Favorite kitchen gadgets and gizmos

I strive to be a minimalist in every area except the kitchen. I don't have a huge kitchen but I'll admit to a slight obsession with kitchen gear and it's gradually been indulged over the years. Here's a list of my favorite kitchen items and some thoughts on each item. You definitely don't need all this stuff to cook with but it sure makes it more fun.

* This post contains Amazon affiliate links - I receive a small commission on any purchased items but I'd never recommend something I didn't own and/or feel strongly about. If you are uncomfortable with affiliate links, you can open up a new window and search for the item mentioned instead *

Big ticket workhorses: 

Food processor - Can't live without this one. I researched the Cuisinart when I was making this purchase but ultimately settled on the KitchenAid 12 cup model and I love it. I use it for making pie crusts, biscuits, shortcake, pesto, salsa, crumble toppings, chopping nuts, etc.

KitchenAid mixer - I actually own the one that I grew up with but it's most similar to this one. It dates from the 1970s and it's still going strong. I use the scraping blade attachment and the juicing attachment regularly. I have three back up bowls, which saved my life while I was making all those cookies for my sister's wedding.

Knives - Our knives were expensive and as soon as we got them we realized we were crazy for not getting them sooner. If you cook a lot, make your knives a priority. You don't need many. You can absolutely survive with just an 8" chef's knife and a small paring knife. Done. We opted for a couple extra (specifically, a 7" santoku knife and a 6" utility knife) since we both like to cook at the same time. And a bread knife is always handy. We have the Shun classic line and they're beautiful and functional.

Pans - I posted about our stainless steel pots here and I still love them. I'm so in love with the saute pan that I recommend it to everyone and I bought one for my dad one Christmas. It does the heavy duty work in our kitchen. There are lots of wonderful articles recommending how many pots and pans you need. I'll just say this - we use our smaller frying pan and our large saute pan almost daily and that's about it. I do like having at least three pot sizes, a small one (1 qt) for pudding (I eat a lot of pudding, so a pudding dedicated pot might not be something you need but it's also good for sauces) a medium 3 or 4 qt one for pasta and a large 6 - 8 qt one for steaming and larger amounts of pasta.


Smaller machines that make life easier: 

Vegetable spiralizer - My big long post about the spiralizer is right here. I use it at least once weekly because I'm obsessed with sweet potato noodles.

Tribest personal blender - This was a wedding gift and I'm so grateful for it! It is tiny so it can live on the counter and I use it for smoothies (comes with multiple cups so I can quickly blend up smoothies for both of us and we can head out the door), SALAD DRESSINGS (it has totally revolutionized my salad dressing life), chopping small quantities of nuts and herbs, sauces, etc. They also have this one that works with mason jars which would be pretty great.

Cuisinart immersion blender - I use this exclusively for blended soups and sauces but I still think it's worth it. I hate pouring hot liquid into the food processor or the blender. This saves dishes and barely takes up any space.

Sunbeam handheld mixer - for whipping cream, mostly. Oh my god. As I write that I realize I have an appliance that I almost exclusively use for whipping cream. I still wouldn't get rid of it. I'll also use it if I'm making a cake or a frosting and don't feel like getting the KitchenAid down but that doesn't happen very often. Not strong enough for most cookie dough, in my opinion.


Little tools that everyone should have: 

Shot glass mini measures - we use these every single day on something. So much better than trying to use spoons with liquids. So much more accurate for mixing drinks. They eventually lose their markings but it takes years of hard wear and they're inexpensive. I have three, wouldn't want fewer than two. You can also pick them up at Crate & Barrel.

Mandoline - inexpensive, doesn't take up much space, makes it simple to get perfect slices of vegetables. I use it for my favorite potato salad and for all kinds of veg pizza toppings. I am still slightly afraid of taking off my finger but I'm very careful with it. There are tons of different styles available, but I've been perfectly happy with my cheap one.

Scale - if you are living without a scale, STOP. In my dreamworld all baking recipes include scale measurements and I think we're starting to get closer. It makes life so much easier. My favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe uses a scale and I think that's part of the reason I love it so much and make them so often. We've had this OXO scale for 2 years and it's been great.

Triple timer - it's ridiculous how much we love this timer. I tend to have multiple things going on at once and this is the perfect solution.

Salad spinner - duh. But really, I love it. I buy lettuce from the farmers' market, chop it, rinse it right in the bowl of the spinner and then spin it down, drain the water and store the whole thing in the fridge. Lettuce stays fresh all week. I'm tempted to get this mini herb one as well, but I think that might be overkill?

Measuring equivalents magnet - I refer to this any time I'm scaling up a recipe.

Thermometer that can handle candy temperatures - for swiss meringues, fudge, stained glass windows in gingerbread houses. I have a digital one like this but the old fashioned ones work as well. Update - on the recommendation of Cooks Illustrated, I purchased this thermometer and I've been really happy with it, although it took me a while to realize that you should turn it off when you aren't using it because this sucker burns through batteries.

Pastry cutter - sometimes I use this for pastry (I always used it before I got my food processor) but it makes the most perfectly textured guacamole and it's also good for egg salad. Random. You can get one of these just about anywhere, I think.

Baking essentials: 

Scoops for measuring cookie dough!!! - life changing, at least in the sense that your life is improved by easy cookie making. I would love to have every single size but having three pretty much covers the bases. I use a #50 scoop (0.64 oz, 1.28 tbsp) for regular cookies and mini cupcakes, a #16 scoop (2 oz, 4 tbsp, 1/4 cup) for larger cookies, smallish muffins and meatballs and a #12 scoop (2.67 oz, 5.33 tbsp, 1/3 cup) for ENORMOUS cookies, cupcakes, muffins and ice cream (this is the size recommended by the NYT famous chocolate chip cookie recipe - it's insanely huge and I'll admit that I prefer the #16). I'm sharing links here so you can see them but it might be easier to pick them up at your local Smart and Final or restaurant supply store. That way you can see what sizes will work best for you. I'd like to add a #30 or a #24 to the collection but I'm trying to restrain myself.

Pastry rolling cloth or mat - I used to use the traditional canvas mat, but it's less appealing in an apartment. I don't have a yard to shake the flour out and I don't have a washing machine so I try to avoid making more laundry. So now I have the magic dough pastry mat and it works pretty well. If I were going to replace it, I'd get this silicone one that has better reviews, though.

Silicone baking sheets - I'm not sure how anyone lives without these. I specifically use the half sheet size Silpat ones, which I snapped up on Amazon when they were having a 4 for 3 type deal.

Nordicware half sheet pans with lids - Not fancy at all, but functional workhorses. Make sure your oven can handle a half sheet pan before you buy them. I have 8 of them (I know) because I bought them when I was doing the desserts for my sister's wedding and I needed them to transport mini cupcakes. I thought I'd rehome some once I was finished but it turns out having more baking sheets is AWESOME. I have a couple set aside for roasting and they get the heavy duty wear and tear. I don't bother to put down foil or try to keep them perfect. And when I'm making gingerbread houses it's so helpful to be able to have four sheets with cutouts chilling and two in the oven and two cooling. I never have to transfer cookies and it makes it go much faster. I only use the lids for transport, so I could live with only 3 lids, but they came as a set. Again, I waited for a 4 for 3 deal on these.

Pyrex pie pans - I have four, but I admittedly come from a pie family. I pick them up from thrift stores.

Aluminum cake pans - I only use the giant pans for wedding cakes, so you might not need the whole set, but I'd argue that having a 6" pan is highly useful. Tiny cakes!

Tart pan with removable bottom (10") - Using a pie pan is just not the same, especially with my favorite key lime tart recipe.

Offset spatula - crucial if you want to do any cake decorating.

CAFFEINE!

De'Longhi EC155 espresso maker - This was another wedding gift. We didn't register for it but our friends are geniuses. We've been using it daily for almost 2 years and we almost never buy overpriced lattes anymore.

Cuisinart Grind and Brew coffee maker - we don't drink drip coffee anymore since we have the espresso maker but this machine is great for when we have guests over and for holidays. Making multiple cups of espresso is a pain if you don't have a professional machine. I picked this model out because I didn't want the hassle of grinding a single pot's worth of beans on the sporadic occasions that we need them.

Electric kettle(s) - so critical that I have two, this fancy Cuisinart one at home and this one at the office. Honestly, they're both equally good despite the price difference. You can usually find them at Cost Plus as well. Neither one whistles, which I would like, but they shut off automatically which will prevent me from starting a fire.


Not in daily use, still love them: 

SodaStream - totally indulgent but I love being able to make sparkling water whenever I want. I turn in my used cartridges at Sur La Table and pick up fresh ones. You can also do that online. Edit - or at Staples, apparently!

Crockpot - I don't use this as often as I used to but I still wouldn't want to get rid of it. During the winter there are few things more glorious than coming home to a house that already smells like dinner. I have a big one (3.5 qts) without any fancy settings and it's super inexpensive. Sometimes I think a programmable one would be cool, but I can't justify it.


Random bits and pieces: 

The best metal spatula - sharpest edge ever.

Gorgeous salad tongs from Heath

My favorite glasses, which show up in a lot of posts - they're a really basic glass but I love that all three sizes have the same diameter base, which make the proportions a little unusual. The small ones are perfect for cocktails or wine, the middle ones are great for beer or juice and the large ones are for water or a full 12 oz beer.

Homemade kitchen cleaner

This is a combination of being cheap and also worrying about chemicals. For the kitchen counters, at least. I'm still very pro-chemical when it comes to the bathrooms.

{DIYing it}

I love the Method pink grapefruit cleaner but I got sick of paying for it so I started searching around for a DIY method. There are tons of resources but I wanted to start simple and this post was the most helpful for me.

I picked up a jug of white vinegar at Costco, started saving our citrus peels, and a few weeks later I had three different cleaners. It helps that we're doing this during cocktail season, because we go through citrus much faster. Cleaning up the peels is a little bit of pain, because they need to have all the fruit removed from them. I found lemons to be easy. The grapefruit you can use a small knife to just cut through the pith since it's so thick. The limes suck. Sorry. The peels are so thin that it isn't as easy to get them entirely clean.

I didn't worry about exact measurements, just packed the jars full with peels and herbs and then poured vinegar over them.

I tried lime + thyme, grapefruit + mint and lemon + basil. They're all functional but the lemon + basil is so much better that I may stick with that one from now on. The lemon scent completely overtook the vinegar and it's amazing - not at all that chemical lemon smell that you normally get from a cleaner. The lime is only vaguely citrus-y and the grapefruit is still mostly vinegar scented even after I added a few drops of grapefruit essential oil to the mix. I still use all three because I find the vinegar smell more palatable than the idea of wasting all that peeling effort.

I still have a ton of grapefruit peels waiting in the freezer, so I might try another batch and see if reducing the amount of vinegar and really increasing the amount of peels will help. The lemon was a bit more tightly packed than the grapefruit and I wonder if that may have contributed to its success.

You can get away without purchasing all the stuff on the list if you save your spray bottles. I'd been planning to try this for a while so I had a few empty Method bottles hanging out under the sink. Mine do not have cute labels on the front, but I did scribble on them with a black sharpie so I would know which one is which.

Looking forward to January, when oranges are back in season. I want to test that one out too.

P.S. - I think I promised I'd get an LA guide ready for summer travel MONTHS ago. Sorry. It's finally almost ready and I'll have it up tomorrow. It was a beast of a post and I keep adding to it.

Summer soundtrack

This album isn't new but it is getting played constantly now that the weather has warmed up.

{algiers - calexico}

We were supposed to see Calexico back in October but the Santa Ana winds blew in and put paid to that by killing the power at the Fonda. Sad.

We have other Calexico albums but Algiers is just killer. Perfect for driving, perfect for hanging out around the house. It doesn't sound the same as Graceland (at all) but it fills a similar space, if that makes sense. Which is perfect because I burned out on Graceland sometime last year (I don't even like to talk about this - it's bizarre, since that album has been a standby for nearly my entire life and lately it irritates me. I think we just need some time apart). If you aren't sure you want to commit yet, it's available on Rdio.*

Try it in the evening, when it's dusk out and you're cooking dinner and having a drink. It will be perfect, I promise.


* D swears by Rdio but I haven't adjusted to it so I'm not a heavy user. But it is really nice when I hear a single and want to check and see if the album is worth purchasing. And yes, we still buy CDs around here. I can't quite go completely digital.

Greyhounds, with a tiny twist

A greyhound is my safe drink. You have a safe drink, right? For when you go to a bar where you're expected to order a drink without a menu and there are no artisanal cocktails (the horror!). Airport bars, for instance. Every bar in my hometown for another. My mind goes blank and I start feeling hopelessly dorky immediately. I think a gin and tonic is usually the cooler option, but I'm still not entirely on board with tonic water. A greyhound is vodka and grapefruit juice and it is nearly impossible to screw up. Of course, there's a wide range of deliciousness, with canned sweetened grapefruit juice on one end and squeezed-at-the-bar on the other (The Layover in Oakland does this and it is amazing).

{cocktail hour}

Someone will undoubtedly complain that you cannot call this a greyhound but I'm too lazy to make up another name for it right now. Chow calls it a bichon frisé but let's be honest, I'm never going to say that. Too fussy.

{grapefruit cocktail}

It's essentially a greyhound, but with a tiny bit of lemon juice and a splash of St. Germain. You can swap in gin and you can leave out the lemon but it adds a nice brightness. The St. Germain, even in a tiny dose, does wonders at mellowing out cheap vodka. And, if you are in the market for budget friendly vodka, I'm actually a fan of that Vodka Monopolowa from Trader Joe's. I bought it the first time for the label, obviously, but it's decent in mixed drinks and it's potato based so safe for gluten free friends. I'm not a big vodka drinker in general but I keep it around for some summer cocktails.

Greyhound with a twist (original recipe here - makes 1)

1 1/2 oz. vodka or gin
1/2 oz. St. Germain
2 oz. freshly squeezed grapefruit juice
1 lemon wedge

:: Pour the alcohol and the juice in a shaker over ice. Squeeze the lemon wedge in and then toss the wedge in as well. Shake well. Strain and serve, with an additional lemon wedge if desired.

The original recipe has less vodka and more St. Germain. I love St. Germain but it's very sweet and floral and expensive, so I vastly prefer it in smaller amounts. Sometimes I'll even cut it down a touch more, using 1/2 ounce for two drinks. This will also be heavily impacted by what type of juice you're using. The recipe is written for unsweetened ruby red grapefruit juice. If you're using sweetened juice, you might want even less St. Germain. If you're using freshly squeezed white grapefruit juice, which is more tart, you might want a bit more.

PITCHER VARIATION: If you're making pitcher greyhounds, which I did for the fourth of July this year, you can go even lighter. Combine nearly equal parts vodka and grapefruit juice and then add in just a bit of St. Germain. We're talking maybe 3 cups grapefruit juice, 2 cups vodka (taste and adjust to your preference at this point) and just mix in 2 or 3 ounces of St. Germain at the end. The effect will be so subtle that you might not pick up on it if you didn't know it was there, but if you tasted the drink before and after, you'll notice how much more nuanced it is. I didn't bother with lemon juice in these, although I'm sure it would have been good. You'd probably only want 1 ounce.

A month of meal plans

{making dinner - roasted pork chops with polenta}

I said I'd follow up with the month of pre-planned meals. So here I am! I'm really glad I did it and I have plenty of thoughts about it.

It blew our grocery budget out of the water (all that meat!). I spent a little over $400 when I usually spend a little less than $350. This included the meal ingredients + our usual stuff like milk, cheese, fruit, nuts, eggs, etc. I cut back on our fancy cheese + beer spending to help keep things in line but it wasn't quite enough.

I didn't quite manage to do the full plan because I ended up cooking only 4 out of 5 meals each week. We had a lot of leftovers and even my obsessive need to complete challenges couldn't convince me to cook food we probably wouldn't get around to eating.

I'd recommend trying a set meal plan if you're in a rut or feel like you can't get up the energy to cook. Having the mental part taken out made it much more bearable for me. It was a huge relief to have grocery lists and meals planned out for me and it helped me get back into meal planning.

It also helped me figure out what we liked about the meal plan (quick prep time, leftovers for lunch, no decision making when we get home in the evening) and what we didn't like (eating meat 4/5 days per week, ending up with more food than we could manage) and having that information was helpful. I've been doing my own weekly meal planning since the month was up and I'll be sharing that soon.

Overall, if you're having trouble motivating to cook or if you've never done weekly meal planning, I think this is a great way to jumpstart a routine. I think Real Simple also offers a paid subscription where you get something similar every week (with vegetarian options, maybe?) but as tempting as that sounds I know I'm capable of spending 20 minutes a week to do the planning on my own now that I'm back in the groove.

Some of the meals were very good, some were lackluster. All were perfectly edible.

Favorites: 
Turkey burgers with creamy romaine slaw - so good, have made these three times
Lamb meatballs with couscous and feta - another three timer, love the apricots
Red currant glazed chicken with spinach - love this method of cooking chicken
Ravioli with brussels sprouts and bacon - used TJs refrigerated ravioli
Mushroom herb strata - way more indulgent than our usual dinners!
Roasted pork chops with polenta - simple but good esp. with summer tomatoes
Sweet potato and brie flatbread - used TJs pizza dough, surprisingly good

Liked but might not make again: 
Pork cutlets with spicy noodles - tasted good, didn't love frying the pork
Curry shrimp with snow peas - not enough curry flavor?
Shrimp with white beans and toast - good but not exciting
Balsamic glazed pork with lentils - good but nothing special
Seared steak with cauliflower puree - totally fine, not exciting
Asian beef and mango salad - liked this a lot actually, but I don't think it will be a staple

Didn't love: 
Roasted tilapia with potatoes and lemons - our tilapia wasn't great and that might have been the issue
Penne with tomatoes, eggplant and mozzarella - mozz seems like a strange choice because you end up with big melted globs of it instead of even distribution. tastes good, but not special, even with good tomatoes.
Chorizo-potato tacos with black bean salsa - so much blander than I expected! also, wouldn't bother with hard shell tacos next time, soft corn would be just as good, maybe better.

Didn't get around to cooking: 
Steak with roasted carrots and onions
Chicken paprikash
Salmon with potato salad
Cajun chicken with collard greens

Shopping lists are right here.

Just to be clear - this post isn't sponsored by Real Simple in any way. I found the meal plan while I was googling. There are tons of meal plans provided on various sites but the majority of them involve a whole lot of hamburger and/or cream of mushroom soup, so I was relieved to find something that seemed more in line with my general recipe collection.

Lately

And a little glimpse of what's been going on other than vacationing ...

{salsa prep}

{tomatillo ghosts}

{string lights at dusk}

{dinner plate dahlia!}

{wedding flowers}

{weekday dinner}

{boy or girl}

We've been celebrating. Birthdays and marriages and babies on the way. And still trying to sneak in some standard summer stuff, like long weeknight dinners with friends and reading on the balcony and going to the farmers' market. 

I don't play favorites with seasons, but there's a lot to love about this time of year. 

Just finished reading

I normally wait until I have a round up for you but I really loved this one and had to share. I'm torn because I came to this book cold and I think it might be best experienced that way. But I know some of you would prefer to know something about it before you decide to read it, so I'll just try not to say too much.

I'd read Behind the Scenes at the Museum a long time ago and enjoyed it. I also really liked Case Histories, which is a beautifully written crime novel and therefore hits two of my sweet spots. Kate Atkinson is an exceedingly clever writer and I know some readers probably felt Life After Life was too much an exercise in cleverness but I devoured it.

It's a bit like an adult choose your own adventure, except you get to see how all the adventures turn out. This thrills me to core, since I'm a terrible overthinker. In real life, this is a disaster. There are infinite ways in which things could have gone differently and it generally doesn't pay to sit around thinking about them. But in a novel? I found it so satisfying. You get to see the protagonist live several different lives and you see how a small decision changes the course of her story.

A book with this structure has the potential to be extremely tedious. Atkinson is constantly backtracking, retracing steps, re-exploring covered ground. The book is long (over 500 pages) but somehow I never got tired of it. You see the same events but she manages to approach them from slightly different angles each time, which takes the repetitiveness out of it.

My one reservation is the denouement, which gets a little intense and involves Hitler. (I've tried to re-word that sentence so it makes more sense but I don't want to give too much away so I'm just going to leave it as is - it's a fair description, even though it doesn't do the book justice.) I think it was intended to be the thread that holds the book together and makes the plot a little more traditional, but I'm not sure I needed it. I would have been fine with the book just winding down.

I think this novel might require a certain type of reader. I'm happy to read dozens of iterations of the same story, provided it's done well. Atkinson does it well and makes it interesting.

Have any of you guys read it? As soon as I'd finished I wanted to force someone else to read it so I could discuss it immediately but a 500+ page book is a hard sell, especially when you're all on vacation.

Bishop! In July!

July is not the recommended time for a trip to Bishop, but it just happened to be when it worked out. So it was us and the infinitely more hardy European tourists, braving the heat. Which turned out to be pretty bearable after all since there's a gentle all day breeze and the clouds more than made up for it.

{395 north}

{road trip!}

{lower owens river}

{gear loaded}

{dad inspecting flies}

{gnarled tree}

{LA property in the owens valley}

{shauna picking up ticks}

{schat's sandwich}

{pink clouds over bishop}

{game night}

{mini fridge settings were a little off}

{schat's}

{best dinner in town}

{thunderbird motel neon}

{reel}

{belated birthday}

{field, flock of birds}

{mammoth brewing co pitcher}

I've only camped in Bishop, so staying in town was new. It's teeny tiny, but filled with an abundance of cute homes and excellent neon lights.

We didn't catch anything, but that wasn't the point. I'm so glad we made this trip happen and it was incredibly special for all of us.

Notes for Bishop: True to form, I obsessively researched everything before going. Given that the town is only a mile long, you'd think this wasn't necessary, but it did help.

Get sandwiches at Schat's. Ignore the people on Yelp who claim it's become overhyped and overpriced. It's still so good. Walk across the street and picnic in the city park. Buy some cheese bread for the ride home.

Go for drinks at Rusty's. But probably stay away from the jello shots.

Order the Epic IPA from Mammoth Brewing Co whenever you get a chance. Opt for the Real McCoy Amber if hops aren't your thing.

It seems odd that the bowling alley is the best reviewed restaurant in town, but it holds up. Fish and chips are surprisingly good. They also made us a grilled cheese after the kitchen had closed so they have my undying love.

Rent anything you need for fishing from Brock's and hire a guide if you don't have my dad to lead you around.

Get coffee at Black Sheep Coffee Roasters. The brewed coffee is great, the espresso is very light and acidic, so if that's your thing you're golden. The veg breakfast burritos also looked awesome.

Buy the gluten free Sierra mud cookies at Great Basin Bakery even if you aren't gluten free.

Try the jerky at Mahogany Meats and purchase some of the sweet and spicy. But not too much, because you won't have money left for anything else.

Go for a run up and down Home St. in the early morning so you can pretend house shop. Walk up and down Main St. in the evening so you can admire all the old neon signs.




*Just in case you're wondering, I do take a ton of standard vacation pictures, you know, with actual people in them. It's just that I don't usually like to share too many people photos here and risk making people feel uncomfortable, so I pick and choose carefully when I post. But I don't end up with photo albums just full of people's hands and backs, which I know is how it looks when you see these posts!

Watercolor paper flowers video tutorial!

The lovely ladies at 100 Layer Cake put together a video tutorial for the watercolor paper flowers I made for our wedding. Bonus - it shows you how I put the actual centerpieces together for quick onsite arrangement. Critical if you have a short set up window and can't be fussing with piles of flowers.

You can check it out here. And the click through photo tutorial is here.

It was so much fun to work with those girls, even though video makes me nervous. Luckily it's just hands, so you're spared the awkward grimaces that I make when I'm concentrating on crafts.

Book signing

It's particularly gratifying to see someone you adore make it into print.

Julie and I have been nerding out over English together since middle school and she was in town a couple weeks ago for a reading of her first novel (!).

{dear lucy signing}

I devoured Dear Lucy as soon as I could get my hands on a copy. The voices are strong and compelling, the story is unusual and a bit magical. I don't want to say too much about it, but let me tell you, one of the characters is a talking chicken named Jennifer. I think that's all you really need to know.

{reading}

Yay, Jules!