Which food preparation appliance...

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

The hard boiled egg cooker is awesome.

Put in 6 eggs, and small amount of water, and come back to perfect eggs.

For $15 and we use it All. The. Time.

 

Oh yeah, not sure how I forgot about ours, but I use it weekly for the critters. 

+1 on sous vide, any protein that I don't want a smoke ring on gets it. Not only does it make better blood more convenient, it also reduces clean up as cleaning a pot of boiled water is the easiest clean up ever. 

I seriously got it for making test batches of wort and now it's one of my favorite things, and I mean in general, not merely in the kitchen. 

Pizza steel. 
 

A pizza steel (mentioned above) is better than a stone for frozen or homemade pizza.

Sous-vide and vacuum seal is great for pork and chicken, if that's your thing.

But I think that the most under-valued thing in most kitchens is a knife sharpener. Get your knives professionally sharpened once, and then use a Spyderco Sharpmaker to tune them up when they start to dull a bit. You'll be amazed every time you cook at a friend's house at the garbage that people are willing to put up with.

We use the instant pot regularly. I use it for hard boiled eggs and rice, it works great. I am also an air fryer fan. I use that for most things that were frozen as well as bacon and frying pickles!

The KitchenAid stand mixer is great.

The food processor and blender are essential if occasional.

The Gaggia espresso machine lives in the kitchen and I love it, though it's only role in food prep is waking the cook up.

The Instant Pot is really handy. Oddly, I've finally gotten over my weird inability to do rice on the stove, so we don't really use it for that though it replaced a rice maker and a crock pot. Its most regular applications are black eyed peas and yogurt, though there was a chicken and couscous with green olives and preserved lemons that actually convinced us to get the thing...

The warming drawer on the stove gets used WAY more than I would have expected, as does the divider that lets us do two different oven temps.

I'm really surprised at how rarely I miss having a microwave now. Years ago I fat-fingered a burrito for 20:00 instead of 2:00 and headed out to the shop. The house was sooooo smoky and the burrito had reached some sort of liquid/plasma state and infused its remains into the works of the microwave, and we never replaced it.

Save counter space. An air fryer is just a convection oven. Get a toaster oven with convection feature. 

Second fridge is where it's at.  I'm always amazed to find out people can live with only one refrigeration device in their homes.  That second place for drinks and overflow is invaluable.

Blender.  Margaritas anyone?  Helloooo

More counter space.  Does this count as an appliance?  Possibly, I've never been in a kitchen that had too much counter space.  Even places that seemed expansive really shrink down when family get together.

I would miss my rice cooker a lot if it disappeared.  I kind of like my instant pot but I like my slow cooker more.  I like having my food processor but I only use it for a few things (refried beans and pesto).

I want to get a food mill at some point soon but I don't think I would use it all that often.

French Press and Moka pot made coffee good.

A griddle is useful.

We use our big cast iron pan more than anything else.

Does a stovetop kettle count?

I like an immersion blender for making soup and smoothies (not at the same time)

Nothing else seems overly useful.

When I was in high school, we used to do "boil in a bag" meals when on canoe trips. From what I can tell, sous vide is the same thing :D

It's been mentioned a couple of times, but sharp knives. I use Japanese water stones and leather strops, but whatever you use - learn to sharpen knives. You'll love it and it's safer than hacking away with a dull blade. 

KyAllroad said:

More counter space.  Does this count as an appliance?  Possibly, I've never been in a kitchen that had too much counter space.  Even places that seemed expansive really shrink down when family get together.

That is the one thing I don't like about our current house, lack of cabinet/counter space. Our house is a decent size, but much of it is "wasted" in having the living room/dining room/kitchen/master bedroom and bath being larger than necessary. 

But the open space and high ceilings definitely make the place feel bigger than it actually is. 

I asked for a griddle pan for Christmas one year, and my wife misunderstood and got us an electric griddle instead. I was a little apprehensive at first, but I use that thing like once a week now. I think it's the second best mistake she's made. 

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

I wanted to move in with you, but my wife has decided she's coming FIRST!

I am TOTALLY the WRONG person to ask on this, so I asked my wife.

One of her big issues is that she hates appliances that only do one thing.  She's right... saves counter space, cabinet space, and money.

First off, your family size makes a big difference.  We had 7.  Now we are down to 2 (plus 1 occasionally).  That means the big food processor eventually became completely useless, and a little one became a gem.

The blender bit the dust.  A NutriBullet replaced it quickly.

Instant Pot is a huge win.  Can do both the slow cooking and the fast cooking.  Crock pot bit the dust. 

Toaster is a useless waste of counter space.  We have a toaster oven.  Yes, that takes up MORE counter space, but it acts as a mini substitute for the oven way too often.  A convection version is best.

Lots of votes for a stand mixer here.  Unless you make a lot of bread, I don't see it.  The stand mixer and the blender are no longer needed- a hand blender (plus the mini food processor and the NutriBullet) do the trick.

Rice cooker doesn't make the cut because it falls into the "one trick pony" category.

A dedicated oil fryer?  Yikes!  That's a huge mess all the time!  She's a big fan of her air fryer.  Yeah, it's just a convection oven.  But the cleanup is so phenomenally easy that it scores a lot of points.

Several have mentioned various coffee making machines.  I used to own a coffee shop, so this one matters to me.  We've had everything from French presses to commercial 3 group espresso machines.  The winner in this department?  I have a combination drip/ single K-cup machine that also froths milk.  Reasonably small- residential scale.  Covers so much territory that I can't justify any of the other options.  It was a bit pricey, but well worth it.

My favorite useless appliance?

The Presto Hotdogger.

It was LITERALLY a hot dogger electrocuter.

When I was a kid, I got curious, and had to take one apart.  There was NOTHING inside except the impalement prongs on the two sides.  The positive and negative leads came DIRECTLY out of the wall outlet and stuck in the two ends of the hot dog.

And yes, they tasted EXACTLY like they had been electrocuted!

Beer Baron said:

mtn said:

• Conversely, a slap-chop is not really any faster than dicing an onion with a knife, and much harder to clean. 

 

Also love my little Bialetti Mocha Express pot. Almost as good as an espresso machine, but waaaay less space or hassle.

Those Bialetti pots are very nice for making a quick expresso.  And really easy to clean.

thatsnowinnebago said:

I asked for a griddle pan for Christmas one year, and my wife misunderstood and got us an electric griddle instead. I was a little apprehensive at first, but I use that thing like once a week now. I think it's the second best mistake she's made. 

The one thing that I added to the registry. And my wife replaced it with a griddle pan, because "it's just the two of us."
 

I'm still annoyed about that one. 

Tell me of this "Insta Pot" of which you all speak...  Seriously, I'm not familiar with it.  My old roommate had a device he used for cooking rice.  Is that possibly the same thing?

In reply to stroker :

It's a combination slow cooker and pressure cooker. It can cook slow or fast. About the size of a crock pot. 
 

It's very possible your roommate cooked rice in one. 

SV reX said:

My favorite useless appliance?

The Presto Hotdogger.

 

It was LITERALLY a hot dogger electrocuter.

When I was a kid, I got curious, and had to take one apart.  There was NOTHING inside except the impalement prongs on the two sides.  The positive and negative leads came DIRECTLY out of the wall outlet and stuck in the two ends of the hot dog.

And yes, they tasted EXACTLY like they had been electrocuted!

Ohhh we had one of these when we were kids.   At my first job at an engineering firm I worked in the lab and the head of the lab had two forks that had the handles cut off and an lamp cord with the wire attached to each fork.  He would cook hotdogs at his desk all the time with it. He just hung the wire of a shelf above his desk and away he went. It never occurred to me until now but I don't think he ever cleaned the forks.  I think I need to make one with some sort of quick connect for the fork ends to put in the washer. 

It was LITERALLY a hot dogger electrocuter.

 

Anyway to make a 12v one to take "Camping"

SV reX said:

In reply to stroker :

It's a combination slow cooker and pressure cooker. It can cook slow or fast. About the size of a crock pot. 
 

It's very possible your roommate cooked rice in one. 

Yeah, and ours will even let you sear the meat in the IP so you don't dirty another pan. They are pretty conveinent, but I still feel like they don't make stews/chilis/etc, quiet as well as a normal crock pot. When using the pressure cooker function vs slow function. 

So if we are cooking something slow, we just the crock pot since it's larger. 

SV reX said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

I wanted to move in with you, but my wife has decided she's coming FIRST!

TMI

SV reX said:

It was LITERALLY a hot dogger electrocuter.

When I was a kid, I got curious, and had to take one apart.  There was NOTHING inside except the impalement prongs on the two sides.  The positive and negative leads came DIRECTLY out of the wall outlet and stuck in the two ends of the hot dog.

And yes, they tasted EXACTLY like they had been electrocuted!

That is truly terrifying. I have to wonder how such a thing would make it through a UL safety test, or if they just marketed it without any testing.