Bhavna
If you ask me, How important are the right kitchen tools? I will say, the most important as I don’t want to just spend lot of time in the kitchen figuring out how will I cook this or that, how will I manage to cut veggies, fruits, how will I prepare the big batch of pizza dough and so on. Right utensils/appliances help to cook/bake with confident. Now, that doesn’t mean that I just buy almost everything. Find out how much you cook and what are your really needs. Making the investment on good quality kitchen tools will pay off in a big way. Research brands and research what your kitchen needs.
I cook almost 3-4 times a day on a daily basis. We are family of a six and going to the restaurant meaning, $50-$100 in just one shot…we do eat out while traveling and thats almost about it. Once in a while we would go and dine at our favorite restaurants if we think that we haven’t been out for a while and need some getaway.
So I put it this way, instead of spending lot of money eating at the restaurant, invest in one utensils/gadgets/appliances at a time and cook like a restaurant food at home!
Yes, I am so fanatic about creating restaurant style food in my own kitchen and keep surprising family with new recipes.
Just to share one experience with you all about why invest in utensils, I did not buy Kitchenaid mixer for a long time as they are always pricy. But once I bought it I felt that I should have bought this one way earlier…these days, I just really enjoy making pizza, bread and many other recipes with ease. Before I had to think a lot before making pizza as the dough would require lot of time and efforts. Same with bread making. Not to mention that Kitchenaid mixer helps me when I have to cook big batch of Indian Breads even.
I figure out budget for utensils. Expensive appliances, once a year only if needed. Small monthly budget would be suitable for your everyday needs in the kitchen. Again, remember, just think about what I said earlier, I would not eat at the restaurant and invest in the right quality utensils that would help me cook efficiently in the kitchen. Dull utensils appliances has no place in my kitchen. As I said, I just don’t want to spend my whole day in the kitchen cooking/baking. I would rather have somebody work for me for few of the chores and that’s where those utensils come handy.
Next, I would like to talk about Pressure Cooker. I have been using Pressure cooker for years now and can’t think of myself in the kitchen without it. If you are scared of pressure cooker, research and you will find that these days, pressure cookers come with lot of safety features. These days, you can buy even electric presser cooker which cooks quietly. Pressure cooking saves lot of time and also preserve nutrition. I have almost 5 pressure cookers including electric, stove top and with different size. Electric pressure cookers are my favorite these days.
If you are looking into long term investment, go for steel pots and pans. They are almost lifetime except if something happens with the handle. I have so many steel pots and pans that I have been using for almost 50 years now. My MIL used them and now I am using them. So basically you can pass onto next generations even! The one tip I would like to share here is when using stainless steel you definitely want medium heat or maybe a little less than medium high. Stainless steel does an excellent job at maintaining heat and even cooking. It’s what they’re known for. So if you crank your stove to high, your pan will get really hot really fast and it will be hard to bring it back down to a good cooking temperature. For most Indian cooking, I use little ghee along with oil so that the food do not stick to the pan.
When I buy any product, I always think about more features. Meaning one utensil/appliance and multiple uses. E.g. I have a 7-in-1 Electric pressure cooker which I use for saute, steam, boil, bake, yogurt maker, warmer and slow cooker. The same way, I have multi-purpose food processor which I use for blending, chopping, slicing, shredding, kneading the dough, churning the butter, as well. When you buy wisely, you can not just save money and but some space in the kitchen as well.
