Our Top 5 Kitchen Gadgets

We have a lot of gadgets in our kitchen.. somehow, I can't leave any home goods store without at least one more. Still there are definitely some we use almost every day. If I had to narrow it down to just five, this is what I would keep:

1. A wooden spatula
We use this for everything and anything we cook on the stovetop--stirring pasta, serving rice, freeing eggs from the "nonstick" frying pan.

2. Kitchen scale
Whenever I can replace volume measurements with weights, I do. It means fewer dishes, and less spilt milk, plus more accurate, repeatable recipes. I don't mind a little extra leg work at the beginning to do the conversions.

3. Chef's knife
We have an awesome, sharp, stiff chef's knife, that makes slicing and dicing an absolute pleasure. (Well, it's not so great with carrots, but for $12 it's a great deal.) It's sharp enough for tomatoes, and glides through vegetables and herbs. Lovely.

4. GIANT cutting board
Our cutting board is about 2.5 feet by 4 feet (and is affixed to a giant wheeling cart). It's like a playground for chef's. I can pre-chop my ingredients with no overcrowding, and set everything out before the action begins. The board is in two halves and lifts off for easy rinsing.

5. Collapsible salad spinner
So this one is really a three-in-one deal. At the moment, we don't own any mixing bowls or colanders, so we use the various pieces of the spinner as substitutes. Plus, it's collapsible, so it stores easily.

What do you use every day? What else could you absolutely never part with?

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment or emailing me at piquantprose [at] gmail [dot] com.

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