Wednesday Decor // Our Favorite Kitchen Accessories

So, I have a confession.....I think I'm becoming domestic.  Prior to meeting Zach, I could have cared less if we had a pasta maker, mixer, or the right kind of knives.  All I cared about was a blender for mixed drinks in college.  Mom called me out on it when she bought me one for my birthday, yeah mom, you were right.  Recently I saw a post on A Beautiful Mess where Emma shared her kitchen essentials.  Great minds must think alike!

Since moving in with someone who cooks up a storm & who's always creating new things, I'm now falling in love with kitchen gadgets! I'm going to try to share more recipe type posts here on the blog & have been thinking about what gadgets we consider essential to our kitchen.  Some of these are simple & some are more complex but all of them we use multiple times a week.  Most of them keep cooking simple & all of them make cooking fun.  Since we're gearing up for our annual pasta making Valentine's Day tradition, I thought I'd share our kitchen gadgets:

CANISTERS
We have a lot of counter space in our house.  It's so great because we are able to have everything at our finger tips.  Things aren't hiding in cabinets & being forgotten about.  We also don't have that much pantry space.  In fact we don't even have a pantry, just two big cabinet we keep food in. We use this counter space to our advantage & love having two sets of canisters - one vintage set & one new set - on either side of the stove.  We have the clear glass canisters above with flous, sugar, brown sugar, & powdered sugar.  Each has a scoop & are right at our finger tips.  The other set contains different kinds of pastas for easy access. (here are our sizes: biggest, big, smaller, smallest!)

MIXER
Santa was extremely, extremely good to me this year & brought me a load of useful things for the new house.  Like this mixer.  After not having a way to make meringue for the pies at Thanksgiving I am now able to whip up anything I want!  I've used it to quickly mix up brownies, but can't wait to use it more to make bread, cakes, whipped cream, & meringue!

CART
Recently Zach brought a little cart from his parent's house for our kitchen.  When both of us are in the kitchen cooking together, it can get a little crowded & the cart helps for a little more space to chop with out elbows running into each other.  Plus it's going to be great for our annual Valentine's Day pasta making from scratch.  Because it's on wheels it moves around our kitchen with ease.

TOASTER OVEN
I have to say I never really cared for toaster ovens.  All I ever needed to do was make toast & toaster ovens were a bit too much for that....all those dials.  Zach has showed me the error of my ways....you can make so much stuff in a toaster oven!!  I turn to the toaster oven more & more for quick meals.  I make hot sandwiches, toast, crescent rolls, & anything that might require preheating the oven.

TONGS
Tongs are just great utensils to have.  Pick things up, turn things over, grab hot toaster oven pans, toss things around...they are pretty handy.

BUTTERFLY WINE OPENER
We have a pretty stocked wine rack & as simple as it is (and so unoriginal) this type of wine opener is the easiest to use.  Very little work for an awesome return - a glass of wine of course!  Our wine glasses are from the Williamsburg Winery from our wine tasting from last spring.  I'm just now developing a taste for wine & one of my favorites is a white table wine called Winter White from Leelanau Cellars.  We've only been able to find it up north though!  I'm looking forward to expanding my wine taste & trying new things.

CROCKPOT
If you don't have a crock pot or haven't ever used one I highly suggest getting one.  I love that you can prepare a meal in the morning, have it cook all day, then have a delicious, home made meal waiting for you around dinner time.  You can even prepare the meal at night, put it in the fridget, then pull it out in the morning & turn on the crock pot.  There are tons of crock pot recipes I really want to try but Zach is so creative he comes up with wonderful meals on his own.

MIXING BOWLS
For obvious reasons, mixing bowls are on the list.  We have a variety of sizes & smaller prep bowls.  These are great for mixing batters, marinades, dressings, etc.  I've recently found a recipe for bread baked in a big glass bowl & can't wait to put my mixer to use on that one!

PASTA MAKER
Somehow this didn't make it into the picture! Zach wanted one for Christmas & this is the one I got for him.  We haven't used it yet, we'll get to it this Saturday.  Making your own pasta is fun so I'm glad we have this litte accessory to help us out!

THINGS WE'RE STILL LOOKING FOR:
KNIVES
We have steak knives but we've been on the hunt for good kitchen knives.  This is something Zach's been looking for.  We have one good paring knife but our bigger knives just don't cut it (pun intended!)

STOCK POT
Zach loves soup! So we're still on the hunt for a stock pot to make oodles of soup in.  Oodles, I tell you, oodles!

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Well, there you have it.....all our favorite kitchen essentials.  You wouldn't guess what's happened though: our new microwave just went out!  I'm going to call or take it to Sears to see what they say about the warranty.  I have found the paperwork that was with it, so here's hoping!

What are your kitchen essentials? Do you cook a lot?

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