We do a lot of cooking and baking. In fact my neighbor jokes that EVERY time she comes over (which is usually about once a day) we are cooking something new. Actually it’s not far from the truth. This week we’ve made cheesecake, sourdough bread, sourdough whole wheat bagels, beet kvass, arugula pesto, shortbread, zucchini bread, ginger ale, meatballs, homemade tomato sauce, cream cheese, and so much more.
For all the cooking we do though, our kitchen is surprisingly sparse. We have great knifes and we have basic dishes and cook wear, but we don’t have a lot of the little extras that make it easier. I guess it just goes to show that you don’t really need all the gadgets and gismos in order to cook real food well.
…But…. there are still a few things that I do covet (in no particular order):
- A baking stone
– we make bread without it, but a good baking stone is really the way to go if you want to make really great bread.
- Kefir grains
– I buy kefir milk, but I would LOVE to try making kefir myself.
- A kitchen Aide
- thankfully I have a very generous neighbor who lets me borrow hers, but it would be great to have my own since I use this almost every day lately.
- A kitchen scale
- I’ve been borrowing this from a neighbor for the past week as well and I LOVE it and want one. But, of course, it’s not really a necessity – you can still make great food and great bread with just measuring cups.
- A food dehydrator
– if we want to dehydrate something we just put it in the oven at a VERY low setting and leave it all day (or longer depending on what it is), but I don't really like having the oven on for that long and it doesn't always work very well.
- A food processor/blender that can grind grains
– I have a very small cheap food processor (that is chipped and braking cause I use it so much), but it gets the job done. It just can’t grind grains or do any of the other fancy things that a good blender can.
- Some glass
or stainless steel food storage containers
– I have two bigger glass storage containers that I use all the time, and I re-use any glass bottle or container that food comes in, but I still sometimes have to resort to using plastic tuber ware because that’s what I have and I haven’t yet been able to afford replacing it with all glass or stainless steel.
- A bigger freezer
(and maybe these cool Popsicle molds to go in it)- our freezer is literally the size of a shoe box. It works and it’s all we really need, but sometimes I wish I could cook make ahead meals to freeze and prepare later or store some veggies or meat to have on hand when I need it. And as for popsicles, well we just don’t make them since I don’t have any molds, but popsicles aren’t really a necessity anyway, right?
- Some really nice pots and pans
(or at least some really good one’s like what I left in the states
) – we have cheap pots and pans from Ikea that we bought when we first moved here – they don’t cook as evenly or heat up as quickly as good pots and pans, but they work and that’s all your really need.
- A slow cooker/crock pot
– I make stock and soup regularly and it would be great to have a crock pot to make these things in, but for now I just use a big pot on the stove on low heat for a long time, it works well. I just have to pay more attention to it since I have left it on a little too high before and ended up demolishing a chicken carcass and filling an apartment with smoke...yeah, don't do that.
Well, that’s my kitchen wish list. What’s yours??
Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman