Essential kitchen items/gadgets

[starbuck]

Buying my 1st house and looking at stuff to get for kitchen.

Want to know what gadgets/items in kitchen you find useful and especially ones you couldn't do without.

[menthel]

Get a hand blender rather than a huge food processor. The braun ones are great.

[Moby-Dick]

a really good knife & chopping block.

[bobbyzero]

George Foreman grill - brilliant for making toasties and many other things, much better than a toastie maker and not much more expensive.

Toaster - Just so handy, [x] on toast is the ideal snack!
My ex-housemate ran out of cash, so he bought tons of crumpets on 2 for 1, lived off them for a week. The toaster moved into the living room so he could get a second helping with less effort.

[0iD]

A good chef's knife, try a few out & get the one that feels right, also a paring & a general purpose knive too. A good hardwood chopping board is also a good addition. Kettle, for tea/coffe. George Foreman grills are cool too, I have one & it's a life saver sometimes. A good quality wok & skillet/frying pan. Some nice scales. Hand blender/magimix. Liquidizer.

lol, it's just like the generation game

[herulach]

A Cuddly toy!

Seriously, a gas cooker, assuming youhave a choice, although induction is cool for shear geek factor 'Cold' Heat, how cool is that?

Tongs, sounds simple, but i hate cooking at my gfs house cos they dont have any, pref plastic so you dont have to worry about the non stick.

[Twigman]

Get a microwave with quickstart....its like pressing micro -> 30 seconds -> start...but in 1 button...
my god its amazing...

[bobbyzero]

Can't believe I forgot this - a radio / cd player! Just a cheap one will do, but it makes washing up a bit more fun!

[Dougal]

Originally Posted by bobbyzero

Can't believe I forgot this - a radio / cd player! Just a cheap one will do, but it makes washing up a bit more fun!

Only a bit tho.

For ease of washing up get 1) wife or 2) kids

[mark19632]

A good size Wok, great for making stir fry and mince and stuff like that.

[Flibb]

Cheap arsed mandolin type thing. Yes I know they sometimes have them on the crappy sky gadget shows, but they do work really well. Zips through onions, spuds, etc very quickly and its easy to clean, cost around £10-15, have had ours for around 6 years and its still going strong. Our one is similar to the one in thep ost and we got it from the local market

LINKY to the first place I found

[menthel]

Watch yourself on a mandolin, they also go through fingers with great efficiency!

[chrestomanci]

Originally Posted by 0iD

A good hardwood chopping board is also a good addition.

I recomend a plastic one instead. They are easier to clean, they don't absorb strong flavors (garlic, chili etc), they are cheaper. They take up much less space in the cupoard and weigh less. You can get different colours so you can segregate raw meat from cooked to prevent any risk of food posoning, or if you want to segregate food types for religous reasons.

IMHO, the only good thing about wood chopping boards is that they look good if you are serving unsliced bread or cheese to guests.

Originally Posted by 0iD

Some nice scales.

Yes. Go for digital scales if you can afford them, as they are much better at mesuring small quantites, and the add 'n weigh function on most of them is realy handy if you are baking cakes. Otherwise ask your mum if she has an old set in the back of her cupord.

[bobbyzero]

Originally Posted by PrivatePyle

Lean mean fat grilling macheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!

My George Formans great, its amazing how with even the more expensive burgers the amount of fat that ends up in tray rather than in your arterys, infact some food I've stopped buying as the amount of yellow brown gunk in there is just foul.

Just call it the George Formby - "Turned out nice again!"

[bobbyzero]

[quote=herulach]Seriously, a gas cooker, assuming youhave a choice, although induction is cool for shear geek factor 'Cold' Heat, how cool is that?QUOTE]
I arrived home to a power cut last night, have to say without a gas hob I would have been eating raw peppers on ginger biscuits...

[Lee @ SCAN]

A pile of takeaway menu's from the various Indian's, Thai, Vietnamese and Italian places we have locally

Also - smoothie maker - awesome buy, best ever and some of the concoctions I've made have been lethal (when mixed with vodka and tequila )