What kitchen gadgets do you have?

[brewer12345]

Hmmm, I think I'll decline to do the full list. I always wondered about a small pressure cooker (already have a ginormous one for pressure canning). Are they easy to use?

One of my favorite goodies was a gift from my brother. It is a Kyocera ceramic knife with about a 5" blade. You have to be a bit careful with it as ceramic can chip or shatter (it is brittle), but the thing is freakishly sharp. Its like cutting vegetables, etc. with a razor blade. It is so sharp that most things cut with little pressure or effort on my part. If I didn't already have lots of high end steel knives from when DW worked at a vegetarian chef's school, I would be ponying up for a chef's knife made of this stuff.

 

[retire@40]

The Rotato. I have the manual one that works great, but I believe now they have electric ones.

http://www.storeshop.com/rotato_potato_peeler.html

 

[BigMoneyJim]

My toaster oven is my favorite gadget. I think I use it more than the microwave. Being single I don't cook much and the toaster oven doesn't require much preheating.

I have a knockoff GF grill that I used to use a lot for burgers and fries but haven't used lately.

I have that chopper thingy from TV where you push the top to chop nuts and such. My mom got it for me and used it once while visiting; I haven't usd it since.

Oh yeah, another favorite is my cheese slicer. It's just a cheap plastic stick with a couple of wires, but I love it.

I have a couple of ulus. One for show only and one for using. I don't use them much because I don't chop and cut much, but I like it when I have a use for it.

Oh yeah...everyone's best kitchen gadget: The TV remote.

 

[Hyperborea]

The Rotato.  I have the manual one that works great, but I believe now they have electric ones.

The thing that I always wonder about with the real "gadget" type things like this one is does it really save any time? By the time that you set it up, load up a potato, peel it, and then clean it up is it any faster at all than just using a good peeler?

That's become one of my criteria for picking up kitchen gadgets or tools. It's got to be something that I'll use often enough to make it worthwhile and it's got to be a timesaver or it does the job better. Just recently I bought a big Rollpat silicone rubber rolling mat for dough because I've been making breads and pastas regularly, my cutting board that I used for rolling was too small, and we've got the typical Californian tile counters that aren't good for rolling dough (for the religious zealots this is NOT intended as bad comment against America though I understand that you may take it as such).

If you don't really think about these things you can end up with a kitchen cluttered with Ronco junk like my aunt.

I really like this kind of "right angle" peeler (I think that this one has one of those ceramic blades that Brewer was talking about):

 

[Martha]

By the time that you set it up, load up a potato, peel it, and then clean it up is it any faster at all than just using a good peeler?

Are not miserly retirees supposed to eat the potatoes with the peelings? We never peel, not even for mashed potatoes.

 

[retire@40]

The thing that I always wonder about with the real "gadget" type things like this one is does it really save any time?  By the time that you set it up, load up a potato, peel it, and then clean it up is it any faster at all than just using a good peeler?

If I race you to peel a half dozen potatoes, me with my rotato and you with your right angle peeler, I will win every time. I can probably peel 6 potatoes by the time you are done with your second. There's no setup time for the Rotato and it takes just as much time to clean it as it does a peeler. I also use it for apples.

http://funwavs.com/wavfile.php?quote=3614&sound=337

Clint Eastwood as Man With No Name: "When a man with a 45 meets a man with a rifle, you said the man with a pistol's a dead man. Lets see if that's true."

 

[bruce1]

I have an apple peeler that looks like a horizontal version of your rotato but is about 80 years old. Works good.

Bruce

 

[Ol_Rancher]

I am a proud owner of an Eggstractor ... As you may have seen on TV, it peels an egg by your pushing on a billows type sleev and the hard-boiled egg pops out under the plastic stand without it's shell.

Because I acted quickly, the makers included an egg slicer and was even able to buy a second one as a gift for only a few dollars more.

For years, I have bemoaned the lost oppurtunity of buying an in-the-egg-scrambler made for a short time by RONCO. That american tech breakthrough was a smal verticle wire whip on its stand with which the cook would pierce the egg and activate to produce a scrambled egg with shell intact.

I doubt that the two gadgets wouldd have worked well together. however.

 

[Bob_Smith]

Clint Eastwood as Man With No Name: "When a man with a 45 meets a man with a rifle, you said the man with a pistol's a dead man. Lets see if that's true."

What a place! At least one good laugh per day here - and retire@40 wins today.

 

[Adventuregirl]

Love my crockpot, use it all the time....Anyone passing on recipes...me too, me too! I can always use new ones!

Adventuregirl

 

[Jane]

Is it true you can roast the whole chicken in crock pot?

That's what I want to find out.

Recipes are always welcome.

Jane

 

[KB]

Yes you can do a whole chicken. You get a whole bunch of juices too if you want to make gravy or just defat and freeze for stock.

I have a timed crockpot and do a whole chicken for 6-8 hours on low; amy more and it falls apart.

 

[LovesLife]

Hi Everyone.

Whew, just got home from a busy day at work. Can't wait to drop my work week down to 2 days.

I just wanted to post a link to my very favorite site for receipes. It's http://allrecipes.com/recipes/ I just love this site. You can browse here by cooking method, ingrediants, type of food, etc. You can find receipes and have it recalculate the ingrediants for different serving sizes. Best of all, IMHO, it will even print out a shopping list. This site has changed my attitude for the better about cooking again. Some of my favorite receipes for slowcookers are: slow cooker salisbury steak, cheesy brat stew for the slow cooker.

You can enter in the titles to these receipes in the search section and it should bring you to a list to select from.

One of my very favorite receipes that I tried over Thanksgiving was Pumpkin casserole. It was like pumpkin pie without the crust. I counted it as a vegetable and ate it to my heart's content.

If anyone has trouble with linking to this site and would like a direct link, please email me and I will get it out to you.

LovesLife
and loves to eat, too

 

[haha]

Will it core a apple?
Cheffadafuture

Well, I think someone like a sushi chef could core an apple with a double bladed axe. But not Mikey.
I only core apples to make baked apples, and I use a stiff boning knife. I hold the apple with a welding glove, in case I slip. I'm sure that if someone had frequent need to core dozens of apples, there would be better ways!

Mikey

 

[bruce1]

I have an apple corer that I got somewhere. It cuts the apple into eights and removes the core another neat device.

 

[John Galt]

We have one of those around here somewhere
(8 section apple corer). That is a neat gadget. I may
stop making fun of you guys (or not!)

JG