My five kitchen essentials

[mhalachai]

 Because I need something to blog about and a clickbait-y headline never hurt. These are not kitchen essentials per-say, but the things I would pack to take with me if I was moving to the woods and never coming back. 

1. A good cast iron frying pan.  I stole mine from my mother when I moved out ngl and it's just great.

2. Granulated garlic, salt and pepper. Like, I have a cupboard full of spices and herbs and stuff, but in a pinch I could make do with those three.

3. A good knife that can hold an edge. I have a chef's knife i won in a raffle and a paring knife that cost me two bucks from Ikea. And that means I need...

4. A functional knife sharpener. The only gimmicky thing I have in my kitchen is the Sypderco Triangle Sharpening Kit and it's brilliant. 

5. Fresh limes. I mean, besides warding off scurvy, lime juice makes everything better. 

What are your five kitchen essentials?

Comments

[st_aurafina]

1. My stand mixer. I love it, I use a lot, for baking, for bread. For meringue!
2. Sea salt (or some kind of flaky salt - I think mine is river salt at the moment), it makes everything good.
3. My herb garden. First thing we planted in the new house was a rosemary hedge.
4. My chef's knife. Makes such a difference to slicing things! (I am counting a sharpener in with this - mine's one of those ones with the three whetstones all in one)
5. Wine. I would put wine above limes. But if I had six choices, citrus would be there. I need to plant a lime tree!

I'd have put my skillet up there, but I'm not good friends with it - I think it's not seasoned enough. I need to cook more bacon.

[mhalachai]

stand mixers! My mother's top kitchen appliance of all time is her Kitchen-Aid. it's such a great invention.

I have some flake salt for garnishing and it feels like such a luxury i love it :)

your herb garden sounds great! I have a tiny north-facing flat so herbs don't really grow for me, but my mother has her herb garden and it's going great. Her mint bed is taking over the front yard.

Wine is a good idea and I applaud your life choices :D

i would love to move to a place where I could grow a lime tree :) that would be so great to have.

ANd yes, more bacon is always the answer!

[dragonlady7]

Oh I'm interested in the knife sharpening, not because of the kitchen but because of my sister's business. She raises and processes chickens for meat, and there's an old neighbor who sharpens her knives for her, but another thing she does is raise vegetables and annually employs two interns who want to learn organic farming, and as part of the curriculum she taught them tool maintenance. Which meant that, combined with forgetting to give the old neighbor the slaughter knives one time, she and I once sat at her kitchen table for probably way too long and multitasked babysitting her then-1-year-old with sharpening a whole pile of knives. It was a great choice of multitask activities, let me tell you.
And I'm sure we did it the hard way, because when I got home, determined to practice, and got a decent sharpening stone and my kitchen knives, well-- I thought I must have been doing it all wrong until the next time my boyfriend went to cut something and said "holy shit what did you do to these they're like razors".
The angle is the hard part, alas! I should get a gimmicky thing and try that, instead of YouTube videos, pennies, (two pennies stacked at the back edge gives you a reasonable angle on the blade, apparently), and like a zillion half-worn-away old whetstones I found in various drawers of our several households.

My five kitchen essentials... hmm... I do a lot of cooking in other people's kitchens, and what I always find wanting is
1) a big enough pot (to be fair, at home I'm cooking for two, and in guest kitchens I'm invariably cooking for twelve; usually I'm visiting my sister and cooking for the farm crew, but at my mother's it's always holidays and there were a zillion of us why are your pots tiny I remember these being much bigger)
2) why isn't this range gas ugh ugh ugh what is this crap (my mom's is propane, which is ... not quite like gas but just as good)
3) why do you not have a decent scrubber in your sink i am not using a washcloth and FINGERNAILS to clean these goddamn dishes
4) HOT MITTS JESUS WHY ARE THESE TERRIBLE OW
5) everyone I know has good knives, decent cutting boards, and huge herb gardens so really I'm not complaining. Also everyone but me has a nice KitchenAid stand mixer so really, that makes up for all the above bullshit. (My mom wore out her KitchenAid after thirty years of constant use, and upgraded to the pro one gleefully, and I like it but hate how the bowl attaches.)

Huge herb garden pro tip: in summer, equal parts mint and sage makes a great tea but must be sweetened or it tastes bitter. This, however, is the most delicious thing. Also store bunches of mint in your patio furniture when you put it into storage, and mice won't build nests in it. Mint will take over your entire yard, but honestly you should just pick a spot and let it. It's literally the only thing growing in my postage stamp of a backyard in my actual house, which I spent basically no time in this summer...

[mhalachai]

the angle is so hard that's why i can never use one of those sharpening steels (also i'm worried about cutting off my hand after a slightly drunken incident in my 20s (the scar faded and my mother never found out so I'm counting that as a win)) the thing I linked above keeps the angle for you - as long as you can keep your knife straight you can get a descent edge very quickly. The brass hand-guards also protect against most over-zealous sharpening

big pots and a gas range and steel wool and functional hot mitts are like bare minimums (i miss my old gas range - the only part of my old apartment i do miss)

my mother's mint bed is taking over her front yard but it does keep the neighbour cats from digging things up so she's not complaining. i hadn't heard of that sage/mint idea but I will take note of it for next year :D

[dragonlady7]

I have a wide assortment of fascinating hand-scars from various incidents, some of which my mother knows of and some of which she does not. I sort of think she's probably used to it though.

I just thought it was funny to think of people's kitchen essentials and remember what I most often miss when I'm away from my own kitchen. Oh, a microplane-- that's the thing I'm usually most upset by not having at my sister's. I brought lemons to zest and was like... you want me to do this with a KNIFE? And my sister apologetically produced a cheese grater and I was like knife it is then! It was awful.

I bought my mother a microplane and I don't think she uses it but I DO.

[mhalachai]

my mother knows about most of my scars - my personal favourite story is the one where I was playing with my knew jackknife when I was, what, 12? and closed the blade on my finger and she had to drive me to the clinic for stitches and I just remember that being the first time I realized how worried she was about money after our move and her working too hard and everything she was going through. And you know typing this out I just realized that at that time, she was the same age I am now and I just can't imagine going through what she did O_O

okay that was a bit of a detour down memory lane. Anyway.

i'm the same way with my parents kitchen (the main one I cook at other than my own) - for me it's the garlic press. My mother doesn't "believe in them" and I can't live without one (mince garlic by hand? no one's got time for that)

and microplanes are awesome, i'm with you on that one :)

[jujuberry136]

1. Agree on the need for a good frying pan. I go back and forth between my cast iron and my large skillet that can also go in the oven and has a lid (that thing is so versatile - and can double as a pot in a pinch sometimes)

2. A 9x9 baking dish - casseroles, brownies, cake, all work in this size

3. A good spatula. My favorite is plastic so I can toss it in the dishwasher

4. Fresh garlic - makes everything taste better.

5. Good olive oil - again, just makes everything taste better

[mhalachai]

yes to everything! having a pan with lid that can go in the oven is essential. I have an enameled dutch oven that I just love that does that. and of course fresh garlic and good olive oil are life :D

[alee_grrl]

1. My wok. It's great for one pot stove-top meals.

2. A good stove top kettle, most frequently used for coffee and tea.

3. A gas range rather than electric. I'm stuck with electric right now, but have always preferred gas ranges.

4. Coffee and tea and the accouterments that allow one to enjoy them (teapot, french press, cups)

5. Good knives.

[mhalachai]

the only thing i miss about my old apartment is my gas stove. Electric is not the same and it doesn't cook as well.

and I totally agree about the coffee and tea :D I have about four different ways to make coffee at home and they're all spectacular :D