I bake a lot so these wide mouth glass jars that each hold 10 pounds of flour or sugar are perfect. I won't tell you how often I refill my sugar jar because it's probably more often than most people have to buy sugar.
Yes, it's just a notebook but it's an indispensable tool for keeping me organized. I keep it on my kitchen counter so I can jot down ingredients or make to do lists as I go and when I leave the house I always take it with me.
My long coveted KitchenAid mixer. I went through FIVE hand mixers in 4 years. I wanted a KitchenAid but I couldn't see committing to spending that much money. I'm frugal. Sort of. But thanks to a deep Black Friday discount, this long coveted mixer is mine. And I love it. Tip: I keep mine on top of a folded up dish towel so when I want to use it I slide it on the counter instead of trying to pick it up, it weighs a lot and it's cumbersome to move.
My food processor. I had one many years ago and I never used it. So I sold it. At a garage sale. For practically nothing. Luckily, the same person who got me the sold food processor took pity on me and several years later got me another one for my birthday. This time I got smart and instead of storing the food processor away in a cabinet I leave it right on my counter. Suddenly I can't live without it. I use it at least twice a week, often more. It's true what they say- location, location, location!
My cookbook collection. Condensed through the years. I try to be very careful with the books I buy now. It's just as easy to get a recipe off the internet and many times I do just that, but there is just no substitute for a wonderfully edited cookbook with photographs. I'm a sucker for photographs. I'm a book lover so I get a little sentimental over my collection, each book is important to me. In the corner is my recipe binder with clippings and some of my most cherished recipes written in long hand. I hope one day someone appreciates that book.
French press = best coffee ever. In my humble opinion, of course. This is a thermal carafe that I agonized over. I could have saved myself a few bucks and purchased a regular French press because the thermal qualities of this one are a joke. Hot coffee for half an hour max. Still, it's wonderful coffee and I can always buy a thermos.
If you are going to go the French press route, you have to have properly ground beans. A burr grinder will be necessary. This one is highly rated and one of the few under a hundred dollars.
I'm not sure what I did in the kitchen before I found Microplanes. The thinner one is perfect for grating nutmeg (you do buy whole nutmeg, don't you? It's nothing like pre ground nutmeg) and zesting citrus. The larger one is my parmesan grater. That's it. I just grate parmesan with is but I use it at least twice a week and no other tool grates parmesan like the microplane. Mmmm, fluffy parmesan clouds.
How about you? What are your indispensable kitchen tools?
