Kitchen gadget purge!

This morning’s edition of the Washington Post food section featured a piece on purging your kitchen junk drawer of useless gadgets.  Such an apt topic as moving always makes me consider what I truly need and what is not worth the extra weight and space in the moving boxes!

To purge:

Garlic Press.  Pulverizes the garlic, difficult to clean.  I’d rather just use my trusty knife…

Onion holder.  Like this one.  I totally fell for the marketing and though OH, THIS SHOULD TOTALLY WORK!.  Um…not at all.  What was I thinking?

Slap chop or other similar device for dicing onions.  Does not work and is a total waste of space.  It’s called a knife.  Use it!

Mango pitter.  Mangoes are not all the same size and shape!  This pitter never quite could manage the average mango.  Again…it’s called a knife!

Melon baller.  You’d have to waste half the melon to get those gorgeous little balls you see in magazine spreads…maybe if I ever find myself entertaining for dignitaries or a former president, or Martha Stewart herself, but eh, cubed melons are just fine with me.

Mini whisk.  What, pray tell, is the point of this?

Metal cooking utensils.  The stainless steel may look appealing in today’s modern kitchens, but they scratch up all my beloved pots and pans.  Give me wood or silicone any day.

Crepe maker.  I love crepes but, this thing did NOT work out as advertised!  They actually came out much better when you do it the old fashioned way — you know, in a pan.

And here are some…

Unitaskers (or near-unitaskers) that I love anyway

Immersion blender.  Aside from the occasional smoothie or pureed soup, this rarely ever comes out of storage.  But I find it so necessary for these things it is totally worth the minimal space it takes up.  I just loathe the task of ladling a hot soup into a food processor and this makes it so easy. And it wasn’t more than $30 and is super easy to clean.

Mandoline.  I don’t often make potato chips, fries, or gratins, or whatever.  But when I do…my mandoline is a must.  Oxo brand, was something like $40.

Pineapple slicer.  I mean, pineapple is so good.  And so daunting.  How the heck do you cut those things?  Never fear with your trusty pineapple slicer.

Off-set icing spatula.  I might bake a cake, what, once a year.  But you really cannot ice a cake without one of these.

Pizza stone.  By it’s name you’d think it’s just for pizza, but you cannot bake bread without it, and leaving it in the oven with anything you cook really seems to make a difference in heat regulation.

What are some of your kitchen must-have kitchen tools?  Which ones would you toss?

-R

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