As I have said on the cover page, cooking is my creative outlet. After years of trying to make meals with time constraints to live with as well as less cooking knowledge, I now have the luxury of time and ability to explore recipes and ingredients. This has opened so many new things to us. New foods, a variety of new recipes and a new way of thinking. Fresh, made from scratch and as organic as possible. I've discovered delicious new ingredients and recipes allowing me to create "keeper" recipes that have ingredients I control and know how to pronounce! (Just take a look at labels these days, I don't even know what those things are let alone how to pronounce some of them....) My musing today is about my favorite, must have small cooking appliances. I remember spending 4 weeks with my family of 4, traveling the country in a 24ft travel trailer. Great memories and also a lesson in learning to live minimally. I still prepared most of our meals on that trip. Since then, I have discovered that there are some appliances that are favorites of mine and must haves, for us at least.
Number one for me, is some type of coffee maker. Yes, I'm a coffee addict and my day does not start without a couple cups of java.
Next would be a toaster oven. I never owned one until about 2 or 3 years ago. Wow, what a versatile appliance. I have a larger, better quality one. It's great for toasting, baking and broiling! I use it everyday for toast and prefer to use it for small meals that would normally go in the oven. It doesn't generate as much heat and a full size oven, and for smaller things, I am sure it is economical. You could actually go without an oven, if you have one of these and don't need to prepare large recipes.
I have fallen in love with my slow cooker. Efficient, easy and makes great food. Soups, pulled pork or turkey, ribs, roasts, chili, sauces....
An electric skillet is very versatile, you can boil water, pan fry or cook a casserole type meals in it. With one of these you could go without a stove top and pots and pans If you had to. (not that I'd really want to though)
I love my KitchenAid mixer, but it "could" be optional. A small hand mixer, or stick blender could do the job. Getting even more basic, a sturdy whisk or old fashioned crank egg beater (LOL) could work too. Or lastly, just good old fashioned elbow grease and mix things by hand. I'll opt for a power mixer of some type, if given a choice.
Notice, I haven't mentioned the microwave. Yes, really convenient, but it's really more of a convenience item to us vs. a must have. Think back to the old days before microwaves. We used other methods to heat water and warm meals. So yeah, I guess I could do without if I had to. Though I really like having it available.
What about you? What are your favorite, must have cooking appliances and why??