September 2009 Weddings
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Fav kitchen items?
What are your top 5 favorite kitchen items? They could be an appliance, pan, tool, or decor.
Here's mine:
1) Kitchen Aid Immersion Blender. I use it all the time for soups, sauces, and dips.
2). Pampered Chef garlic press. Also use it for fresh ginger.
3) Emeril reversible grill/griddle pan. I use the grill for chicken, paninis, and veggies and the griddle side works great for breakfast.
4) Kitchen Aid Mixer. Great for baking (esp. cheesecakes) and mashed potatoes.
5.) Pampered Chef steamer. Fits in any pan, and works great for veggies and things like chinese dumplings.
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Re: Fav kitchen items?
1. My Kitchenaid mixer. I use it at least once a week. Sometimes multiple times a day. Couldn't live without it!
2. my food processor. salsas, shredding large amounts of things, making biscuits, it multi-tasks in ways I never dreamed of. LOVE!
3. my chef knife. We splurged hard core on our knives and I couldn't be more thrilled with them. They are made from Japanese steel and stay sharp forever!
4. My Rachael Ray pan. There's just no other pan like it. I use it pretty much every time I cook. It's big, got high sides, cooks evenly.
5. microplane. I've been zesting a lot lately, especially lemon zest of roasted veggies. 2 nights ago the dishwasher was going and I needed to zest over the broccoli. I was pretty much SOL. Nothing on the cheese grater worked like the microplane does.
1. George Foreman- Seriously, I grill fish, chicken, pork chops, asparagus, zucchini and squash, pineapple. Love it.
2. Wok- When I don't know what to cook, I make stir-fry.
3. Crockpot- I'm a soup addict. Year round. I make a pot of soup at least once a week.
4. Hand blender- For my above soups. Sometimes I make squash or tomato soups and puree.
5. My owl dishtowel from Anthropolgoie. It drives Robin crazy that you're not actually allowed to dry the dishes with it.
1. My Kitchenaid mixer. I use it for everything. Or at least I try to.
2. My crock pot. Set it and forget it, and dinner's done when I come home.
3. Electronic meat thermometer. Keeping my guests from food poisoning since 2009. (haha, I kid, but it does help Kirk cook steaks exactly the way we each like them since our preferences are different)
4. My Rabbit vacuum wine stoppers with the pour spout feature. In case I need a glass but not a whole bottle of wine after work. Whole bottles on worknights are saved for Niner GTG and board meetings.
5. My OXO Pop Cannisters. I have approx. 15 of these holding all of my baking/ cooking basics in airtight seal. Wide enough for measuring cups for when I'm feeling too lazy to measure correctly, and they're drop resistant.
Stand up for something you believe in.
1. My KA mixer. I use it all the time, and it's part of the reason I make bread so often. I also love having 2 bowls for it.
2. My knives. Nothing fancy, a less expensive set of 6 knives of various sizes. We only got them because Clint insisted, and I really have no idea how I survived with only 2 paring knives, one bread knife, and a set of 6 steak knives that were $1.98 when Ames was going out of business.
3. Clint's mandoline. It's a pretty crappy mandoline, but it's still immensely helpful. I regret that I used to b!tch about its presence (I have almost cut myself on it many times).
4. My giant pots/pans- 6&3/4 qt Le Creuset, my Calphalon wok, grill pan and frying pan, and the enormous stainless steel pot that we "borrowed" from a friend. The LC is great for going stovetop-to-oven and making jam, the wok lets me finally properly stir fry (as opposed to making "stir fries" in a dutch oven that were more stew than stir fry) and having a giant griddle is lovely.
5. my laptop. It's where all my recipes are! It has a dedicated spot on the corner of the island.
Wow-this post makes me realize I don't cook half as much as I think I do compared to you ladies!
(in no particular order...)
1. An small, ornate white mirror that I refinished myself. It just makes me happy to look at it!
2. My Tassimo! I used it every single day to make lattes before I was pregnant. It also makes iced coffee, hot chocolate, cappuccino, espresso.....so great!
3. Calphalon SS pots and pans...I'm so glad we didn't go with non-stick!
4. Set of knives. I don't know how we lived without these for so long.
5. Dishwasher - does this count?! Lol. We had an old one for so long, this one runs so quiet you hardly know it's on.
<a href="http://s65.photobucket.com/albums/h205/adia83/?action=view
HA! I got a funny way of bringing that out in people
1. Our knives. It's amazing how much quicker and easier cooking is with quality knives.
2. Our silicone strainer. It's collapsible so it doesn't take up much room, which is great. We make a lot of pasta, so it's definitely well used.
3. Our ice cream scoop. I
ice cream.
4. Our crock pot. I don't use it a lot, but it can make some awesome recipes.
5. Our Kitchen Aid mixer. Again, I don't use it a lot, but when I do, it makes things infinitely easier!
Congrats to both my TTC buddies, Amberley18 and sb2006 on their beautiful babies!
I second the 2 bowls being amazing. Also, for whatever reason, my 2nd bowl is way nicer than the one that came with my mixer. I almost never have occasion to use it, but yesterday I got to and it made me realize how much more I want to.
Stand up for something you believe in.
The KA mixer- ours is Tangerine and we love it. WE have a million attachments too - pasta to sausage making and of course all the fun baking. Right now its great for fresh whipped cream for strawberry shortcakes.
Cast iron skillet- even though pregnancy hates the smell of it- bacon and meats cook SO well in it.
Global knives- we have a bunch of them but I would have to say our F.*** offset slicer we include in this - we love our knives and our holder (the Kapoosh) - this thing is great.
Le Creuset pots- we have a few sizes- they are essential for braising, soups and even just a little bit of weeknight pots of yumminess- (this is what we do when we have too many left overs and need to get rid of them in soup form.
waiters corkscrew- seriously I dont need anything else to open my wine... this will do- The countdown is on
on a side note- we used to have a hanging pot rack and we loved it- we miss it terribly. once we get our gas stove back and we reconfigure our kitchen (2 years max) we will make sure we have some type of pot hanger to put back up.
My husband.
He used to do all the cooking (when he was home and not working) and now I am stuck doing it. Not a huge cooking fan. Does not relax me. Now that I'm back in the kitchen more often, I sometimes miss the single days, when I could get away with having a bagel or bowl of cereal for dinner....
- Crockpot - I love being able to toss stuff in and come home to a fully cooked meal. We use it a lot
- the Emeril 5qt Saute pan - I think we use this at least 6 days a week. We throw EVERYTHING in this pan and it cooks perfectly. If I had known Emeril's pans were so great I would've registered for a whole set.
- Le Creuset's 9quart oval french oven (in cobalt) - Love love love love. So versatile and we get a TON of use out of it.
- KitchenAid mixer (in blue willow) - Looks pretty on our counter and gets lots of use. Just looking at it inspires me to bake sometimes!
- Food processor (won from Pioneer Woman!) - I didn't know I needed one until we got this. It makes tedious tasks so easy
I'm not much of a baker, or a chef for that matter, so these are probably going to see dull and ridic to most....
1) Keurig coffee maker. I cannot live without this. Mine broke, I went out 5 minutes later to buy a new one. Seriously.
2) Pampered Chef Microwave Rice Cooker. Best $20 I ever spent. And I've had it forever.
3) Crate & Barrel picnic knives. Perfect for paring, and they have their own individual sharpeners.
4) George Foreman Grille. Still some of the best burgers I've ever made.
5) Sonoma bowl from Kohls. Ideal for cereal, ice cream, and anything else I want a little bit more of that a regular cereal bowl won't hold.
updated 10.03.12
1.) Calphalon santoku knives. I have them in two sizes and they're the best chefs knives I've ever had.
2.) KA mixer. Mine is about 15 years old, hand me down from my mom. It still works perfectly!
3.) KA hand mixer, for when I don't want to drag out the big one.
4.) Microplane. I love it for zesting and for grating hard cheeses.
5.) Pampered Chef easy accent decorator. It makes my cupcakes pretty.
1. Gas range. I'm so glad we don't have electric.
2. Keuring Coffee maker. Love this thing. One cup of perfection each time.
3. Our extend spout faucet, makes clean up super easy.
4. Pampered Chef measuring cups.
5. Dishwasher.
Zuma Zoom
YES. We have one of these now too, and I really can't imagine living without it now.