• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Put your energy elsewhere. As you start to become a more refined cook or one who wants to leave most of the work to a machine, there are some nifty gadgets on the market for your ever-growing collection of cooking tools. Keep in mind that a handful of these are more high-tech tools, so it is reflected in the price.

You didn’t need to pay the rent this month any-ways, did you?

FOOD PROCESSOR

My food processor is my kitchen staple and my sanity. I am not sure I would have made it through the early stages of motherhood without it. Aside from being a dream for pureeing baby food, I quickly discovered its versatility and use it to chop veggies, nuts, and breadcrumbs; shred cheese blocks; and whip up homemade salad dressings, dips, and pesto. Now, years later, the thing is still in mint condition and has helped me find so many ways to get creative with food. Cuisinart, KitchenAid and Hamilton Beach are all popular and reliable brands for durable, long-lasting food processors. If you have limited space in your kitchen and want to limit the number of appliances, Cuisinart offers a duet blender and food processor that is perfect for preparing hors d’oeuvres or baby food with seven speeds.

MANDOLINE

A simple tool that simplifies your life, a mandoline is a hand-operated slicing machine for cutting veggies. It does its best work cutting juliennes, but with firmer veggies and fruits, it makes slices, and waffle and crinkle cuts. Dummy-proof, this utensil doesn’t require much of a manual. Kyocera makes a lightweight mandoline with a hand guard that cuts in half the time while protecting your fingers from unnecessary roughness.

STANDING MIXER

This bad boy is more of a luxury than a standard, but it’s a lifesaver for frequent cookers or those who love to make pastries and bread. (It makes the fluffiest frosting!) All you have to do is dump the ingredients in the bowl, adding more as you deem necessary, and it does all the work for you. You can focus on other parts of the recipe or paint your nails while you make a batch of cookies. Cuisinart, KitchenAid and Hamilton Beach are again the most dependable brands for standing mixers industry wide.

ZESTER

This compact tool allows you to remove the peel of citrus fruits to extract the zest for cooking, baking, and mixology. Zesters are most often used to remove the citrusy flavor from lemons, limes, and oranges, but many chefs are catching on to multipurpose zesters-slash-graters to cut down their number of kitchen utensils. They can also be used to finely grate cheese, ginger, garlic, or chocolate. Microplane makes top-of-the-line yet affordable graters/zesters that get the job done.

BREAD MACHINE

This may sound a little granola for you hip cooks, but since we’re learning how to be eco-friendly in this cookbook, let’s chat about bread. When you make your own bread, you’re in charge of what goes into it. You can choose to buy local, sustainable, and organic ingredients, and bake with the healthiest flours. Plus, you’re reducing transportation costs and limiting materials required for store packaging. It’s a win-win.

There are so many varieties of bread you can make with this little number. Zojirushi, Breadman, Cuisinart and Oster all make bread makers with different cycles for baking varying styles of bread—whole grain, sourdough, pizza, shaped loaves—and they are very easy to use. The trade-off is they take up a lot of room but can be stored in a pantry or supply closet when not in use.

FLOUR SIFTER

A sifter helps get the lumps and clumps out of flour, confectioners’ sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and cocoa that may not otherwise break down with basic stirring. It works like a gem for recipes that call for a more even distribution in the mixture. They are typically made of stainless steel and come in several varieties like trigger action handle, small crank style, battery operated and the good ole’ fashion mesh strainer. All varieties are fairly cheap. Some cooks swear