My Favorite Kitchen Appliances

I think my cardinal rule for kitchen appliances is that they be multipurpose (no waffle irons or rice cookers for me). So aside from the standard pots and pans, these are my favorite things.

1) Kitchenaid food processor. This food processor is built to last. It came with a smaller bowl so it's easy to make foods of smaller quantities such as chopped nuts or pesto. It also came with a dough blade, and a grating blade that makes it easy to grate hard cheese or even potatoes for hash browns (carrots for carrot cake, zucchini for zucchini bread, you get the picture). Also has a slicing blade for meats or cheese. Purees soups or spreads (like hummus) in a snap.

2) Escali Primo Food scale. While food scales might bring to mind Weight Watchers, I use it mainly for cooking and getting quantities accurate. It makes it easy to measure flour without sifting, brown sugar without worrying about packing it, butter and peanut butter can just be thrown into the bowl without trying to get it in and out of measuring spoons, and dough can easily be divided for equal size loaves.

3) Kitchenaid immersion blender. I love this during the winter for pureeing vegetables right in the pot for thickening soups, during the summer for milkshakes or frappuchinos. Great for blending without getting a blender dirty, the blender part is removeable and dishwasher safe.

4) Presto pressure cooker. Makes meals in much less time! I love it for beans and rice and risotto.

5) Toaster oven. Can't remember what kind we have, but it's large enough that during the heat of summer we can avoid turning on the oven to make a small tray of cookies, rolls, toast nuts, and even makes small loaves of bread.

6) Chemex coffee maker. Ok this goes against my cardinal rule but I think if you want coffee you usually want a coffee maker. I love this one because there's no plastic heating up in it, it takes us less space than most coffee makers and it's not another appliance that requires a plug. It does take more work than a drip maker because the water has to be heated up first, but hey if the power goes out I could still have my coffee.