Food and Cooking

I have become an air fryer believer. Yes, it's basically a convection toaster oven, but SOMEHOW it works 100x better. That, my instant pot, and my stand mixer are my life. Air fryer to quickly make chicken nuggets for my picky children, instant pot for rice and beans, and my stand mixer for bread. We love carbs.

Anyone here that hasn't said silicone spatula better get online shopping right freaking now. SILICONE SPATULA SUPREMACY 🙏🙏🙏🙏

Probably just my chef knife. But that's an obvious and boring answer.

My choice would be my hand blender. I use it for making any dips, many sauces (it is made out of metal) and it also got a blender attachment for shredding vegetables. One of the best investments I made for my kitchen.

My rice cooker! It takes the guesswork out of making brown / mixed grain rice and the cleanup is 123!

We have two stoneware baking sheets that I use almost exclusively for putting things in the oven. They're great for reheating stuff in there and kind of like cast iron, they get more and more non stick as you use them.

I own very expensive knives. I bought them when I was single and had a good income. I have taken very good care of them and they are great knives to this day.

The first knife I always reach for is my $15 Chinese cleaver.

Every morning, we rotate between a Bialetti moka pot + an Espro P3 french press for coffee depending on what level of expression/mouthfeel we're craving out of our beans that day.

For cooking uses, my most used gadgets are:

• a Ninja digital air fryer to toast/crisp things on the fly.
• a Instant Pot to pressure cook beans or meat when meal prepping.
• a Zojirushi for plain or zhushed up rices for meal prep also.
• a FoodSaver sealer is also used on the reg every time we restock on meat in the freezer or need to store leftovers.

Also coffee related now that I'm thinking on it...

• an OXO water kettle to heat water for coffee either way we make it.
• a microwave to heat up milk for coffee every morning + to reheat meals throughout the day.
• a Baratza Encore to flipflop between diff grind sizes.

Holy Jesus, I will be shit out of luck during the next power outage that happens.

I'll go with: High quality burr coffee grinder.

I bought it in 2004 or so, it gets used daily, and still works like new.

Only thing I've ever done is replace the burrs a few weeks ago cause they were getting dull. Was an easy job and the burrs were pretty inexpensive.

Our Instapots are lifesavers, love them so much

An unexpected one for me was my air fryer. I thought it would be very situational and gimmicky, but I use it all the time. It's basically a small second oven that cooks food faster, uses less energy, and doesn't take forever to preheat

I was gonna get a moka pot. Is it worth it?

Gotta be the microwave.

I can make pasta in it, rice in it, potatoes (in many forms) in it, vegetables in it, delicious kidney beans + salt and black pepper in it as a 5 min easy and healthy meal, I can reheat in it, etc. ^.^

It works both for easy quick food and as part of a larger cooking session when I do bulk prep, and because of it's digital and precise nature it makes for an extremely predictable way to make stuff like pasta and rice just how I want it without needing fancy equipment, and I can also reliably refine it until it works exactly right.

My 10" cast iron Lodge skillet. It's great! And don't believe all the people who claim that you have to devote most of your life to taking care of your cast iron. They're cast iron for God's sake! Pioneers took them all the way across America in their Conestoga wagons. Just don't leave them wet or stick them in a dishwashing machine, and you're fine!

My 10 inch cast iron pan

I've been using a Lido 2 hand grinder for coffee every morning for almost 12 years now. More recently (~7 years) I've settled on using a Chemex to actually make my coffee. I'll likely keep using this setup for the rest of my life.

I also have a cast iron and I struggle with seasoning because all the burners I've ever used are just a bit too small for it (common electric ones). Soon I'll buy a torch (like for making Crème Brûlée) and maybe some sunflower oil to experiment on getting a reaallly nice coating on it. Sunflower oil has I higher burn temperature, so I'm thinking it will improve the longevity of the coating, but we'll see.

Probably my gas (well we have LPG here) hob because I suffered with an electric hob for so long in my last place.

Or possibly my stainless steel copper bottom sautée pan but my husband just scoured that with steel wool (you can probably imagine the stunned look on my face). I want to get some cast iron cookware but stainless steel is so versatile for sauces and risotto.

My electric kettle is almost always on. One with stay warm function and temperature control is great to accommodate the different temps I may want for various teas or coffee. It's also useful for speeding up cooking when I need to get a pot of water boiling.

I can't necessarily recommend a specific one though, my old gooseneck spout kettle was great for pouring but the screws holding the handle in place rusted out and the plastic clips broke. My current one is insolated to help stay warm longer which is nice but the plastic lid has begun deteriorating. The only advice I could really offer is find something with as little plastic as possible in it's construction, especially where it may touch water or steam.

My husband was gifted a powerful Ninja blender and I constantly use it for some vegan cooking. I made plant-based cheese sauce, hamburgers, deli slices, and copycat just egg with it yesterday. Also very handy for quick smoothies!

All 3 of my cutting boards. They get so beat up and I hardly ever maintain them.