I am not the kind of person to take a major interest in shopping. In fact, I quite dislike shopping. But, there is one category of product I love spending time on (drumroll, please….)- Kitchen and Grocery!!
I love looking at recipe books. I love shopping at different grocery stores. I experiment with everything – different grains, vegetables, frozen vegetable, spices, herbs and – of course, appliances!!
Because I seem to like tinkering around these equipment a lot, I might as well give you my opinion on the best kitchen appliances I own and some of the worst kitchen appliances I have wasted money on. How does this benefit you – you ask?
- Maybe I can save you some money by helping you avoid my mistakes!! (ka-ching!!)
- Maybe I can provide you with comic relief – ‘Ha, I can’t believe some people (like Swetha) are this insane…’, you could smile amused-ly!!
- Maybe I could provide cover for an excuse to your spouse – ‘Honey, Swetha from upgrademyfood.com loves this appliance…Well, that does it..we gotto run out and get this asap!!’
So, here goes….
3 Best / Most Useful Appliances I own:
Best bang for the buck – Water Heater
I know you are rolling your eyes hard right now…You – “I came for hard-core kitchen technical gyan (knowledge), and all I get is a water heater ?”
Hold on!! Let me assure you that a water heater (amazon link) is a fantastic buy. You can get your water heated in a closed environment super quickly for a variety of reasons:
- Early morning – Drink warm water – It is an Indian thing!!
- Hot water for filter coffee to give you life/ reason to wake up:)
- Have hot water ready in the side while cooking (Lot of experienced cooks use this trick to prevent temperature loss while cooking – e.g. thinning out daals)
- Hot water for quick herbal teas (keeps you from snacking mindlessly…)
- Fill up hot water flask for bed side at night (comes in handy if you have a combination of kids+school+winter in your household)
The best $20 appliance I have ever spent. Shout out to my mom for recommending this appliance. This has been used so much, that kids have put sharpie marks on it, and we continue to use it as though nothing has happened….
Our kitchen workhorse – Vitamix
Here’s a story of what happened 7 years ago – I was waiting in the parking lot of Costco, where my husband promised to run-in, get milk and be back soon. 20 minutes later, my husband emerged with a large box. He had just spend around $450 on a blender. I was stunned!! Who spends that kind of money on a blender? Besides we had a perfectly good Indian blender at home.
He promised me that it was worth it. We will be able to make smoothies, soups and so much more with this 1 appliance – at least that’s what the demo guy had told him inside. “Oh my God, you fell for that shtick!!” was all I could think.
Anyway, 7 years later, the Vitamix is still a workhorse in my kitchen making smoothies, idli, dosa batters, thogayal, sambar powder etc… without any problems and worth every penny. Highly recommend this!!
The cool new appliance – Instant Pot
Everyone loves it, and so do we. I have written a separate post on Why I have come to love my Instant Pot.
But, in short, it has some great advantages:
- Saves a lot of time for busy women – a boon in this day and age!!
- A very good price point
- Has a wide range of uses – Pressure cooking/ sauteing/ Slow Cooking etc
- Highly adaptable to various cuisines – Indian/ Chinese/ Thai
In fact, I saw a recent report that Indians were one of the largest users of the Instant Pot. This is not surprising considering the daals, and grains we use.
In fact, our favorite go-to food, when we are damn tired, is Instant pot Kichdi. Grains + lentils + frozen veggies + spices – Ready in 20 minutes, hot and healthy – I just love it!!
Moving on to the next category – The 3 Useless or my wasted kitchen appliance purchases…
3 useless appliances in my kitchen
Slow Cooker
Ok, there was a time when I got sucked into the slow-cooker hype (this was pre-instant pot). I even got my cousin a slow cooker as a house warming gift (cringe!! – Oh dear – sorry!!).
But everything I ever made with the slow cooker was sub-par. This worried me about my cooking skills immensely. During that time people were making cakes, and stews and what-not in the slow cooker and not to mention – the numerous recipe books on that topic too….
But then I saw this article “Why Anything Slow Cookers Can Do, Others Can Do Better” penned by the awesome Kenji-lopez of Serious Eats. Yes!! exactly this!! – why eat mushy food cooked for 8 hours, when you can get much better food out of pressure cooker or Instant Pot? If Kenji feels the same way, I may be on the right track….You even have the slow cook option in the Instant Pot which makes this appliance completely redundant!! So, bye-bye, Slow Cooker!!
Juicer
Just like keto is all the rage now, there was a time when juicing was all the rage. So, juicers went on sale, and of course, I bought it.
I am not a big fan of juicing. The juice went right through me. I was hungry just an hour later. So little juice, ssoooo much effort!! I think you spend more calories peeling, juicing and cleaning that damn thing than from the juice itself.
On top of that, what do you do with all the leftover pulp? I would then proceed to waste time looking up recipes for creating things with leftover carrot pulp, which 90% of the time – the kids would hate, and now I have just wasted a whole bunch of ingredients and my time.
Long story short, the juicer is now tucked away. I have to get rid of it, but there is something about that device makes me feel there is more to it. I have experimented making stretchy candy using it, by feeding the juicer dried fruits and that was fun. You can feed it nuts, grains and get powders, butters, etc. So, basically it is like a kitchen toy for me. So, for now, it stays, until I burn out the motor :).
Dehydrator
Of all the nonsensical purchases, this tops the list. It all started when I bought $8 of Kale chips from San Francisco farmers market. The whole family went crazy for that tiny bag of chips.
In my mind, Kale was awesome, still is…If I can make Kale chips once a week, and get my kids to eat that, wouldn’t I be the coolest/badass mom ever??!! So, obvious logical next step – Shell out about $300 for a dehydrator with 5 trays. I still remember spending long hours discussing with my husband the number of trays we will need and reading online reviews.
Imagine all the wonderful things we can make…
Gosh, what a waste of time. We must have made those chips maybe 4 times, before throwing up my hands in air. Too much work, too much counter space, too noisy. Oh and did I tell you, it has to run all night?
Instead of spending $32 and getting satisfied with kale chips, now we a dehydrator sitting in the garage neatly packed. Interested buyers?…Anybody?? Somebody???
Conclusion
All the above is my personal opinion. I am not paid for any of it. In no way, is it meant to disparage any appliance. You may be an avid juicer and completely love your juicer….in which case, more power to you. And the same goes for the slow cooker and dehydrator as well.
Do you agree with me? Or maybe you feel differently….Do post your favorite appliance and your least favorite below….(P.S: Please don’t be afraid to comment – The need for email below is for this website to be free from spammers).
I’ll never send emails, unless you chose to subscribe separately. Now, that is something I highly recommend you do :)….
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Fun post. I definitely agree about the virtues of the electric hot water heater!
“Hear! Hear!” – Greetings, fellow water heater appreciator!!
We got an instant pot more than a year ago and I have used it only once since. Firstly it takes up a lot of counter space and secondly, like you mentioned there is a steep (in my case) learning curve. I hate reading manuals and there are too many buttons to fiddle with. Glorified pressure cooker, that is exactly how I feel even now. Maybe I need to use it more and will fall in love with it like many others. This blogger Manali of Cooking with Manali even published a book on slow cooker Indian recipes, there must be something to it since it is quite a phenomenon at the moment.
Now I have to read your review on Rotomatic, which in my opinion is another useless gadget that comes with a steep price.
One thing, how do I know if you have responded to my comments? I subscribed to your blog but I haven’t got any messages in my email inbox yet.
On a side note, you are an engineer but from your style of writing I think you could be a writer as well 🙂
Hi Mita,
Yes, the Instant Pot takes time to fall in love with…but, from my experience, I can assure you, it is worth it. Yes, It is a glorified pressure cooker – but without the disadvantages of a pressure cooker. It is kind of a next-gen pressure cooker. Anyway, that’s how I think of it. I encourage you to try it again before giving up on it.
I try and reply to all comments posted. When posting a comment, if you click on the “Notify me of new comments via email”, you will get an email whenever any reply is posted to that thread. Alternatively, you can check back on the post you commented on, to review the replies.
Thank you for your sweet words and encouragement. It is very much appreciated.
Swetha
My most useless, will never buy again is an electric can opener. I kill those things long before I can get my $14-30 out of them. I also agree that a slow cooker is the most useless thing on the planet. You show a masticating juicer in the pics and that there is my best friend, we throw peanuts from the bulk bins at winco through it and add a little coconut oil, makes amazing peanut butter. Also if you like fresh fresh bread with all the health benefits of freshly ground wheat? Soak your wheat berries overnight and throw them through that juicer. It will grind it for you. So many weird things you can do with that thing and where unless you are going to use it daily I wouldn’t suggest to run out and buy one, if you already have one or are really into super healthy living it is definitely a multifunction kitchen toy, it even makes nice cream.
Hi Serenity, You have given some great ideas for the juicer there….that’s awesome!!
But, we must agree to disagree on the can opener :). I use mine all the time – I wouldn’t say it is my favorite or anything like that; but I go through a lot of canned chickpeas and it sure comes in handy.
I agree with most of your opinions hee, Swetha – I wouldn’t be without my Vitamix or Instant Pot! I got rid of my slow cooker when I got the IP, but I had almost never used it, and it was stored high on a cabinet in my dining room (oh, the dust!). I also had a rice cooker that I got rid of – something that I used a lot, back in the days when I cooked a LOT of jasmine rice (and all that Thai food, to go with it), but I reduced that greatly, when I realized how bad it is for us. I gave my juicer away long ago, as I really didn’t find it useful. I looked into electric water heaters, way back, but couldn’t find any as big as I wanted! I am an iced tea addict (even in winter), and I have a 5 qt kettle, which also works on my induction burner in the summer, when I don’t want all that heat from the gas.
@Serenity – I have also had that bad experience with 3 different electric can openers! I’m talking about those so called “safe” can openers – the old fashioned Swingaway, that pierces the lids, works forever, but those safe ones stop after 2 or 3 months. I’ve been waiting for Oxo to come out with one, as they are usually fairly dependable..
The food processor and the Kitchen Aid mixer I get some use from, but not as much as before I got the Vitamix. Still, I can’t be without them, when making doughs in the mixer, or shredding veggies in the FP.
However, one thing I do get a lot of use from is my dehydrator. I grow a lot of my own food in the spring, summer, and fall (and even in the winter!), and a lot of it gets dehydrated! I have an Excalibur, with 8 shelves, and sometimes I have nothing but chili peppers in there! I also dry a lot of tomatoes and tomatillos. Bottle gourds didn’t dry very well, but bitter gourds did better, and butternut squash dry very well. But the ones I dry most of are the eggplants, which rehydrate very well, and I put those cubes in countless Indian dishes – they actually keep their shape better than fresh, which turns mushy fairly fast, even the Asian types I grow. I dry these things until totally dry, and some I make into flour, in the Vitamix – I have used eggplant flour in some flat breads, and the butternut squash I have used in place of pumpkin in some recipes, adding a little water (16 oz reduces to 1 oz of flour!).
Another thing that I find very useful is my Foodsaver, for vacuum sealing things. Not for everyone, but I buy a lot of things when I find deals on them – grains, dals and other legumes, teas, and other dry goods. While not totally necessary with some things, I’ll still vacuum seal them – things that go in the freezer (some will still go rancid, at room temp) I put in 3 or 4 cup packs, to refill the jars on my shelf, while with the dals, and things like this, that I keep in tubs in the basement, I snip the corner off a package, fill the empty jar, then re-seal it. I also use it for spices – much cheaper buying a 500g bag of coriander, or any spice, for that matter, and it keeps indefinitely vacuum sealed – just refill the jars from the bags, then re-seal. With dry goods, the bags can be used repeatedly, until too short to use any more.
Something that I use almost every day is my digital kitchen scale! Thinking about it, however, I don’t use it as much with my Indian cooking, as many others. Baking is where it is the most useful, but it is also very good for measuring all those liquids for Chinese cooking (faster, and more accurate, than using measuring spoons), and good for measuring oils – just set the container on the scale, and pour it in.
Other must haves for most of you, I’m sure, are those dry spice grinders! A.K.A. coffee grinders, which I have never used it for! I have two smaller ones (one unused, but I couldn’t pass up a deal, and the old one will die someday!), plus a larger, wet dry grinder. I only use the Vitamix when making a large amount of a dry spice mix (when sharing with a friend), but the wet/dry is good for the 1 1/4 c sambar mix – the one I make most of. Still, the small one grinds finer, and is best for most things.
I have never heard of dehydrated eggplant until now. Wow!! That sounds very interesting.
Digital scale – excellent for serious bakers like you, baking is not quite my thing.
Can opener – agree to disagree 🙂
Food sealer – While I am big on not wasting food (something drilled in me by my dad), I also get very anxious when my refrigerator/freezer is too full. I don’t think I could handle a food saver, but more power to you for also having the patience to seal, label, etc.
FP and Stand Mixer – I use my food processor more and more to meal prep veggies these days, so FP>SM for me.
Thanks for your input. Cheers and happy cooking!!