This not by any means going to be an exhaustive review of my kitchen toys, but I wanted to share a few of my favorites. And yes, I call them toys. I have more fun in my kitchen than most people have at the park, so they are toys.
One of my favorite items is a knife. Cuisinart calls this one a slicing knife, but it is basically a little more slender blade than the chef’s knife, which I often find a little large for the job at hand. I like the way the knife feels in my hand and I like the narrower tip for slicing things like shallots and garlic. It is a very basic 8 inch model made from stainless steel and the handle and blade are all one running piece of metal. It isn’t pretty like the fancy chefs on TV use, but I like it. The other knives that came with barely leave the block.
Michael Symon turned me onto the plastic bench scraper or some call it a dough scraper. This is an amazing tool. Not only can it be used to remove dough gently from a container when it has properly risen, but it’s great for scooping up those bits of diced onion or garlic or really anything you have diced, chopped or minced and tossing them into the pan. It’s also a great cleaning tool to use while you’re cooking so that you don’t have bits of chives that you chopped up for that stir-fry in your other dishes. Okay, that’s a bad example because stir-fry for me is usually a one pan meal and because chives are good in almost anything savory. But I guess if you’re like making a flan or something for dessert at the same type your cooking your dinner.
I love my Kitchenaid stand mixer. I dreamed of this appliance for years before finally shelling out the money. I’ve had cheaper stand mixers and I owned many handheld mixers. For many years, I was just broke all the time to justify the expense. I was wrong. I should have saved my money and gotten one as soon as I started cooking. I don’t even have all the fancy attachments yet, but I love my mixer. I almost never whisk or mix anything by hand. It is great for making all manners of baked goods from cookies to breads to soufles. It can even make butter!
My favorite pan by far is my Cuisinart 12 inch skillet. I purchased it at a Salvation Army thrift store! It looked brand new but I paid a few dollars for it. My mom was with me at the time and my dad waiting in the car (he hates pretty much all things shopping, but especially thrift stores, I think). He was so jealous when he saw that find! It is one of those with the regular pan handle and the helper handle. I love it. If you have read prior blogs, you would definitely have seen it in food pictures. It is just the right size for most stove top dishes and the extra handle makes it easy to transport to the table for serving. The shape and design make it heat evenly and sit just right on the stove and it’s oven safe.
Let’s face it. I love cooking so as you can imagine, I love a lot of my kitchen toys. But these are a few of my favorites these days.
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