What's your favorite kitchen/garden gadget?

My pressure cooker. It's 'second-generation' style - not electric, but not the old style jiggly rocker type either. It's a T-Fal I got at a garage sale. Excepting the occasional corn-on-the-cob or winter squash, it's over-powered for cooking most vegetables, but I love using it for meats, one-pot type meals, and dry beans. I don't have the patience/attention span for hours-long cooking, be it stove-top simmering or the slow-cooker. Less kitchen-heating is also appreciated this time of year. I love throwing a skinned, salted, whole, organic chicken in and having tender chicken and a bit of broth/stock 20-30 minutes later. I can look at recipes that include "beans soaked overnight" and make them the same day by doing a quick pre-cooking step on the beans using the pressure cooker.

My straight sided 12" pan is never put away for long because it seems like everything I make starts with sauteing an onion. My favorite knife is a medium-small santoku. My next favorite is a Victorinox bird's beak paring knife - I use that one for harvesting cukes and zuccs in the garden, as well as things in the kitchen. I use the microwave for steaming root vegetables (potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, rutabega, turnips, Jerusalem artichokes), broccoli, cauliflower -- and eggplant -- so that it doesn't suck up so much oil. I like the toaster oven, too. It generates less heat than the big oven, and seems a little faster, especially when I'm only doing a few vegetables or a piece of fish and not a big turkey or roast.

Wow, Marie got a Cadillac!

The 3-blade spiral cutter looks interesting. I would have to vote for my Seal-A-Meal with honorable mention to the coffee grinder for dried hot peppers, coriander, dried garlic and onion powder, etc.

sanderson wrote:Wow, Marie got a Cadillac!

I did. I am a firm believer in buying the best tools you can for the job. It was certainly more $ than I wanted to spend, but I think it's going to be well worth it.

Because I grow a large amount of my favorite veggies, and I like to freeze them, the Food Saver is my handiest contraption.  I sometime freeze the veggies after a short blanch and sometimes cook them and freeze after cooking.  Then seal in Food Saver Bags and all you have to do is drop the food saver bag in some boiling water or put in the microwave and reheat.  Easy peasy side dish.

Escaped Lunatic:

When we renovated our kitchen we set up hubby's camp oven and it worked well.: CAMP OVEN

Have you considered buying or making a solar oven?: SOLAR OVEN

EDIT - Oh I see you already mentioned a solar oven.

I'm finally getting my kitchen in order (his and hers kitchens - very useful in an intercultural marriage).  My bakeware had eaten all my counter space and was getting precariously stacked.  I'd been wanting some shelves for years and finally got a set of stainless steel ones made by one of the village metal shops.

So, I'm nearly ready to once again begin Baking Bad.  I may even put the solar box cooker and solar folding oven to use.

All that's left is figuring out what's wrong with the power plug for the main exhaust fan.

All that's left is figuring out what's wrong with the power plug for the main exhaust fan.

Reminds me of this joke:

They found the source of the Delta power outage this morning.

Ken and I went to the County Fair on Foggie/Foggette free day.  I watched a man demonstrate just how great this multi-purpose thingy was and finally broke down and bought it.  $25  Look at the cabbage - took about 2 min in total to core and cut in chunks.  I'm thinking easy sauerkraut is in the future.

Wanting to make sauerkraut some months ago I bought a Starfrit drum grater.  I used it once and it will be going to the thrift store.  I went back to my sharp knife

I have trouble slicing the cabbage thin enough, and, there's always some thick rib in the mix.

My three pronged hand held contraption that I got at the dollar store works really well for loosening the MM and mixing in more compost.

Help!!! I filled out my reply, and instead of hitting send, I hit draft. Well dummy me! How do I get it from draft to this as a reply?

Jo

littlejo wrote:Help!!! I filled out my reply, and instead of hitting send, I hit draft. Well dummy me! How do I get it from draft to this as a reply?

Jo

Click on Profile (in the green bar near the top of the page). When that opens you will find a Drafts tab. Click on that to see your drafts.

My favourite gadget is my canning lid holder, along with the magnetic lid lifter.  I just put my lids in, then drop in the canner after the water is hot. No trying to get the lids out of a pan anymore! I found them today at Amazon but think I got two for ten somewhere else.


https://www.amazon.com/Norpro-605-Canning-Lid-Rack/dp/B0000CF39X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1510173816&sr=8-3&keywords=canning+lid+holder&dpID=41Re6XbOp0L&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

Thanks TD for getting back to me. I guess I worded my needs wrong. I new where the draft was. But, there is no button to send/publish. So, what I did was hit modify, and there was a publish button on that page. Thanks again.

Jo

Hmm, these are 2 different things to me!  

Garden gadget:  twisty poles from Gardeners Supply  Love them for maters.

https://www.gardeners.com/buy/spiral-plant-and-tomato-stakes/39-514.html

Kitchen?  My old Fixed blade veggie peeler.  This isn’t it, but it is the same...

https://www.google.com/search?q=fixed+blade+veggie+peeler&client=safari&hl=en-us&prmd=sivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjm7qOeqbDXAhWRZiYKHWkFCJYQ_AUIEygC&biw=1024&bih=661

Hope that carried in, looks too long!

SR, I know which peeler you're talking about. It's the one that I grew up with that we had at home on our kitchen. It seems that many people use the one with the swivel blade, but if you grew up using the fixed blade, there's no substitute. The swivel kind is much easier to find these days, but I won't give up my fixed blade peeler for anything.

I really love my Nutri Bullet. I got it a few years ago to make green smoothies. I had tried my old juicer, but there was so much waste...all the pulp and fiber, so I went with the NB so that I could get the benefit of ALL parts of the veggies. But I have a tiny kitchen with limited counter space and anything that lives there has to perform multiple duties to earn its place. So I started using it to make salad dressing, hummus, flavor bombs, etc. I grind up oatmeal to make oat flour for my homemede dog biscuits. I also use it to make plain old water more flavorful to drink. I add a few frozen strawberries (or fresh, depending on the season) to some water, let it whirl, and voila...strawberry water. Improves the flavor, and gives me a few more vitamins, and no junk like with soda or some of the flavored waters that use arificial sweeteners. It has really been worth the expense, I find that I use it in one way or another every day.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007TIE0GQ/ref=asc_df_B007TIE0GQ5256930/?tag=hyprod-20&creative=394997&creativeASIN=B007TIE0GQ&linkCode=df0&hvadid=198079985682&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5977656856913831032&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9003318&hvtargid=pla-345769417378

That's a great idea, HG! I have a Nutrabullet too. May have to try that....

My Titan peeler is my choice for favorite kitchen gadget. Powers thru the hardest peel...

AtlantaMarie wrote:That's a great idea, HG!  I have a Nutrabullet too.  May have to try that....

My Titan peeler is my choice for favorite kitchen gadget.  Powers thru the hardest peel...

Yes Marie, just about any kind of fruit works...well, not bananas, I don't think. But you just add enough for a little flavor, and it makes drinking water not so boring. Even parsley water is nice!

I'd certainly rather do that than the questionable liquid flavorings I have now... ;-)

Santa brought me a sweet leaf cart. It's super lightweight and easy to maneuver. It also folds up when not needed.

I've already tried it out and it works great.

Nice cart!

Nice gift. Where did Santa find it?

So.... Santa was very nice to me this year. I got an Instapot and 2 attachments for my KitchenAid mixer - the veggie/fruit sheet cutter & spirilizer.

I've only made rice so far in the Instapot. But turned out good.

I'll let you know... :-)

sanderson wrote:Nice gift.  Where did Santa find it?

OSH! I discovered it last fall and told the kids, then forgot all about it. Stan was out of town, but Katie got her daughter to go back for it. It was the end of the season and the only one they had left was the floor demo. She talked them into letting her have that one and keeping it in the back until they could come back for it. Then they took it to their storage unit and kept it there until Christmas. Whew!