Bitchin' Kitchen

[digitaldiscipline]

Meme via rosefox who got it from rose_lemberg: Bold the ones you have and use at least once a year, italicize the ones you have and don’t use, strike through the ones you have had but got rid of.

pasta machines, breadmakers, juicers, blenders, deep fat fryers, egg boilers, melon ballers, sandwich makers, pastry brushes, cheese knives, electric woks, miniature salad spinners, griddle pans, jam funnels, meat thermometers, filleting knives, egg poachers, cake stands, garlic crushers, martini glasses, tea strainers, bamboo steamers, pizza stones, coffee grinders, milk frothers, piping bags, banana stands, fluted pastry wheels, tagine dishes, conical strainers, rice cookers, steam cookers, pressure cookers, slow cookers, spaetzle makers, cookie presses, gravy strainers, double boilers (bains marie), sukiyaki stoves, food processors, ice cream makers, takoyaki makers, and fondue sets

Rice cooker - I use mine to steam vegetables, rather than cook rice. If you haven't tried this trick, it's marvelous. (I use about 5-6 ounces of water, as a full cup overcooks broccoli slightly)
Slow cooker - barbecue and stew and soup
Coffee grinder - when I have company, I make coffee, but have more or less given it up this year

Not on the list, but in my kitchen:
Hot-air popcorn popper

One surprising omission:
French press (not that I have one, but I used to; we even had one for the office before critus got an aeropress instead; see aforementioned decline in coffee making and consumption)

Otherwise? I don't own any* of those, and probably wouldn't recognize most of 'em.

I use, err... one small skillet to cook eggs, one small saucepan to heat canned soup, and a couple of mixing bowls to blend ground beef with chopped onions to make hamburgers, marinate chicken, or pop popcorn into.


* There might be a fillet knife in my butcher block, but I don't think so. Ditto the meat thermometer / junk drawer... I may have, at one point, owned a barbecue fork that had a built in thermometer, but don't know where it's gone off to; I think K took it when she moved out (along with most of the other fancy kitchen gadgets - french press, serious blender, breadmaker, etc), since she's far more kitchen-witchy than I have ever been.

Comments

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I would love a tagine, but can't justify the cost. Also, I don't eat couscous anymore, so....

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I had to google it. It's totally something I have no use for. :-)

It's... a fancy dish with a lid I would have to be careful when washing and have no place to store. I'll pass.

I just got three pieces of cast iron cookware (small skillet, large skillet, deep skillet that the large skillet serves as a lid for) that I am slowly seasoning with the runoff from when I make burgers, or throwing a dollop of pemmican onto before making eggs (or searing steaks in hot EVOO), and... I don't see myself buying more kitchen stuff unless something breaks. I use the same two tea mugs, drinking glasses, plates, saucers, and drink shakers pretty much all the time, and the same quartet of spoons/forks/knives. Butcher knives get picked by "which one is sharper?"

[i-renovated.livejournal.com]

I want a new category for: had, used the hell out of but lost, tossed or gave away in a move (or divorce) and never replaced. When I was finishing my dissertation, the electric griddle was my friend trying to feed kids with no time.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I go through phases with my Foreman grill - sometimes i do a shitload of marinated chicken breasts on it, or get a yen for some grilled cheese sandwiches (which, admittedly, i haven't made in more than a year), but, yeah, that's on my counter as well.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I practically live on couscous, but am content with my Pyrex bowl & lid combo. Which fits in the fridge for leftovers, and has many other uses.

I live on couscous because you pour boiling water on it, wait 10 minutes, and hey presto!

[mimerki.livejournal.com]

Almost everything I marked as "had, got rid of" is actually "had, left w/ ex in divorce, haven't cared enough to replace".

[vatine]

Butcher knives get picked by "which one is sharper?"

All of them? But, then, I have several suitable pieces of ceramic sharpener dotted around the kitchen, in case I need to make the knife I have in my hand sharper (somewhere between "rough shaving edge" and "fine shaving edge" is about right).

I mostly use the large chef knife, unless I happen to be thin-slicing graved fish (mostly, admittedly, salmon, graving requires relatively fatty fish to work well), when the filleting knife produces a more appealing result. That's for everything from "carving huge chunks of meat" to "peeling vegetables".

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

A filleting knife has a very narrow blade, about the width of my pinky finger (and I have very small hands: think first-grader's index finger) and with a slight upcurve at the tip. If you're not making fillets from whole fish, or boning whole birds, or cutting the fat and silverskin off a roast, the only thing it's really suited for is opening boxes.

[feyrieprincess.livejournal.com]

Scandalized!

[angldst.livejournal.com]

I copied this to my journal and added a number of items to the list that are owned and used (sometimes frequently) in my kitchen. I have a fairly fitted out kitchen, but then I cook and back and do preserving and make link sausage, of which the latter two activities use some specialised equipment. Happily, my stand mixer and it's various attachments (except the pasta plates, gotta get onto trying those out), and my food processor have more than paid for themselves with the frequency of use.

-d

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I live, cook, and eat like a carnivorous bachelor; this is a surprise to whom, exactly?


Oh. I know. It's because "Barbecue" wasn't put in quotes. *chuckle* (My recipe is "one or two bottles of organic, store-bought sauce, a whole onion, sliced into rounds, and three to five pounds of ribs, left over low heat for ten hours". It's not sneaky enough not to share, as you can see.)

[feyrieprincess.livejournal.com]

*faints

[feyrieprincess.livejournal.com]

The canned soup isn't out of a vending machine is it?

[etcet.livejournal.com]

No, it's my stash of Healthy Choice "I am too lazy to make something from scratch" stash.

[evrymemry.livejournal.com]

We have a pizza stone and it might be one of the most used things in our kitchen. XD

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I live, cook, and eat like a carnivorous bachelor; this is a surprise to whom, exactly?


Oh. I know. It's because "Barbecue" wasn't put in quotes. *chuckle* (My recipe is "one or two bottles of organic, store-bought sauce, a whole onion, sliced into rounds, and three to five pounds of ribs, left over low heat for ten hours". It's not sneaky enough not to share, as you can see.)

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

I love shopping for cooking gadgets and would have far more of them if I had a bigger kitchen to keep everything. Do I need them all? No...but it sure is fun playing with them. I copied this meme to my journal. Do you use your hot-air popcorn popper? I had just been throwing kernels in a paper bag and microwaving them.