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Martha
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I was surfing through Large Family Logistics and noted her recommendation to par down the materials in the kitchen to the ones truely needs.
Now, I really don't have much. Matter of fact, I'm about to dump a ton of cookware and such with charity because they aren't big enough to cook anything for our famiy.
So that brings me here to ask what your favorite most essential kitchen supplies are and why? What items would you never part with because they are of great quality, ease of use, or simply because you need it everyday?
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Becky Parker
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A really sharp knife. It is a good one - Henkels. It was expensive, but a gift. I use it always. No food processors (too much to clean up) no slicing/dicing gadgets (they always seem to break or they don't do what they claimed they would). I learned this the hard way. I have thrown out so many broken gadgets. So now I have my knife and I take good care of it so it lasts a long time.
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Servant2theKing
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I could still cook without my favorite kitchen items, but they definitely make life easier and help me save time. These are the items that come to mind as being the most essential in our kitchen:
Two double-size, 17 x 12 in, baking pans that each hold the equivalent of two 9 x 13 pans; one was my grandmother's, the other came from Goodwill. If you ever find these, they're great for doubling recipes for a large family.
5 Qt. deep skillets, with lids. We have two and they're wonderful when cooking larger meals. I often have both in use at a time, especially if I'm cooking lunch and dinner at the same time or cooking extra meals.
Stockpots. We have three sizes and use them constantly.
4 slice toaster. Waited more than 25 years for one and just love it, although it would be great if someone came out with an eight slicer!
My husband got us a Kitchenaid mixer a few years ago and it is in constant use, so much so that last Christmas we invested in an extra bowl, through ebay (cheapest option), so we don't have to wash and rinse in the midst of cooking and baking.
BTW, we have limited storage, so my husband hung pegboard on the walls of our broom closet. I hang most of our pots, pans, and some utensils on one side and cleaning supplies on the other side, so I guess I'd have to include pegboard as one of my essential items!
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stefoodie
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No, my counters are cluttered but I wouldn't part with any of the stuff because I use them too often.
Blender, which hubby gave me as a Christmas gift our first Christmas married. I'd like to upgrade to a more powerful one at some point but right now this classic Oster works!
Food processor -- a vintage Cuisinart, $10 at a garage sale -- so much better power- and durability-wise than today's machines. (I know because I bought a brand new one two years ago and the Lexan bowl got stuck and hubby hasn't had the time to get it off for me -- the attachments don't fit perfectly for one thing. Argh.) I don't use it for everyday chopping and slicing. But for shredding carrots or potatoes, or making a quick pie crust, it's heavenly.
My DLX mixer. Don't use it as much for bread as we used to, but it's still used fairly regularly, especially at Christmastime when it gets a heavy workout.
I have one large (7.5 qt.?) Le Creuset, which is all I need for now.
Lodge cast iron skillet.
I have a couple of Sitram pots, which I thought were really good when I bought them, but I'd like to upgrade them to something heavier at some point.
Indoor grill/griddle -- this used to get a lot of work before, when we'd have pancakes at least weekly. If you eat a lot of them, it's great because you can do more than in a skillet.
One really good stainless steel skillet -- mine's All Clad, which I got after two exchanges for Calphalons at Williams Sonoma. So worth the price.
Stockpot.
My wok! I wouldn't know what to do without it. It does EVERYTHING except change diapers  .
Oh and yes. Very sharp knives. Mine are Wusthof, which I got from eBay brand new for about 20% off store prices. These are so essential to my cooking I take them to hotels or if we're staying at my moms. Been meaning to add more pieces but they're so expensive. Maybe I'll get a santoku next year.
Oxo salad spinner. I use it for everything -- spinach, salad greens, fragile fruit like berries.
Microplane grater, Swing away can opener, Oxo peeler, stainless whisks and spatulas.
I think it's baking stuff that really takes up so much space -- at least in my kitchen that's the case -- all those different pans and supplies!
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Martha
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| Posted: Dec 16 2006 at 8:27am | IP Logged
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Servant2theKing wrote:
| Two double-size, 17 x 12 in, baking pans that each hold the equivalent of two 9 x 13 pans; one was my grandmother's, the other came from Goodwill. If you ever find these, they're great for doubling recipes for a large family. |
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NAMEs please! Who make sthese and where can I get them?! Our family of 10 is "this close" to being desperate for such a thing! I've never seen anything like that, even at the resturant supply store.
Servant2theKing wrote:
| 4 slice toaster. Waited more than 25 years for one and just love it, although it would be great if someone came out with an eight slicer! |
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lol Here's what we did to solve that problem. Our 4 slice toaster is "extra wide to toast bagels", so we put TWO slices in each slot to double the output. Very handy.
Servant2theKing wrote:
| my husband hung pegboard on the walls of our broom closet. I hang most of our pots, pans, and some utensils on one side and cleaning supplies on the other side, so I guess I'd have to include pegboard as one of my essential items! |
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THAT is one handy dandy idea! Espeically with bigger pots and such - they often don't fit in the cabinets very well anyhow.
I'll add what I think are major needs in our house.
A good blender/processor combo. A good knife is great, but the processor saves me tons of prep time. The blender may not get daily use, but is used too often to be able to do without. The key is to get a good one. Some really have almost no power or aren't big enough. Getting a really big one like chefs use has been helpfull. Amazing what an extra 2 cups of capasity can do.
To have a large pot with a draining lid for pastas and such things. It can be used for anything of course, but when making pasta or whatever, it's nice to have one less thing to mess with.
A really big, really good non-stick cookie sheet. Ours is the size of the inside of our oven with only about 1 inch on the left/right sides to spare. I can now almost bake enough cookies/biscuts in one batch for all of us. I would love to find a second one, but haven't been able to.
A huge electric skillet with glass lid. Ours holds about 12 chicken breasts on the bottom and is about 4 1/2 inches deep, so we can make those BIG dishes out of it or I can pan fry lots at once, or I can just make 10 grilled cheese sandwiches at one time. Again saves lots of time and is easy to use. However, you can only find them during the holiday season. The rest of the year all you'll find are the little square ones. Which is fine, because we burn through about 1 a year. The non-stick stuff stops working or the electrical connections blow. I don't think we are doing anything wrong with it, I just think they aren't made to with stand "commercial" use.
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Servant2theKing
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Martha, my grandmother's pan is Sears Best/Maid of Honor brand...I'm pretty sure those are no longer available, but you could try a search on ebay. The other one is made by Mirro Corporation and is 17 1/4 x 11 1/3 x 2 1/4 in. deep. I've never seen anything like them in stores either and I love ours! When I found the second one at Goodwill, I snatched it up so fast my husband was shocked...it was only 99 cents!
Two slices of bread in the toaster at once is such a clever solution...wish I'd thought of that!
The larger cookie sheet sounds wonderful! I sometimes use our larger baking pans for pizza, in place of a cookie sheet, since we haven't been able to find anything large enough either!
That large electric skillet sounds great...it does seem like many appliances are designed for only occasional use...large families seem to need industrial or commercial size and strength in everything!
I forgot to mention our roaster earlier...we've only had ours a couple years, but it has really helped a lot, especially when we need to cook a meal and bake something at the same time.
This is a neat thread...I'm always interested in ways to improve things in the kitchen. Thanks everyone for the ideas and tips and Martha for bringing this up!
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Martha
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Okay I need clarification here...
Is a roaster the same thing as a crock pot?
We have large crocks pots, but even 2 isn't enough for soup, stew etc.. for our family size.
Of course, there's also the issue of children/dh that appear to "eat to capacity". I can't blame it all on the cookware. 
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Paula in MN
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Martha wrote:
| So that brings me here to ask what your favorite most essential kitchen supplies are and why? What items would you never part with because they are of great quality, ease of use, or simply because you need it everyday? |
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My coffeemaker, and I don't think I need to explain why!! Ditto on my upright and chest freezers, because of all the wild game, fish, and vegetables and fruit from our gardens.
I use my cast iron skillet or my cast iron soup/stew/stock pot for almost every thing. We do have a set of Henkels knives, and I make sure they are kept sharp.
I also have a 17x12x3 baking pan. No name on mine, other than stainless steel. I got it at a garage sale last year for $.25, and I remember I was asked when I got home why I bought it. We use it for everything but cookies!
The one thing we don't have in our kitchen is a microwave and we will never get one. We had one, probably 20 years old, HUGE, and it took up a lot of counter space. We took it out of the kitchen to see if we could live without it for one week. That was last January and we haven't missed it.!!
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Servant2theKing
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By roaster I meant the electric kind, often used for turkey and usually sold around holiday times. We stack 9 x 13 casseroles in ours and bake them. We used it for Thanksgiving and the turkey turned out moister and more evenly done than it ever has in our regular oven. I don't think you could cook anything like soup in one. It's more like a portable oven. We use our stockpots for soups, chili, etc. and have three sizes; 8 qt. 12 qt. and 20 qt. stainless steel. I use the 12 qt. most often, but rely on the 20 qt. whenever we have guests. We have less expensive ones that came as a set; if you were able it would be worthwhile to get a better quality one, with atleast 12 qt. capacity. I've seen some with glass lids, which is wonderful for checking the boiling status without lifting the lid!
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Donna Marie
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In addition to all of your GREAT ideas...
I LOOOOVE my pizza stone...it is EASY to care for and it is excellent for reheating pizza..leftover meat (we get a loin when it is on sale...slice into steaks, bbq, and freeze what we don't eat in zip loc bags...it reheats great on the pizza stone. It is great for cookies and easy to clean. I HATE cookie sheets now! With all of the big stockpots and stuff that it takes to make a meal, I don't want to crowd myself out with more dishes at the sink that don't fit in there well to begin with.
I really want to get the pampered chef one with the sides on it for the messier items. I really love all of their stoneware as a matter of fact. Their rectangular baker is deep and does hold a lot .... Ok, I'll stop now!
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Mrs.K
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I really like my stick blender and my salad shooter because, as Mr. Gilbreth would say, they save motion. Years ago I used to puree soups in the blender - all of that messy, hazardous transferring - no more! Same with the salad shooter - it's great because you just 'shoot' the food wherever you want it to go. You can grate the cheese right into the soup pot or the potatoes right into the stock pot without having to transfer like you do when using a food processor. It's very fast to slice five pounds of potatoes to boil, or lots of cheese to grate for soup or macaroni and cheese, or veggies for soup or whatever. We mostly use the food processor now just for making peanut butter.
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JodieLyn
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Roaster - It's not just for baking.. you can use it rather like a crockpot!! (doesn't hold in moisture quite as well as a crockpot but better than my good pot on the stove) I make beans in it all the time. it's 18 qt. you can bake, roast, simmer etc.. take it outside in the summer and don't heat up the house!!
Oh.. storage.. take out the soaps and such from under the sink.. huge space wasted on other storage.. it's tall enough to hold the big pans. I keep my roasting pans on one side and have a couple of dividers on the other side and set my baking sheets and muffin tins and cake pans and the like on edge and can fit tons in there and yet still easily get things in and out. (I lock all soaps and such in the laundry area except the dishsoap that sits on the window sill)
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oh.. on the bigger 9x12 type pans.. look for a "lasagna pan" I think they called it. I've seen a fairly cheap one at brylane home
yep here it is $30 Lasagna Pan 4"Hx14"Wx10½"D
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Martha
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does the salad shooter mince or just slice? I like my processor for all the "dicing" and "mincing" often required of cooking.
I have a pampered chef cooking stone... I have 2 quibles about it (and this may apply t any stone, I don't know as this is the only one I've ever owned)
- It's very heavy and the metal handle thing is clumsy to use
- I need it super sized, but that would also make it heavier/bulkier, for our needs.
I can't believe I didn't write coffeemaker myself. What was I thinking?! I ageee with that one big time.
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Philothea
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My "must haves" are:
Coffeemaker
Crockpot
1 large, high quality nontsick skillet with deep sides
1 oven safe stainless steel stock pot
Sharp knives
Hand mixer
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stefoodie
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Mrs. K., would you mind sharing what brand of stick blender you have? I have a 5-yo Cuisinart, but I'm not too happy with it. Sometimes it chokes and it doesn't get things as fine as I'd like it to be. Thanks!
For those who want a pizza stone, but can't afford one yet, I have been using quarry tiles for years. They're under a $ each at Home Depot or Lowes, and if one of them breaks I can easily replace it. If you want to mimic the effects of a brick oven in your oven just put some additional tiles in the upper level as well.
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Paula in MN
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Stef:
What a great idea about the quarry tiles! Do you have to do anything special to them at all?
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stefoodie
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Hi Paula, no, nothing special. Just make sure you get the unglazed ones (esp. if you plan to put bread or pizza directly on them). Once in a while they get grease on them or black spots from spills -- I let them cool on top of the stove then just soak them in dishwashing detergent and water, scrub, dry and they're good as new. Or, since they're so cheap, I replace them.
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Jen L.
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Thanks for the quarry tile tip, stef! I am definitly going to try it!!
I love my cast iron skillet. And the best gadget I have, the best slicer/dicer ever - my husband! He is the greatest helpmate.
I did a quick search for 17x12 pans and came up with these..(none nearly as cheap as the garage sale/thrift shop finds)
This one is less than 1/2 the price if you choose the "black" option over the terra cotta. It is 17.5-in Depth: 3.5-in Width: 14.75-in
Item at ebay ending the 21st
Chicago Metallic
Calphalon 17x12 roasting pan
a different calphalon one at Amazon
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momwise
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JodieLyn wrote:
| oh.. on the bigger 9x12 type pans.. look for a "lasagna pan" I think they called it. |
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Yes, that's what mine is called. My mom bought it at Mervyn's before they left here. Mine has a rack as well, so it is fantastic for roasting chicken, meatballs, etc. We bake our bacon on the rack and finish it up under the broiler. Bed Bath and Beyond (if you have one) is a good place for kitchen items because when they go on sale you can take in the 20% off coupon. I waited for the 2 burner griddle to go on sale and then got an add'l markdown. They have Cuisinart.
My Cuisinart food processor is the one thing I absolutely need but don't buy anything less than the 14-cup for a large family. I went from the 7-cup to the 11 cup and I should have bought larger. I knead all my bread, do pie crusts, chop everything, whip up homemade applesauce (the uncooked kind) for recipes, do double batches of cookie dough, chop nuts, etc.etc.
My sink sprayer nozzle is the other thing I would never do without if I could help it. I had one put in the first time our faucet needed replacing and now it is a must have. I wouldn't use a Cuisinart if I didn't have it because it cleans it so fast and you can spray in all the nooks and crannies. It saves a ton of water along with a dish brush because it cleans up the tops of large pots and bowls so fast you don't have to fill them up.
Stef...I have a small LeCrueset (1 1/2-2 qt?) and the handle broke...is it worth it to replace the handle given the size of the pan? I do use it for heat-ups but obviously not for any of the major cooking, sauteing, etc.
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4Real Forums : Mothering and Family Life
Topic: can we talk kitchens?
