My Top Ten Kitchen Must Haves!

Homemade Peanut Butter made with my mini food processor

If you know me then you know that I love kitchen gadgets, my husband or any of my seven sisters will tell you that I may have a slight problem when it comes to cool kitchen appliances and little gadgets! Bed Bath and Beyond is the best place to feed this quirk and also one of the best places to register for your wedding!

I am going to show you my top 10, but just know there are many more items I’ll have to introduce you to in another post!

1. Kitchenaid Mixer–

   I went for years without one and now that I have it, I know first hand just how amazing it is! I have a silver Artisan with glass bowl. I love the glass bowl, I think it looks so much more attractive sitting on your counter and it makes me feel better when I can see everything mixing up in the bottom. Now do not go throw out your hand mixer, I have kept my hand mixer solely for shredding chicken! ha Seriously if you haven’t tried to shred chicken with a hand mixer you must, 10 seconds for something you spend several minutes doing and normally my chicken is burning hot when I try to do it. ADD the Kitchen-aid mixer to your registry ladies & gents!

2. Instant Pot–

   I have the 6qt ultra that I treated myself to after last tax season as a reward. It has been amazing, easy to use and easy to clean. Just a few things that you can do with your instant pot: make homemade yogurt, soups in 1/8 of the time, hard boiled eggs in five minutes, thaw completely frozen ground meat (you know, when you forget to thaw it for dinner!), whole chicken in 30 minutes, and a new thing for me is making chicken and vegetable broth. This machine has saved me so much time and money I never even imagined when I hit that purchase button on Amazon!

3. Crockpot–

   Yes, the original crockpot is still the bom, the instant pot has a slow cook option but really it does fast best. I love throwing dinner in the crockpot in the morning and letting it cook and make the house smell amazing at the same time! I have the crockpot brand that has an auto warm function and that helps me feel a lot better and know my dinner isn’t burning if I’m not home to turn it off. (Now for those of you who watch This Is Us, you should always turn it off when you are not using it, and if you have an older model just replace it. They seriously are pretty inexpensive).

4. Immersion Blender–

   Or also called a stick blender, can be super helpful in making smoothies, blending homemade salad dressing, and I use it to make homemade mayo!

5. Ninja/High powered blender–

   To start off with we had a regular old blender, hardly used it until I wanted to make almond milk at home or smoothies. I just got my Ninja this year and it has already been life changing! When I make almond milk there are no large chunks of almonds, just itty bitty almond pulp. Mine came with a single server cup function and that is how I make my smoothies in the morning, it is so fast and again so powerful its very smooth!

6. Food Processor–

   I have a kitchen aid mini processor, it’s cute, compact and still strong. I use this to do salsa, make peanut butter, grind up almond pulp and a dozen other things! I throw everything in the dishwasher to clean!

7. Stainless Steel Mixing bowls–

   They must have rubber bottoms,I have found that rubber bottoms on anything that you may be stirring in is extremely helpful!

8. Taco Holders–

   Now I don’t use these as much as I used to since I don’t eat hard shells that often, but Nick uses them every Taco Tuesday! We have a set that is colorful and keeps your tacos standing upright. If you are a taco lover then these are for you!

9. Pickle Spearer–

   I just made that name up, but I have a three prong fork type deal that has a ring that goes around the pickle jar and holds the spearer. If anyone loves pickles and hate dipping your fingers into the jar for a pickle or hates washing their hands every time they want another pickle then this needs to be added to your registry!

10. Calphalon Pots, Pans and baking sheets-

    It took us a long time to learn how to pronounce this brand but we knew from the very first use that these pans were the real deal. Nonstick. Heavy duty. We have used them both on gas (our favorite) and a glass stove top, works great on either. After living with my parents for a while and visiting family and cooking with their skillets I missed my Calphalon SO much. Seriously it is so durable, truly nonstick, and super easy to clean. I use the yellow (with a white net) Dobie brand sponge to clean mine and a food scraper (find at BBB) when I really got something stuck on them.

That concludes my list of very important kitchen items that I truly believe every one should have in their kitchen! Be on the look out for a list of completely silly but utterly helpful kitchen gadgets soon. I hope this gave you some idea of what to add to your registry and what you can use them for!

xo,

Carissa