Friday, March 28, 2014

Real Food Kitchen Makeover Series: 5 must have appliances/tools

Cooking from scratch always ends up being cheaper and healthier than eating out or eating processed food, but it does require some good tools to make your life a little easier. It has become a sort of obsession for me, I guess. My first major appliance purchase was my Kitchenaid mixer that I found on Ebay really cheap and it just escalated from there. Now I have all sorts of things that I'll be telling you about in time, but right now I just want to stick with what I consider the essentials.




1. Mason Jars- I cannot even tell you how much I love mason jars. Beautiful and functional, there are hundreds of things you can do with them besides canning (have you been on Pinterest lately?!). We store dry goods in them, use them for yogurt and other cultures and even drink out of them. I personally believe these are one of those things you can never have too many of and you can just wash them and use over and over.



2. Quality Blender- I may ruffle some feathers here, because I have many family and friends who absolutely love their Ninja. My Ninja blender however, has sucked pretty much from day 1 and I wish I wouldn't have wasted the money on it and held out for what I really wanted which was a Vitamix. Blendtecs are high quality blenders as well. Not sure about the Blendtecs, but Vitamix has a refurbished blender program with a warranty. Save your pennies and go for it. As soon as I save all my pennies up, I will be purchasing one and participating in their affiliate program so that I can offer my readers FREE shipping. You can do so many things with a quality blender. Nut butters and milks, food prep like chopping veggies, soup, whole food juicing, smoothies, grain grinding, dough making, ice cream, sorbet..... the list goes on.



3. Dutch Oven- My fiance was skeptical when I came home with a $70 pot. I tried to explain to him that at that price, it was a STEAL!. He has since changed his tune. We cook roasts, chili, soup, and even pop popcorn in coconut oil in ours. It gets used in this house several times a week. The great thing is they are perfect for taking something directly from the stove to the oven. Mine is a Cuisinart and I stumbled across it on clearance at Marshalls one day. I'm holding out for some Le Creuset to add to my collection though. A girl can dream can't she?



4. Quality mixer- Like I said above, my Kitchenaid mixer was my very first major kitchen purchase. I found it used on Ebay for less than $200 bucks. It is a plain jane white commercial style one and while it may not be the most beautiful with the array of colors now available, it is functional and does what I need it to do. I make bread and other dough with it and have even whipped up some cream as well as made butter with it. The other neat thing about the Kitchenaid is all the attachments that you can use with it. It has the ability to grind up meat, spit out pasta and perfectly slice veggies with the right attachments.  A good quality mixer will last you a really long time.



5. Immersion blender- This little beauty will be your saving grace if you do sauces, soups or anything you need pureed. Before I had it, I had to transfer things in batches to my big blender which usually resulted in a huge mess and spatter that burned the crap out of me. No more with my immersion blender. I can blend things up right in the pot. It also came with a whipping attachment which would be nice for scrambling up some eggs.

I am sure there are some things left off here and honestly when it comes to anything "kitchen" I will tell myself it is ALL necessary. What are your most essential kitchen tools?

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