Whitney Ruiz Art

I love to cook, and here are some common and less-common kitchen items I will always stand by.

First and foremost: A KitchenAid mixer

This machine is a workhorse and is the only appliance that I leave plugged in on my counter. I use it for cookies, cakes, icing, bread, mashed potatoes sometimes, shredding chicken, whipping cream and so much more. I can’t express enough how it changed my cooking life the day this mixer came into my life.

Speaking of workhorses, the Ninja mixer I use second most often.

At least once a week I’ll make a peanut butter and banana smoothie (at the request of my kids) and use my Ninja for breakfast. Then I’ll make jalapeno ranch with dinner, or spaghetti sauce, or I’ve even used it for grinding up the meat and vegetables to put in pupusas. The pour spout is a must, and blades all the way up ensure even chopping. I love it.

Other than appliances, this food chopper is a time saver I don’t ever want to go without.

It makes it so easy to add vegetables to any meal, or make any vegetable the star. This picture is deceiving, though. You can’t put half and onion on it and have it minced. You do have to cut it into slices first. But that’s not the hard part anyway! The hard part of cutting vegetables is getting them uniform so they cook evenly – which this tool does quickly. I use it most often to make pico de gallo (onions, tomatoes, and jalapenos), and once a month I’ll take all of the leftover vegetables in my fridge, chop them on here, and add them to a chicken pot pie. I’ve used it to cut French fries, grate cheese, slice eggs, and make a myriad of other delicious things. It’s not expensive and seriously worth every penny.

But you probably already have those, right? Here are 3 less common kitchen things I love:

Immersion Blender

The main attachment I use with a lot of soups, sauces and gravies. The whisk attachment I use every time I need to make a quick, small batch of whipped cream – like to go on crepes.

Garlic Press

I must admit I have a love/hate relationship with this tool. I saves me tons of time in mincing garlic (which I LOVE), but is such a pain to clean. That said, I still use it often, and I still clean it.

Dutch Oven Pot with lid

This is enameled cast iron – which means it cooks as well as cast iron, but isn’t as hard to clean. Even kitchen needs a pot that can go from stovetop to oven.

Meat thermometer

We had some friends over for dinner who asked, “What’s the secret to your chicken?” To which I replied, “I cook it to the correct temperature.” This super simple tool means no dried-out chicken and no leathery steaks. I love that it has a quick reference on the back to let you know the correct temperature for common meats.

How about you? Do you have a favorite gadget I missed? Let me know!