Before i get into it, I have to say a huge thank you to BlueStar for being so patient with me. I have a full-time job that keep me very busy, but they never once pestered me to finish this post!
So, what are my kitchen essentials?
Let's start with the basics, 2 good knives! Now, I have much more than 2 knives in my kitchen, but you can get by with a nice sharp paring knife and a good chef's knife. I have aHenckels Twin-Grip 3" Paring Knifeand an Epicure chef knife. I am not sure if Epicure still sells knives like the one I have, but any good sharp chef knife will work!
This brings me to my next must have, which is a Knife Sharpener
. A dull blade is just as dangerous as, if not more so than, a sharp blade.
Onto another cutting tool that I am completely crazy about: my spiralizer. I bought this World Cuisine Tri-Blade Spiral Vegetable Slicer a few years ago and it was well worth it. I love pasta and could probably eat it every day (I'm sure I practically did when I was in university), but I also love vegetables so this is perfect for me. I could eat any pasta dish on zucchini noodles and not feel like I'm missing out in any way. However, be forewarned that you probably won't be able to make any carrot noodles, unless you have some massively thick carrots in your garden! For those, I would recommend just making strips with a peeler.
I love adding citrus juice to sauces, marinades, and drinks, and my little handheld Bru Joy Citrus Press
is perfect for this. It is a sturdy hand juicer with two separate sections intended to match up to the difference in size between lemons and limes and it is so handy. No need to worry about straining the juice for seeds or getting your hands sticky with juice.
I am an avid baker, so I have to say that my KitchenAid Ultra Power Series 4.5-Quart Tilt-Head Stand Mixer
is probably one of the greatest gifts I have ever received. I do all of the same things that I did with my hand mixer, but it is easier and faster. No more numb hands when whipping the butter for 15 minutes straight when I am making shortbread! However, I will admit that I still use my hand mixer for quick little tasks.
Still on the baking theme, I absolutely love my Wilton 24-Cup Perfect Results Mega Muffin Pan. I can now put the entire batch of cupcakes in the oven all at once. Quick, easy and so much better than using two 6 cavity molds twice to get it all done. If you are worried about the pan being overly large, don't be; I only have a wall oven and it fits perfectly!
Despite having baking pans in all sizes and shapes, very small to very large, hearts, pumpkins, etc. I use my basic Wilton Recipe Right 8-Inch Round Pans
all the time. Whether you are just getting into baking or you are a seasoned pro, you will get tons of use out of these. I have 2 of them, and they are, hands down, my most used cake pans.
I would also recommend having one springform pan, probably also an 8" like this
Wilton 8-Inch Springform Pan (although I do use my Wilton Recipe Right 9-Inch Springform Pan almost as much), in your kitchen. On top of making cheesecakes in the springform pan, you can also use it for making amazing deep dish pizzas! I do have one very small springform and one very large springform, but I rarely every use them.
The last little gadget that has made a huge difference for me is my Salter Digital Kitchen Scale
. Weights and volumes do not convert equally for every product. For example, 1 cup of water is 8 oz. but 1 cup of flour is only 4 1/2 oz. I used to try to measure out the amounts of some items that I needed by eyeballing the approximate proportion of the package that would amount to the right weight. While I got good at this type of measuring, it is nice to have a quick and easy way to do it right. The scale comes with the ability to switch between units so you can measure in grams, oz, etc. to meet your needs.
Now, onto the wishlist! Despite all of the great tools that I have, there are still a few things I would love to own.
The first thing I can think of is a Vitamix Professional Series 750 blender. It is super powerful and durable and would be great for smoothies, soups, sauces, etc. I still have the same blender I bought when I was in university and, while it does work for most things, it just isn't as powerful as a Vitamix. I also have an immersion blender but, since the Vitamix can handle hot foods, I would be able to dump soups and sauces right in and blitz them up super fast.
I would also love an Aroma 6 Tray Food Dehydrator
. I love making snacks like kale chips, but I hate leaving the oven running at a low temperature for hours, Most importantly, food dehydrators bring back such amazing childhood memories, My mom used to use hers all the time in the summer when I was growing up and I loved it. Dehydrated watermelon is incredible and I still find myself craving it. My mom was going to give hers to me, but it got broken when my parents moved. Hers was an amazing, round machine with at least 5 different levels.
Another thing that I love from my mom's kitchen are her very old baking sheets. These were from the days when things weren't all non-stick and were heavy duty, sturdy, durable and able to be scraped at with metal utensils. She has had them for as long as I can remember and they are still the best baking sheets I have ever used. I have yet to find something comparable, but I am always watching.
Next up is a
Presto 23-Quart Pressure Canner. I make lots of sauces, jams, jellies, etc. but most of the ones that I make are not acidic enough to be safely canned in a regular water bath. I would need a pressure canner for those items but, unfortunately, I have a glass cooktop, which can actually be broken by a pressure canner.
Which brings me to the final item on my wishlist: a dream oven! BlueStar Cooking actually allows you to build your dream range on their site, and I have found mine. If I were building a brand new home and got to design my ideal model, it would be this beauty!
I chose the biggest model (the 60" RNB series) with 6 burners so that I would have enough space for cooking up a few different items at the same time. I was very excited about the charbroiler option, so I added the 24" one. Where I live, BBQ season is really only about 4 months long and, even though I have a George Foreman grill and a raclette (gadgets and gizmos, right?), it just doesn't taste the same as charbroiled food from the grill!
You can choose from 4 different backguard options (no backguard, 6", 17", or 21") and I like the 17" option. It's high enough to protect from most food splashes, but not so high that it would stand out or look strange. I currently have a countertop range and I feel like I am always scrubbing something out of the grout in the tiled back splash. No one likes cleaning grout!
My aunt and uncle had stacked wall ovens, but I had never considered side-by-side ovens before. I would absolutely love this! Throw the turkey in one side and all of the sides in the other. Perfect! I also loved the fact that I could choose swing doors instead of the standard doors. I am extremely clumsy and I can't count the number of times I have burned myself or dropped something on the doors when moving around. I think swing doors could be opened fully out of my way and I would be a lot smoother in the kitchen. Or maybe I would just be cleaning more food off of my floor.
BlueStar also offers the widest range of color options that I have ever seen. The first time through, I went for classic stainless steel with black knobs, but it was not an easy decision. I loved oyster white, black red, black blue, grey blue, black green, signal grey, black grey, telegrey 4, signal black, jet black and traffic white. I think it would take a lot of time to narrow down the options to the perfect oven!
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