What are your unconventional kitchen tools/utensils you were skeptical of at first but feel you can’t live without?
Box cutter for removing can labels. That way, they don’t get soggy and awful when you have to rinse the can before recycling. Or rinse before opening, if you store your cans in a semi-outdoor environment like me.
As lemmy crashes for me when i try to dm you (idk why you are the only one i have this issue with) may i ask why you speak a minimalistic language natively ?
That’s not my native one, there were ones even before that one.
Souper Cubes, which are basically silicone containers with a lid for freezing food. I’m trying to do more batch meal prepping, and 1 cup sized blocks are waaay easier to store in the freezer than a bunch of freezer bags whose contents may or may not have frozen completely flat. It makes portioning easier too. I haven’t tried baking in it but I do like that they’re oven safe too if I ever want to do that.
Love these. I make my own stock, refried Beans, chili, etc. Anything feeezable.
I use them for making big ice cubes for cocktails
Strawberry cutter. That stupid looking plastic strawberry with the little blades in it? Turns out it can do basically evening I don’t like cutting, mushrooms, berries, olives, all in tiny perfectly uniform cuts.
A coffee grinder. Freshly grinded beans taste so different from normal preground coffee.
What kind do you have?
I’ve got a Fellow Opus so I can make espresso, as well as less fine ground coffee. It’s quieter than other grinders I’ve used. I’ve also used a 1zpresso hand grinder and found it effective. Both are overkill for pour over or drip coffee
I mainly do drip and pour overs and have this Mr. Coffee blade grinder. It’s not the most consistent grind but it’s pretty good considering the price
I have the cheapest manual grinder I could find in my local supermarket. It does the job
I bought a few small silicon dough rising containers, for use in the fridge when making pizza (i.e. low yeast content) dough. Absolutely stellar. Can easily keep balls of dough around for 1-2 weeks and they in fact get slightly better with age, and they’re trivial to clean, too.
Bamboo pot scraper. Not a brush, but an actual small wedge of wood that you can use to scrape cast iron, stainless, etc pots & pans.
Great for heavy duty scraping, but usually just use it lightly to get crispy residue off of stuff (well cooked rice, beans, etc).
I like how much easier it is to rinse off, compared to a brush or sponge, that you really have to clean after using
Electric knife sharpener.
Maybe more of a splurge purchase and it works so much better than those janky acoustic sharpeners.
Acoustic?
What? It in no way works better. It’s faster, and takes less attention, but the edges they give are crap, and don’t last well.
Even the workshop belt systems aren’t better than stones.
Hell, if you want to factor in damage to the knife, any of the motorised home sharpeners are horrible. Until you get into stuff like a tormek, you’re heating the edge as you work, and that means you have to sharpen sooner, which can reduce the life of the knife by years over time.
I’m not saying you can’t do what you want with your knives, but there’s too much actual data on the various sharpening methods to call any of the available electric sharpeners better by any criteria other than speed.
People who buy electric sharpeners also buy cheap shit knives and store them loosely in a drawer with all the other kitchen stuff so it all balances out in the end.
I have a tiny whisk instead of a regular-size one, and I have convinced myself it is objectively superior in every way
If you hold your pinky finger out when you use it, then it definitely is
This made me smile hard
I second the tiny whisk especially for sauces.
A Marijuana grinder. I like foraging for foods, so I tend to use the grinder on things like Staghorn Sumac, or Spice Bush to make a course grind. It allows a lot of control on how much you want to use and how fine, unlike a blender.
Before it’s asked, I actually have never smoked weed. It was listed as a “spice grinder” and I never thought it was for weed when I got it.
My mother in law gave me a spice grinder as she had a spare. This raises some questions.
Hey, maybe she just wants course ground yarrow for tea.
They were spice grinders originally.
Your mother in law is a real one. Hopefully this answers some questions!
A good grinder can do a lot of good
Small set of whetstones so I can keep my kitchen knives absurdly sharp. Sharp vs “meh” vs dull knives make a huge difference in speed, comfort and safety. I’ve scuffed my knives a bit getting into things, but at least they’re sharp as hell and touching them up only takes a few minutes.
Also it’s hardly unconventional, but a quick read thermometer (fold-out type) is almost a must.
Quick read thermometer is essential. Do you not cook pork chops because they come out as dry, flavorless pucks? Thermometer fixes that. No more guessing how many minutes per inch of thickness at whatever temp, just look up what “doness” you want, and check them every few minutes.
Also, digital kitchen scale, and onion goggles.
I have a shameful ikea sharpener (you know, one with a sort of a wheel you roll the blade against) but it is amazing.
Roll roll slice & dice!
Nothing shameful about it. It gets the job done to a satisfactory level. What more can you ask for?
Whatever works, of course. I’m not trying to go all hipster, I just think it’s sort of pleasant work with the whetstone, and having crazy sharp knives is weirdly satisfying.
Its okay and does the job, but learning to sharpen on a stone can be done in a spare afternoon with a youtube video and a 5 dollar diamond stone from ali. Your knives will thank you.
The 2 big problems with pull sharpeners is that they sharpen parallel to the blade, making the knife edge more brittle and they deepen defects in the blade, so if there are even tiny dents in the edge, the pull sharpeners will make them larger over time.
I haven’t figured out how to get a good edge with stones. “it’s all in the angle” but without some kind of guide I can’t find the right angle. I tried marking the edge with sharpie, it helped a little bit still not as good of an edge as I get with other means.
On the flip side, I am a professional metallographer so I am extremely experienced in progressive polishing to insanely fine grits. I just don’t have a good feel or control of the angle. Metallography has to be perfectly flat.
Apple watch siri set timer
Did I miss it or did no one say Rice Cooker yet? A good rice cooker makes rice texture so much better while simplifying the whole process.
A pot is IMO sufficient for single use cooking (maybe once every 1-2 weeks of cooking) if you are not a primary rice household.
I mean I eat rice more days than I don’t and I use a pot. 15 minutes + mostly unattended, while I’m prepping some protein or whatever.
My problem is the cleaning after with starchy stuff.
Especially sticky rice variants are annoying to clean (read: throw in the dishwasher)With a rigid bamboo pot scraper (and, yes, a little soaking if really stuck on there), I’ve found it’s actually not worth the bother of the dishwasher when it’s so easy to do by hand.
But I’m into a real rice rythme these days lol
Is that just a small piece of bamboo that you cut or something transformed. I can’t seem to find much information searching for bamboo pot scra
I just bought mine at a retail outlet. Here’s an old and unused one for comparison. This is after a couple years’ use.
Oh I found it online: https://www.bambuhome.com/products/pot-scrapers-set-of-4
Thank you for the link! Kinda want to try that seems so different than what I use…
Someone gifted me a Le Creuset rice cooker. I use it at least once but often twice a week. At $200+ it’s truly something I never would have bought myself.
Oh my partner’s been trying to convince me to accept one because I make so much stovetop rice, but don’t want a digital rice cooker with plastic and circuits and all that.
How does it do?
It’s great! It only makes 4-6 servings of rice at a time but I prefer that because it means there’s less leftovers
Get a good pressure rice cooker. These are meant to let you leave the rice warm inside for about up to a week. Game changer and always have rice on hand.
Not sure any food can safely be kept warm that long, they keep your rice warm and edible for quite awhile but even 12-24hrs is pushing it.
It depends on the brand. Western rice cookers have a keep warm feature that I wouldn’t trust.
Zorushi and Cuckoo that keep the rice under pressure at around 140F will keep for 2-3 days. https://kitchencuddle.com/rice-cookers-that-keep-rice-warm-for-days/
Yeah, a week is really pushing it, I think I just remembered wrong.
If you make a lot of rice then spring for a zojirushi neuro fuzzy. Expensive, yes, gamechanger, yes. Buy once, cry once.
A safety can opener that doesn’t create any sharp edges, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_mLxyIXpSY (a LONG video, but quite an interesting one IMHO).
It’s nor even funny how much this thing is better than any other opener I’ve ever used, it’s just so bloody amazing!
Of course it’s Technology Connections.
Good stuffKnew what video it was before I clicked the link. We bought one because of that video!
It’s amazing how someone can just tell when it’s going to be a Technology Connections video. Such great videos on so many different topics!
Seconded. I never thought the subjects he chooses would make for good viewing but TC is consistantly surprisingly interesting.
I never saw this video but I knew it was going to be technology connection before clicking on the link.
Like gramathy said, safety openers are just to make it difficult to use the tool wrong. Regular can openers are designed to do the same thing, but it isn’t as obvious and limited in the design.
I have an OXO Good Grips one that has been great for 25 years.
Ordinary wheel-cutting can openers get used wrong - they should be cutting the side of the can and not the lid, with the knurled wheel flat and pressed against the rim of the can.
No sharp lip, and you don’t need to fish a lid out of the can. Downside is you can’t use a lid cover to “save” the contents if you don’t use them all.
see, i’ve tried using them the “right” way, but i’ve found that i’d rather have the lid be sharp than the can most of the time.
Probably unconventional now, but one of those old can openers. Not the turning ones, the manual single-piece ones. Every can opener I have had dies after a year or two, but this one has been going strong for like… 50+ years.
Boy oh boy have I been waiting for the opportunity to plug my favorite can opener. It’s a “turning one” as you call it, from a company called OhSay. American made, and built like a brick shit house, I have no doubts it’ll outlast me. Google it, I think they’re like $15-20
I love the passion for your can opener! I’ll definitely take a look at your recommendation.
In return, here’s a pepper grinder my ex-chef dad raves about that seems to be pretty tough:
!(OXO Good Grips Radial Grinder Pepper Mill, 0.385 lbs, White)[https://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-Lewis-Pepper/dp/B003L0OOQM/)]
Hell yeah, I’ll give it a look. I’ve almost made it a hobby to research the shit out of the most durable and long lasting items I can buy, and things that are capable of being maintained or repaired since I’m kind of a tinkerer. I also buy American or union made whenever it’s an option.
I have an old Soviet wheel-cutting can opener that is still doing good after 40 years and lots and lots of exploitation
