago. It’s impossibly fiddly to clean, so we gave up using it.
• Apple corer – I use this occasionally to core apples or pears for baking.
• Tea balls – Used regularly for loose leaf tea.
• Citrus reamer – Used occasionally for extracting lemon juice.
• Wine bottle pump – Used a few times a month to keep half-drunk bottles of wine sealed and oxygen-free.
• Bamboo steamer – Used a few times a year to steam Chinese dumplings.
• Pizza pan – Used frequently to bake pizzas.
• Various cake and muffin tins – Used a couple of times a month for baking.
• Cooling racks – As above.
• Potato masher – Not used much; we never have mashed potatoes. Occasionally used to mash pumpkin for soup.
• Egg rings – Occasional use for making neat fried eggs to put on hamburgers.
• Wooden trivets – A few times a year for presenting hot food dishes on the dining table when guests are over.
• Hotplate heat dispersers – Used frequently to avoid the gas flame from over-heating saucepans.
• Cookie cutters – Never used as far as I can remember.
• Corkscrew – Used on wine corks, which is only about 20% of the bottles these days.
• Corn holders – Used when we have corn on the cob, a few times a year.
• Pastry brush – Used rarely, it’s so evil to clean that I hate using it.
• Chopsticks – Never use these at home.
• Meat tenderiser – Used maybe once, ever.
• Teapot – Almost never used; we usually make tea one cup at a time.
• Coffee percolator – Used once or twice years ago; I don’t drink coffee and M. prefers instant to percolated.

The usual suspects, used fairly frequently:
Cutting knives, eating knives, spoons, forks, wooden spoons, serving spoons, slotted spoons, tongs, vegetable peeler, can opener, oven mitts, colander, spatulas, egg-flips, cheese grater, ice cream scoop, cheese knife, various pots and pans, cutting boards, casserole dishes, pie dishes.

Some more-or-less common gadgets we don’t have:
Rolling pin, mortar & pestle, bread maker, rice cooker, lemon zester, deep fryer, egg cups, blow torch, pressure cooker.

Not listed:
Crockery and glassware – that’s a whole ‘nother post (except it would be even more boring).

Tags: gadget

This entry was posted on Monday, 7 June, 2010 at 18:59 and is filed under Cooking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.