My Cooking Essentials

Cooking Entry

I think there are essentials for anyone’s kitchen-well anyone who likes to cook. If you would rather eat out or have it delivered you will probably find this blog boring. By essentials I mean the tools. I don’t really have any brand recommendations, but I do believe that this is one room where I purchase the best because well I don’t want to replace it any time soon. I have found that this usually translates to buying name brand items and doing research. These are things that I currently own or one day hope to own.

So let’s begin…

• An awesome knife set. I think if I were to ask my dad what essential kitchen items one needed this would be in his top two. My parents have had the same knife set for 30 years.
• A cast iron skillet. I recently got one for Christmas from my cousin Ryan. And well I’m in love. Seriously what can’t this pan do? This is a relatively inexpensive purchase, and if cared for properly it will last FOREVER! If you have never owned one you need to research how to care for it.
• Various measuring utensils. I have two sets of measuring cups, and a four cup liquid measuring cup please measuring spoons. These are all pretty much the same, but I like have variety.
• Nonstick pots and pans. These just make life a lot easier. But they are a high care item. Don’t ever use metal inside of them-I did this with my dad’s pan a long time ago, and well let’s just say I still remember him yelling at me… also don’t use brillo any sort of abrasive scrubber on them. I started having kitchen rules meetings with my roommates in college and I felt myself using the same phrases my dad used that evening he caught me using a metal spoon on his pan.
• Various size cutting boards. I have a small, medium, and large. All of them are plastic. I haven’t decided if wood is better or not. I am currently happy with my plastic ones.
• Cookie sheets/muffin tins/cake pans/etc. I use these all of the time. Not always for sweets.
• Parchment paper/silicone mats. I recently purchased the silicone mats and I will not use parchment paper unless I am making bacon in the oven. They are a little pricey, but well worth it. They can be used at higher temperature baking and they are reusable.
• Cooking Utensils. I have so many spoons, spatulas, tongs in metal, plastic, rubber and wood. I learned what to use and when just by trial and error. My parents have been using the same wooden spoon for eons. Seriously eons.
• Food Processor. I have a little one-it is green. I prefer the smaller one because it is easier to store, and I don’t ever need to chop up that much stuff at one time.
• Standing Mixer. I got one from my mom three years ago for Christmas. She is green, and I named her Georgia. This year I also purchased the ice cream attachment. And yes, it is a KitchenAid, and as far as I am concerned there is no other standing mixer worth buying.

I think this sums up what I use most often in my kitchen, and things that I want most for my kitchen. I could probably write pages on just the tools for kitchen use, but I am a total kitchen geek.