I read several people complaining about the clean up of food processors: I've had my Cuisinart for 13 years, and it came with a video emphasising that you can put the parts in the dishwasher (obviously not the motor unit), which I have done ever since.

What's the issue with clean up when you can use a dishwasher?

Things I use a LOT and can't live without:(in no particular order)
1. KA stand mixer
2. vidalea chop wizard
3. no-name brand slap chopper
4. cusinart garlic press. that thing is indestructable!
5. pampered chef hand held cheese grater-it's breaking though :(
6. cutco knives. simply.awesome!

things I don't use a lot but am glad I have:
1. mini little KA food processor
2. milkshake machine (saves me time and money since we don't have to run out for DH's milkshakes all summer long)
3. crockpot. I really should use this more.
4. suction cup apple peeler/slicer/corer
5. hand-held garlic slicer

things I really never use and didn't make room for in the kitchen:
1. professional style meat slicer. yeah, no real need for that and I'm not really sure what my mother in law was thinking when she bought that for us.

I used to use my B&D mini chopper all the time (back in the late 80's until the mid-90's), and used my Cuisinart FP more often back then as well. I took a knife skills class though, and never looked back! I've been chopping a lot more by hand ever since. Of course, I still use the FP for larger chopping/slicing/grating am'ts (esp onions--sob!), and I use Julia Child's pastry dough/pie crust technique (from The Way to Cook) utilizing the FP, so I am happy I have it.

I keep thinking about getting a mandoline, perhaps I will someday.

My immersion blender is invaluable and I would be lost without it when making soups or some salad dressings (emulsifies them better than mere hand whisking does). Might upgrade to the Bamix if/when mine (an original Braun) bites the dust.

Not sure we needed a hand mixer, since we already have a 5 qt KA stand mixer. We got the KA hand mixer when our cordless handi-mixer died. Sometimes using the stand mixer is just overkill, so we like having something smaller/lighter for mixing up smaller am'ts of stuff, like a batch of pancake batter for two for example.

I don't use my garlic press as often as I used to, but it doesn't take up much drawer space.

I bought a tomato huller at Crate and Barrel last year on a lark--it was cheap, and I thought it was too cute to pass up (it's a tiny thing!). It actually works really well! It came in handy when I was prepping a big (large?) bunch of tomatoes for roasting (to make sauce).

No one has mentioned the BEST ever labor saving device yet--the Screwpull foil-cutter for wine bottles!!! How would any of us have gotten through our reno's without quick access to our libations????

:-)

I use my Cuisinart food processor a lot, both for baking (pie crusts, cookies) and savories (latkes!). Although I do a good deal of baking, I don't have a stand mixer; instead I use a 20-year-old handheld mixer or a whisk or large spoon. I love the look of the KA but cannot justify the price. The stick blender gets a workout for soups, while the Waring blender lives in a remote drawer and gathers dust. I use the crockpot every couple of weeks to make a large quantity of some meat concoction that I'll freeze. I use the microwave a fair amount for heating milk or melting butter or chocolate--that's labor-saving!

I'd have to say my most-used kitchen utensils are bowls.

Hmm. Have I confessed before that while I am the visionary kitchen planner and analyst/researcher, DH is the actual cook? He loves gadgets.

I use a kitchenaid stick/immersion blender daily for my protein shakes, he uses it for split pea soup. He has a Keurig coffeemaker.

We have a pressure cooker that makes rice, and use the kitchenaid standup for bread or cookies. The Cuisinart Food Processer we use to puree pinto beans for burritos or dip.

He has a mandoline for his thangsgiving ginger carrot dish, but he's pretty good with a knife. I mostly use his knives because he sharpens them (funny thing about being a good cook!). Sometimes I go back to my cutco knives because I like the shape of the handles. He likes those thick handle tools. I like the flat wooden stick thingie.

Chicagoans -- take the Cuisinart out of the box. You own it now -- the box has gotten it to your kitchen and don'e it's job. Now it's just in the way. Have the FP where you can just pull it down and plug it in and you will use it more often. I did that with our new cabinets and it is so much easier to use.

I do put my FP bowl and blade int he DW. Sometimes they get hand washed. No problems either way.

Ah, Cat mom - I was thinking the same thing! My most used gadgets are the wine opener and the wine aerator! We did a double blind test, and the aerated wine won every time.

Top favorite gadgets:

I love my microplane for garlic, ginger, jalapeno, zest, etc. My pampered chef peeler, my KA mixer and my crock pot are also dear friends.

Next acquisition:

will be a silpat or two and would love to get a KA food processor. My little black and decker has lasted 25 years with no problems, but it is just too small for pastry and such.

Never wanted it but now can't imagine how I did without it:

KA meat mallet- how did I miss this? a pan never worked so well, and chicken breasts cook perfectly!

My larger electric appliances are my Cuisinart FP, pressure cooker, crockpot, blender, toaster, drip coffee pot, MW, and bread maker. The bread maker is the only one I haven't used much in the past few years. DS is after me to bring it up from the basement and start using it again, but no counter space right now. I may get a stand mixer (either KA or Bosch) once we do the reno. I also have a small Foreman grill, but will purge this as I haven't used it in years and I hate cleaning it.

Small electrics are hand mixer, stick blender, and small electric tea kettle.

Manual gadgets: Pampered Chef veggie chopper (similar to the slap chop and have had it over a dozen years and love it)(this is by far the most frequently used gadget in my kitchen), PC mandoline, box grater, microplane, knives (easy to sharpen, not particularly expensive), manual juicer, and OXO can opener (the kind the doesn't leave a sharp edge--love this).

I've considered getting a pannini press, but just don't want another gadget. Instead, I just use the griddle pan. Since I've started planning the reno (and discovered GW), I've been on the lookout for anything I can purge and have already gotten rid of a couple boxes of stuff, but I know there's more.

This is a great thread to read about useful items in the kitchen, especially those I don't already have.

I use the Cuisinart for making fresh salsa several times a week. It's worth it because hand chopping was beginning to literally be a pain in my hands and wrists. I rinse the bowl immediately and either hand wash or put in the dishwasher. It took a few tries to get the results similar to hand chopped, but there's no going back now.

The KA mixer is important for kneading bread, whipping cream and egg whites, and a few other things. Mixing most cookies and muffins are just as easy by hand.

No pannini press here either, the grill pan and a hot cast iron skillet work just fine.

Many of my seldom used items have been in boxes since last summer. If I find I need something, it stays in the kitchen.

calimama-which wine aerator do you like? I see them all over but don't know which if any work, and/or are worth buying.

LOVE the stick blender!

And I have food processors in 3 sizes...so I guess I love that too!

Sara, the problem with cleaning the Cuisinart is when there are several different things to be processed. I'm not about to run the DW just for the FP and wait two hours to be getting on with it. But then there's also cleaning the base unit, and finding the stuck on yuck on the inside of the knife housing that the DW didn't get, and the lack of proper drying, and I find it easier to just wash by hand most of the time anyway.

Lawjedi, have you ever tried a grid style potato masher for hummus? I find it gives better control over the texture. ;)

Some of you seem bemused by the little gadgets I mentioned. I often cook in very large quantities, so if something is going to save a lot of time and do a better job, like the avocado slicer, I'm all for it. It removes the skin and slices in one stroke, and gives even slices of even the squishiest avocado (here in California we eat a lot of avocados. They're good for the skin and hair, as well as the good cholesterol). All my hand use gadgets together don't take up as much room as the Cuisinart, and you can't slice an avocado with a Cuisinart!

I cooked and baked (only sweets, not breads) for the better part of a year with only two cheap knives, some small, aluminum pots which also served as mixing bowls, and two gas rings. During that time I acquired a good whisk (the one I used on the filling), a garlic press, a nutcracker, and a jar wrench. I like the texture of the pressed garlic better than hand minced or squished. It releases more of its essence.

And, yes, I do use the KA for baking breads, cakes, cookies, etc. I use a whisk for small batches of waffles. :)

I coveted, and received, the meat grinder and pasta roller attachments for my KA, and have never used them. Maybe it's time. On the other hand, perhaps I have simply been justly cautious of ending up with ground or pancake-flat digits.

I once bought an unspeakably expensive mandoline from Williams Sonoma. In short order I smashed it with a hammer and threw it into the hallway of my condo, where a neighbor retrieved it. I replaced it with some incredibly junky cheap plastic slicer I bought at a home show, which works a thousand times better.

Everyone seems to love their immersion blenders, but I've cut back on the wheatgrass/boxwood shakes and don't like the way mine purees soups. Plus I lost all of the attachments the day I got it. Actually, the person who gave it to me didn't know what they were and threw it them out with the wrapping. Oh well.

I do not recommend purchasing round pie weights. Enough said.

I do get a lot of use out of my bench scraper, as well as my tiny coil pan whisk. When I'm cooking, my collection of three hundred wooden, metal, slotted and mesh long-handled spoons always seems inadequate. Perhaps I should install a DW drawer dedicated only to them.

I also like my nine billion dollar thermometer, which I bought to replace a drawerful of crappy instant-read thermometers that told me that water boils at a range of temperatures from 245 degrees down to about 180 degrees. (When I called to complain about one of these, the customer service rep at a thermometer manufacturer told me she didn't understand what difference it made what temp water boiled at.)

I have never purchased a salad shooter, though there is something appealing about being able to shoot comestibles directly at your guests from a safe distance.

Our Oster blender is good for gazpacho, etc. Also used it in past summers for pesto but now that I've got a stick blender, I wonder which I'll use when 2011 basil is ready in garden. Stick blender is much quieter.

Bought a little noname slap chopper--DH likes it for nuts, garlic etc. I use it for nuts sometimes, but still like using my big blade knife.

I use the apple slicer for pears.

Cuisinart food processor is used more in summer, but it gets a space on my countertop year round. I put blades and upper parts into dishwasher. DH uses it for pie dough; I don't. Good for apple bread, zucchini bread, carrot cake, etc. Ruins chocolate chips. I've marked recipe books with "too much dough for food processor" on some recipes.

Kitchenaid mixer is on countertop all the time. Usage varies with the season and the moon I think. Can go unused for months, then whammo, it's in use a lot. DH likes to whip cream in it.

I use rocking pie crust tool when I make crust.

I like kitchen shears and a kitchen scissors. Am resolved to stop opening packaging with my teeth.

We got one of those big-wheel pizza cutters. DH loves it.

I have two hard-used crockpots.

Portable one-burner induction unit works well; it comes out of drawer when I need a 5th burner or a lot of hot water quickly.

I've bought a mandoline but haven't tried it yet.

Late in life I bought an insulated ice bucket--handy for white wine on hot summer days on deck. Otherwise it's in the way.

I have a 30-cup coffee maker--used about once a year. A space killer.

I don't use a pressure cooker very much these days; don't use tough cuts of meat any more, I guess. Still use for winter squash and artichokes.

DH loves the mechanical apple corer. I hand peel 'em.

I need a new wheelbarrow.

I do use the FP a lot, for making cookie mix, pastry, and biscuits more then veg though. Depends if we are doing a huge batch of something. The thrift store FP I have now came with only the chopping blade, but my old GE one got used for large grating jobs too. Slicing was so-so, things always jammed between the disc and the bowl cover. The bowl died after 25 years but the base is still in use for the blender that was part of the set (1 base, 2 appliances).

Having 2 cooks multiplies the small appliances and gadgets! We have lined up on a deep counter (and use)... FP, blender, Vita-mix, toaster, bread machine, stick blender. No stand mixer, but I use a hand-held electric mixer for whipped cream, egg whites etc. All are either thrift store, garage sale, or over 25 years old LOL.

Actually we have 4 bread machines now. We like the old B&D style which is no longer made, so when we see one of the old oles we pick it up and then mix and match the best pan, paddle and machinery!

I've had my Kitchen Aid for 20 years (wedding gift), and it gets very regular use. We also got a Bosch mixer a few years ago, as it does awesome 100% whole wheat bread (like melaska says). I don't use extra gluten or dough conditioners and it is still light and fluffy. And so easy that my teenagers are the ones who usually make the bread. We would go broke buying good whole grain bread in the quantities that our large family goes through, so making homemade bread quickly paid for the investment in another mixer.

We also use our vitamix daily, sometimes multiple times a day. I've never had a food processor, so I don't know if I would use one. I've been trying out many of the techniques for the vitamix, and discovered that it is very quick and easy to do carrots for carrot cake, for example. Made some green salsa for lunch-it took just a minute or two. Someone makes a protein shake or smoothie every day usually. Hummus is another thing we make fairly often, too.

Two "labor saving devices" that didn't really work for us are our giant roaster oven and a rice cooker. The temp adjustment knob broke almost immediately on the roaster oven, so it has been sitting on a shelf gathering dust since. Maybe the pan insert will work for boiling maple syrup this spring, otherwise I should just let it go. The rice cooker was a freebie from someone, and it just spewed liquid out the vent and edges everytime we tried it, so we gave up on that, too. My cast iron pot works just fine on the stove for rice.

P111og-I've always wondered what the point of a special tool for avocados was, but I think you have me convinced that I should try one! We eat tons of avocados around here-my two littlest kiddos especially love them.

Well, it just goes to show you that people are different.

I've made chou paste by hand once. But I go to the gym.

Have used the food processor for chou paste since I wrote my food processor cookbook in 1980. And like Sara, I put all the food processor pieces straight into the dishwasher -- always have, always will.

Over the years I've sold off all the wonderful kitchen equipment I used for my cooking school and it feels great to have less clutter and no more pasta machines (talk about a cleaning chore).

Still have and lovingly use my 20 y.o. 4-slot toaster, my 38 year old Kitchen Aid (cord is showing its age) my 35 year old French copper pots (which still need retinning but who can get to that) and a crepe pan I've owned since I was 20.

But I like electrics! Newest is a Bamix immersion blender which I got when Catmom and I took our coupons to the outlets last summer. Loooove that way more than the food processor for pureed soup. That I do admit. And I'll use the Bamix for salad dressings now.

But for bread doughs, chou paste, pie crusts, strudel doughs and so many other tasks I want me my food processor! Now and forever! I will find another way to tone my biceps and triceps.

Here is another Chou Paste recipe with only 3 eggs (I use large) plus some yummy goat cheese in there too. A good hors d'oeuvre I think. French call it Gougere (pronounced goo-jair) -- emphasis on the "goo."

4-1/4 Tb chilled unsalted butter, cut in cubes
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 pound fresh goat cheese (rind removed if needed)
3 eggs
2 Tb snipped chives or minced scallion greens
1 egg yolk mixed with 1 tsp milk

Heat oven to 425 degrees.

Put butter, 3/4 cup of the water and salt in a large saucepan and heat to boiling. Off heat, stir in the flour. Return the pan to medium-low heat and knead the dough with a wooden spatula or spoon until it tightens and makes a light film on the bottom of the pan, about 4-5 minutes.

Transfer the hot dough to the food processor fitted with the metal blade. Add the cheese. Break the eggs into a measuring cup with pour spout. With the motor on, pour the eggs into the dough one at a time. Process until dough is evenly mixed. Pulse in the chives. The dough will be thick, gluey and sticky.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and secure the paper to the sheet with a dab of dough at each corner. Smooth the paper.

With a pencil, draw an 8-inch circle on the parchment as a guideline. Make a ring by dropping 1/4-cup mounds of dough with edges touching, over the circle. There should be about 14 mounds of dough.

Glaze the dough ring by dipping a finger (or pastry brush) into the egg yolk mixture and smoothing the tops of the dough mounds. Bake 35 minutes, or until puffed and lightly browned.

Slide the dough ring off the parchment carefully with a pancake turner or icing spatula taking care not to break it.
Serve warm by pulling puffs apart.

Chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, pinot noir and beer are highly recommended as accompaniments. I save real corks.

I love reading all these messages! Plllog - I HAVE to get the avocado slicer. We eat a lot of avocados here and I hate trying to peel and cut them.

I have a KA stand mixer that I use a lot - mashing/whipping sweet potatoes, making cookies with the kids (my 4 y/o loves to be in charge or up/down, lock/unlock, on/off) and she loves to pour in flour through the chute while its going!

I just started making soups, so I've borrowed immersion blenders and have GOT to get one.

I love my kitchen scale. Is it a labor saving device? I don't know, but with gluten free baking it makes flour quantities so much more accurate.

I have a Tupperware hand food processor (for lack of a better term). I don't have a real food processor, so when chopping a lot of veggies for chicken chili or soups, it comes in very handy. For being powered by me, it works pretty well.
I love my new Wolf double ovens. I used the probe for the first time today with a pork roast and definitely consider that a time (and food) saving device. Stick it in the roast and the oven told me when it was done! LOVE IT!

Cat Mom- we have the vinO2, but our neighbor has the Rabbit, which is pretty neat because it mounts on the bottle, so you don't need two hands to pour. It is amazing how it can make an OK wine taste really good.

michiganrachel...Oh...I love my Polder digital scale I got from Amazon. (I'll link it below). I don't know why I waited so long to get one. It has a 'tare' feature that lets you zero out while you add ingredients.

I also use it to weigh boxes & envelopes for the post office. We don't have house-to-house delivery in this little remote Alaskan town so it's good to be prepared when I do go. I check usps.com for my options and have the #'s on the envelope. It also lets me see if a flat-rate box is the best way to go.

Also, I've found that the post office scale can be way off, especially after they've just weighed a large package. So, if it doesn't match what my number says, I ask them to recalibrate their scale (it's just a matter of pushing a button so it's not a big deal to them) :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Polder Easy-Read Digital Scale

Cat_mom, I've never knew that was a tomato huller! (Just Googled it!) Is yours the one that looks like the offspring of an ice tea spoon and a grapefruit spoon? I've occasionally used my strawberry huller on tomatoes when I didn't have a good paring knife (broke the point right off one in a rather demanding squash).

{{gwi:1644785}}

Rococogurl, thanks for the recipe! It sounds great!! And at least I did try the Cuisinart for the puffs. ;)

BTW, the best innovation for puffs? Food scoops. I bought some awhile back when I got really tired of rolling balls of this and that. OXO in three sizes (no, I'm not shilling for OXO--I just find a lot of their products to be really well designed). I didn't have just the right size, but the medium sized one, eyeballed at about 3//4 full, was perfect. I can whip through a batch using spoons, but it was SO easy using the scoop.

Another recent acquisition is the baster with the valve. It's not dripless as advertised, but it works so much better that I've retired the previous best basters.

My other favorite newish thing is a large skimmer spoon. :)

No plllog, this is the one:

Here is a link that might be useful: tomato huller

Thanks for this thread pllog - I love to hear about how other people work in their kitchens.
I have tons of kitchen gadgets and appliances. From blenders to egg separators. Love to buy them, but don't use most of them regularly. I cook and bake a lot. I cannot live without my cuisinart - have had it for 15 years and wouldn't know what to do without it.
Oddly, one kitchen item I have never purchased is a kitchen aid mixer. I have always used a hand mixer, even for larger recipes. I once made ice cream with a hand mixer - needless to say, it took quite some time (although, probably less time and energy than a hand whisk!) My friends laugh at me. Maybe my next purchase, after my remodel is complete, will be a kitchen aid.

oh, also, cat_mom, I have the vinturi wine aerator and LOVE it!

Pllog, you're right -- I don't use that many avocados. Some, but not that many.

Marcolo, haven't used the grinder so much, but the pasta rollers are not that threatening to actually use them. Don't wear long hanging sleeves and you should be fine. My boys, now 14 and 17, did it years ago and not a pinched finger in the house.

LOL! Cat_mom, that's the one I meant. The one I showed is my strawberry huller. Great invention when you're cleaning 'em by the quart. I also like the cheapo squisho mushroom slicer for when I'm doing them by the bushel for cooking. The slices are a little too thick, but anything not to spend three hours on slicing mushrooms.

I do use a mandoline when I have to make a lot of even slices, like for a platter or a scalloped dish or something. That's because I'm just not all that good at even slices, especially at speed, even with a good sharp knife. That's also why I have a pickle slicer for fanning garnish. It should be easy with a knife, but I'm just not good at it.

Another tool I use a lot is the reamer. It was an impulse buy from the produce department, pointy tip for popping seeds and plump handle for comfort. And dishwasher safe.

Thanks, everyone, for the recommendation of the FP for cutting in butter. I had just read about that on Rhome410's blog and thought I should try it, though I think maybe Rococogurl or Trailrunner had mentioned it when my kitchen was still packed in boxes. Might turn me into a believer in Cuisinart for dough. :)

Marcolo - that post is hysterical. I have no idea of what a mandoline is, apart from the musical instrument. I'm guessing I can forego learning.

Over the years I've gotten away from gadgets. Love the reamer and the stick blender though! I remember thinking that the garlic press was positively absolutely and indubitably indispensable in my youth. For some reason I thought garlic was scary. Funny. I can believe the texture is better when squirted but I can't really be bothered to notice by the time stuff gets made. I do own one and do use it still sometimes, it's just the contrast I find amusing with how I once thought it was basically impossible to get along without. One's sense of these gadgets does change with time, no?

I have a boxed food processor and short of making cole slaw for 150, it does seem to be something I could do without. But if I had an enormous kitchen and a maid to put the thing in a dishwasher, perhaps I'd remove it from the box and use it more often. Mine was given to me as a present some, um, 29 years ago now I think. I confess to a certain amount of pride in the fact that it's still nestled snugly in its original box, everything fitting just so in the styrofoam..... That's a pretty off-label use for it though.

I was just thinking of this thread. I was flipping channels this am, you know to see how much snow we got...and I was passing by QVC. This caught my eye. I really want one. It has multiple uses, and these days that is important with any gadget I add to my kitchen!

Prep n Pop Vegetable Helper.

Here is a link that might be useful: prep n pop

I am a very lucky woman. I have a 43" wide full height closet in a little ante room between my kitchen and my garage. I am currently designing this closet to house all of my "labor saving devices". This would include 3 crock pots, electric griddle and waffle iron, 36 cup and 12 cup coffeemakers, cappuccino machine and electric teapot (very handy for parties), blender, food processor, portable induction burner (bought for the temporary kitchen and absolutely great!), big dog food bin on wheels, and anything else that I can't remember right now. The shelves will be adjustable so that the space for the waffle iron and griddle can be just 5-6". Some of these items used to live in my pantry (with the food) and I'm very happy to give them their own space. I will try to post a pic when we're all done (maybe in a month) .

plllog -- if you want to do dough really fast, use frozen butter. I cut the stick lengthwise with a big knife, then across into chunks, throw them in and pulse -- don't let it run. Just on/off. Then add ice water and pulse until it makes beads. I push em together and roll it out right away -- no resting required.

Food scoop is a great idea for the puffs.

Also, I want a vote for my vac-u-tainer which lets me keep wine for months. And the screw-pull wine opener.

Thanks, Rococogurl! I always use frozen butter, but it does seem like the FP might do a better job on that than my pastry blender and strong shoulder. :) Interesting about the no resting.

Beekeeperswife, I was laughing when I first looked at your video link (the narration is funny!), then remembered a friend who can eat anything but gets rashes from handling potatoes and apples while peeling. That hands off approach might be very useful!

Aliris, a mandoline is the original French gizmo that slices and juliennes. Some even chop. I have two: A Kyocera paddle mandoline with four settings which I use for making tissue thin slices of a cucumber for cucumber salad, or a turnip for chips. For more than one, smallish, vegetable, I have the big DeBuyer (a gift) which is a PITA to clean and store, but does an amazing job. It's great for slicing for large platters, casseroles, etc. For instance, it makes perfect slices of squash cut longways for strata. I'm okay with my knife, but just not that perfect with lumpy bumpy veg. And I can whip out slices for a sandwich platter in no time. The thickness is also infinitely adjustable (within range) using a crank. The paddle goes in the DW. The big one has to be taken apart and washed, with the knives handled carefully, but it's a good trade-off for the big jobs. An hour and a half of slicing done in about 15 minutes of slicing and 5 of clean-up, and done better than I would by hand faced with that much.

I use my Kitchenaid stand mixer at least 4 times a week, and usually much more. I actually have 2 of them, the little 4 1/2qt artisan and the 6qt monster professional one that sits on my counter. My mandoline gets used at least once or twice a week, and I couldn't be a self-respecting asian chick without my rice cooker.

I don't use my food processors very often, maybe once or twice a month. And most of the little hand held gizmos, I just don't bother with. I use a paring knife for pretty much all small tasks.

It's really neat to see how everyone else uses their kitchens.

Interesting thread!

Multiple times per week: The lifetime members of "The Kitchen Appliance Hall of Fame" include the KA stand mixer and the Vitamix blender.

Once a week: I use my breadmaker to mix/knead dough while I'm at work, and I form/bake it when I get home. I use the rice maker once a week too.

Every time I use my mandoline, I think "I should use this more!" ...and then I forget about it! I always use it for cucumbers and potatoes. For other chopping, I use knives.

Other faves: espresso scoop for making cookies, grapefruit knife for cleaning out squash, microplane grater, and Ikea grater (someone else mentioned that too - it's great!)

Once every couple of weeks: The food processor, for making certain kinds of dough or when I need to grate a lot.

Looking at woot this morning, and there is a picture of this on their page (not the item for sale, sorry to break your hearts)

I can only imagine eggs shooting across the room!
{{gwi:1644786}}

My most-used small appliances, using the term loosely, are:
- Electric pepper grinder. Peugeot. Use 15-20X week, whenever we need pepper.
- Microwave oven. Frigidaire OTR. Use 10-15X week for reheating and melting butter. Seldom actually cook in it.
- Thermometer. Probe and instant, both Sur La Table. Use almost every time I do meat or chicken, so 5-10X week.
- Timer. A $4 one. I used to use the the countdown timer on my watch. When that went south, I bought this. Lately I've been using the timer on my iPhone. 5-10X week.
- Toaster oven. Krups FBC-6. Use it 5-10X week for most small roasting, broiling, baking jobs.
- Pressure cooker. Kuhn-Rikon 7 and 5 qtr. Use them 2-5X week for stock, meat, risotto. I've given up using them for veg, gets cooked to mush.
- Food processor. Cuisinart DLC-7 or CFP-5A, depending on mood. Have been using it 5X week for bread dough and larger quantities of veg, and when making filling for dumplings. But with the purchse of a real dough mixer, the Cuisinart will be used a lot less, maybe 1-2X week. E.g. for up to 4 onions, it is easier to mince by hand.
- Dough mixer. Magic Mill DLX-9000, recently bought. Use it 2-3X week for bread dough.
- Kitchen scale. A Weight Watchers freebie. Use for bread dough. I'd sort of like to get an electronic one, but can't quite justify - $30 is cheap but really, do I need to weigh things to +/- 1 gram?

Other stuff gets used 1-2X week at most.
- Immersion blender. Only for some soups.
- Stand blender. Soups. I think SWMBO uses it more often for smoothies.
- Propane torch. For getting Neanderthal with meat, sometimes fish too.

Everything else is a 1-3X month tool.
- Hand mixer. SWMBO uses it for her infrequent baking.
- Mandolin. Basically just for roesti.
- Ice Cream Boy. I love him, and he loves me, but we've had to ration our passion.
- Hand-cranked meat grinder. Used to make boeuf hache, which I eat raw, or hamburgers - but the food processor will do the same thing.
- Bamboo steamers. For dim sum, a couple times a month.

Or even a 1X year tool
- Electric roaster. Just used for Thanksgiving, when the oven is over-full.

Probably 40% of the stuff in my kitchen could disappear and I wouldn't really be inconvenienced. I have a lot of useless junk laying around. The stuff that really needs giving away:
- Countertop deep fryer. Waring Pro. Turns out, a big pot on the range works better, holds temperature better, and is easier to clean.
- Crock pot. An old Rival. I really should use it someday, for now I keep it because I've read the new crock pots are not as good.
- Bread maker. Haven't used it in 15 years. Turns out it doesn't even work right. I'm going to fix it then give it away.
- Pasta maker. That fad didn't last long, and now I've carted this thing around through 5+ moves and 20 years.

I don't think anyone has mentioned a knife sharpener, which I find surprising. I have both water stones and an electric Chef's Choice. Doesn't anyone else sharpen their knives???

I received a Chef's Choice for XMas, but gave it to my neighbor on ''long-term loan'' - I can use it if I ever have a knife that I want to sharpen with it. I do think it is a very good device, but it doesn't do the angle that I like. Our knives get sharpened on a mix of oil stones and water stones. AFAIK, many people don't actually sharpen their knives, or take them somewhere once a year, or just use the grooved steel to smear jaggies into the dull edge.

I have a stone. I don't consider it, or the steel, to be a "gadget" or labor saving device (just part of the knives)--that's probably why no mention. Maybe a bad electric sharpener that wastes cabinet space would be worthy of mention. ;) I don't have any chisels to sharpen, so my stone lives in the kitchen. Though, come to think of it, it is in the drawer with the gadgets because my father made a pretty wood box for it and it fits better there...

I'm not sure either knives or sharpeners are ''gadgets'' or ''LSD's'', but many people mentioned their knives in this thread and they still have to be maintained.

John, I use waterstones for my ''good'' knives, and the Chef's Choice on my crappy knives that I break out whenever a guest insists he needs one to open a wine bottle.

For all the KA mixer lovers out there, are you using the paddle replacement that has the silicone wings, so that it wipes down the bowl as it mixes? Oh how I love that thing! Makes me so happy! And talk about a labor saving device!

Electric kettle. We had an instant hot dispenser that fizzled, so I invested in an expensive stovetop kettle. Then I discovered how quickly electric kettles work, and I don't have to run my range hood or cooktop, and I can see how much water I have, and...

I love my Magic Bullet. I use it for chopping, pureeing, mixing, pulverizing, mixing drinks, grinding spices - whatever. And when I'm done I just toss the blade & cup into my dishwaser.

I have permanently removed electric can openers from my kitchen, after trying everything from free standing to under cabinet to electric handheld. Now it's a good quality, OXO smooth rim cutter thank you very much! I love it when back to basic strategies end up being time & labor savers too.

I'm another fan of the immersion blender. I just have a cheapy one, but love it. I make apple butter & it's perfect for getting the ideal consistency. Before, I spent a LONG time with a fork, mashing stewed apples.

I have these little taco stand things. They save me time, considering how much time I've spent re-propping taco shells. :)

avesmore, hubby just got me the beater/scraper paddle as part of my Valentine's gift. Love it! Talk about a time saver! I have the taco stand things too. The kids love taco night.

As for sharpening my knives - I use a stone, too. I don't really consider it a gadget, just a maintenance tool.

Oooh, didn't know about the scraper paddle. Thanks. Must have!

One thing not mentioned is lightweight polypropylene cutting boards for prepping on, delivering food from the prep area to the stove, and then tossing in the DW. I have several, the smaller ones standing vertically in a drawer right in front of me, larger ones vertically with the baking sheets in a cabinet just to my right. Extremely labor saving.

Mine's also a limited-storage kitchen, by choice because I prefer multitasking, durable, compact tools. Love my Oxo hand can opener and Kuhn garlic press, even though only the latter will still be around when I'm making up my will.

I was really surprised, though, at how often I use my electronic weighing scale now that I don't have to search under stuff for it in the few over-loaded drawers in my old kitchen. If full-extension drawers replacing doors and shelves counted for this list, they'd have to be my #1, no contest.

Warning! The "batter" paddle that has the ridges instead of the solid scraper is a waste. It does fine for the actual batter consistency batter, but is useless on the stages before it gets there and is a total PITA.

Best labor saving device? Parchment paper, honest. Just got 100 450 deg for $4 at online store.

Out of production gizmo called "Lid Flipper" by Ecko. Ask your mothers. Got 2 on ebay in the last year. Best jar opener ever.

I feel like a food network star when I use my Ikea silicon tongs, microplanes.

Love my Ecko oven thermometer, meat/bread thermometer, one inch thick rectangular granite baking stone, bench thingy dough cutter, new plastic cannisters for baking stuff, dough buckets.

Demo started 4 days ago and I donated my once loved '60's mince-o-matic, for chopped liver. Donated my never used mandoline, no patience to set it up. old with rotary handle, probably French. Donated nib pressure cooker. Always purgin'. Small kitchen

Never used the stick blender(still in the box) nice garlic mincer, dh bought the $20 battery wine opener. Never wanted a stand mixer, hand held cuisinart is fine. Have big/little fp's.

I would like 2 or 3 pizza ovens but have no room for them. And vending machines, now that's labor saving.

Thanks, plllog.

Oh, gave my neighbor my lusted for and brand spanking new George Foreman grill as I had no room, for storage or use. Don't ask me why I bought it. Seduced, I suppose. I love kitchen carp.

But gonna dive into the "donate" bag already in dh's trunk and retrieve that old mandoline b/c maybe I will want to thinly slice something. I can use my knife sharpening steel on it, as I use that steel to sharpen lots. Ah, I remember, I saved a zucchini/something recipe- was it a casserole, by a fellow, Andy? and it sounded delicious, and that is the kind of thing I'd make. Nah, if I "need" a mandoline, I will buy the current model. With guards. Or smarter, just carefully, and slowly, slice the zukes and not need space for another piece of k-ware. Knuckle hold, and move. So it will take 15 mins rather than 8, and I will have saved space.

Labor saving or space saving, which is more important?

My favorite single-use gadget that earns its place in the kitchen because it does its one job so well and gets used so often: pancake pen. It's basically a squeeze bottle with a good cap that allows one to put in batter ingredients, shake, and pour onto the griddle with minimal mess or fuss.

I have many of the big things (Cuisinart, KA stand mixer, Breville juicer) but it's the little things that are absolutely essential to day-to-day existence-- Zyliss cheese crater, that little tool with the teeth that lets you take stems out of tomatoes, rolling pizza cutter, OXO salad spinner, the thing that lets you suck air out of a half filled wine bottle and recork it, and of course, great knives. I couldn't make do for a day without these things, but the big things go weeks between uses.

Plllog, laxsupermom, warmfridge, etc - I am curious what stones and steels you have, and generally about your knife sharpening practices. Can you talk about it?

I always used oilstones, recently started using a waterstone but it is very fine, so is just for final polishing. I'm wondering about the pros/cons of going all waterstone, of using something else like a strop, and about how this varies depending on the type(s) of knife you are have.

I have Norton waterstones, 1000 and 4000 grit, and use them on my Henckel's and carbon steel knives. There are numerous YouTube videos out there on technique, but I learned most of what I know about knife sharpening from the Cheftalk website, which harbors fanatics on the subject. I've never used oilstones...they seem unnecessarily messy...nor have I tried a strop.

The Chef's Choice sharpens well but removes a lot metal, so I use that on my ''throw-away'' knives. We have a lakeside summer home with lots of guests, and knives are frequently abused or lost. I can't bother with expensive knives and time-consuming sharpening there.

I just use a steel for ''touch-ups'', which tells me I really need to get busy and actually sharpen the knives.

This all works for me, but I don't own any Japanese knives that require different sharpening angles. I know Chef's Choice now makes a sharpener with adjustable angles that some people like.

I've been rethinking the practice of washing knives by hand. I've always been told, and believed, that it's evil to put knives in the DW basket because they bang around and that dulls the edges. However, I now think maybe they're safer in the slots in the plastic top cutlery rack than they are in my soapy hands over a granite sink. And DW detergents are much less noxious now than previously. So, assuming the handles are impervious to DW's, is it safe to put knives in the DW now? I don't know but would be interested to hear others' opinions.

Yesterday, I saw a Rube Goldberg style "tool" for avocados that looked like all hype, no function, so just in case my enthusiasm for my avocado slicer has motivated any of you all, along with timber.j, to try one, this is the one, by Progressive, which I have (available at Amazon):

The wires do the slicing. And, unlike in the picture, you can get the rim right up against the peel and not loose a lot of meat.

There are versions with plastic teeth instead of the wires. They might work, but they look like they'd just smash up the avocado. When you use the Progressive one, the slices will stick together, just like if you cut them with a good, sharp knife. That's a good thing!

John, I think knives are worthy of their own topic. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot to say about my tools because they're the ones my father gave me. He's a builder and woodworker, and in his youth made his own case hardened steel (as an exercise). People bring him their knives and chisels to sharpen. So he's always been authority enough for me. I have a steel to straighten my edges, and a two sided stone to grind them. According to my father, the main reason for wetting the stone is to contain the filings and he taught me to sharpen using it dry. Stropping is for polishing, isn't it? I don't do that.

So, I looked it up, and found this very nice article.