Due to always living in small nyc apartments i have learned to make the most from the fewest kitchen items.
I have a microwave now, i didn’t for more than a decade, but i really just use it to defrost soup or reheat my tea.
Otherwise i have:
An immersion blender (now 5yrs old from cuisinart, love it)
Breville juicer (i use 5-6xs a week)
Regular size blender (i seem to just use for summer smoothies)
Coffee grinder (critical)
Nespresso machine (a gift i use occasionally)
I use a stovetop Bialetti for coffee, and a kettle for tea water. I make toast in a skillet, and i have a manual mandolin for when i need to do uniform thin veggies. I wouldn’t use a slow cooker or rice cooker enough.
Interesting. I too have a teeny galley kitchen,
But I use my small rice cooker and 4 quart crackpot all the time. A single cup melitta and a 10 cup Krups for coffee. Convection toaster oven that i use much more than the big oven. Not a big blender guy. A nice old Farberware stainless steel electric frying pan.
What a single old guy needs…
Immersion blender
FP (with large and small bowls)
Breville smart oven (often used more than the 2 big ovens)
micro
Ice cream maker
Coffee grinder and single cup coffee maker
The only one I would consider getting rid of is the microwave.
Seriously? It’s a $$$ toaster oven (actually 3 sizes, 4 models) with pre-programmed settings in a variety of modes. I don’t find them particularly “smart”.
Hmmm. I love my digital crock pot, and I’m hooked on toaster ovens. But I find em used.
That said, all my toaster ovens are analog, thus my interest. 3 figures for an accessory,
Pretty steep.
Not as frequently use:
-Slow cooker
-immersion stick blender.
If I can keep only 3, I will ditch the slow cooker, simply because our way of cooking doesn’t involve slow cooking often. The immersion stick blender was originally bought to make baby food. Now the babies aren’t babies any more, its mostly for mixing cake ingredients from time to time.
Used frequently:
Microwave (Personally, I don’t think it’s a small electric, it’s nearly as big as my oven and is inside a cabinet.
Immersion mixer
Rice cooker
Kitchenaid mixer
Infrared thermometer (mostly for making tea)
Electronic balance
Used once a while:
Magimix mini food processor (I use it mostly to grate the carrots, when I don’t feel like to use mandoline)
Blender (if 1 day I could afford a Vitamix!!)
Waffle maker
Coffee grinder used as spice grinder
Food Saver sous vide
Rarely used:
Ice cream maker
Juice extractor
2 Electric Raclettes (Christmas gifts)
Coffee maker (Capsules)
Milk Whisk
Timers (now my induction top and ovens have that)
I go through phases. In the summer, my sous vide, blender, and ice cream maker are out on the counter because most meals are grilled food and we have lots of gazpachos, smoothies, and gelato/sorbet/ice cream.
As it cools off, out comes the spice grinder, Kitchenaid and food processor for making stews, soups, braises and baked goods.
Electric kettle
Full-size food processor
Mini food processor/blender combo
Stick blender
Bread machine
Waffle iron/sandwich press
Toaster
Stand mixer
Food saver
Rice cooker
Crockpot
Spice grinder
Citrus juicer
Hand food slicer/grater
Although there are some whose functions can be performed almost as easily in other ways, many of those are the ones I use the most, like the citrus juicer, electric kettle and rice cooker (I always thought a rice cooker was silly until I bought one out of self-defense because my Chinese roommate boiled over her rice and left a sticky mess on the stove at least once a week; then I found that I was more likely to cook rice with it.)
I use the food processor(s), stick blender and stand mixer pretty regularly. The others I tend to use in spurts: I’ll get out the waffle iron and use it a lot (mostly on the flat size for things like quesadillas) and then lose interest in it and shove it back in the cupboard. Same with the bread machine (necessary since I have magic yeast-killing hands and have never – in almost 50 years – made a successful yeast dough by hand) and crock pot.
I guess I would say that with the exception of the citrus juicer (I have a lemon and a lime tree), kettle and the rice cooker, I tend to rely on my basic prep tools more than my other specialty appliances.
That’s perfect if you don’t have a blender! We gave up our immersion blender after getting a Blendtec. The Blendtec makes the smoothest soups (what I mainly used the immersion blender for). The downside is that the blendtec requires larger volumes or the liquid will sit below the blades, so a Bamix / immersion blender would be good for smaller volumes.
We have too many small electrics, many of which are useless to me:
Microwave - I almost never use it (but husband does)
Immersion blender - Love it
stand mixer - No longer use it much. I used to make fresh bread all the time.
Hand-held mixer - use it a few times a year
Milk frother wand - love it, use a few times weekly
Big milk frother - gift that I have not taken out of the box.
Pressure cooker - use it all the time & love it
3 different electric thermometers - I would just keep the thermapen, others were gifts
Digital scale - use it frequently
Mini food processor - gift that is still in the box years later
Big food processor - use it frequently
Blender - have not used it in years
Waffle maker - use it about once a month and it’s worth it to me
2 coffee grinders (one used for spice) - must have
Food saver - have not used in years and don’t care for it
Citrus juicer - use it during citrus season, don’t love it and could do without
Pasta machine - love it and use it frequently
Capsule coffee maker - use it occasionally and could do without
Drip coffee maker - have not used in years
Bread maker - have not used in years
Timer - must have
Electric kettle - have not used in years
Toaster oven - must have for husband
mini crockpot - have not used in years
fryer - have not used in years
The story of America. Work to pay for storage for your stuff so you can go get more stuff. It has confounded me my whole life, complicated by the fact I love objects and even worse, gadgets.
I would donate/give away/craigslist things in a heartbeat, but husband is strongly opposed to that (even though I’m the cook). Since we have the storage space, it’s not worth it to me to make an issue out of it. besides, knowing myself, I will immediately fill the new-found space with more gadgets I am unlikely to use!
