We're about ready to start cooking and turning into Home Master Chefs right?
Before we start chopping our vegetables and simmering our soups, we need to prepare ourselves with one more thing...we need actual kitchen tools!
It may seem simple, but making sure you have the right tools and equipment prior to cooking can make a world of difference. Nothing can ruin the moment more than reaching for a pan or baking sheet that isn't ready to be used, or that you don't even have!
Now, before you run to the store and buy every kitchenware piece that Rachael Ray has ever made, take a look and what you might already have around the kitchen. You may have what you need as the basic essentials to get started. Even I don't have everything that I want, but I have most of what I need to be creative and unique in the kitchen and still survive.
At a minimum, make sure you have the following:
Pots and Pans. That seem pretty basic, but you would actually be surprised how many people don't have a nice set of pots and pans in their kitchen. You don't need a fancy set, or even a big set, but having at least two or three pans of different sizes and two or three pots of different sizes is a good start.
Baking Sheets and Cake Pans. Get a nice set of baking sheets too! These are useful for more than baking cookies; you can use it to bake just about anything on them. Make sure you include a muffin pan too (they can come in handy!). Cake pans are also useful to have as well when you are baking food that you don't want to splash or spill over into the oven. You can get sets of these pretty inexpensive too when you are starting out, too.
Casserole Dishes. Having one or two casserole dishes for making bigger oven meals is not exactly a necessity, but they can come in handy too. Especially if you are feeding a family or a small group, you can go straight from the oven to the table and still come out with a nice presentation.
Silverware (Especially Knives). Now here is where I'm going to tell you to invest a little money. A nice classy set of silverware that you can serve your guests with is a nice touch as an adult and a developing cook. But more importantly, get a good set of knives. If you buy a set of knives for regular price under $20, I promise you, get ready to go back to the store for more in a couple months. Most knife sets run you at least $50 or more on the regular (but watch for a good sale too!). Also, you need to get serving utensils, like spatulas, spoons, etc.
After you get the basics, though, and you become more comfortable in the kitchen, you can begin to stretch yourself and add other tools to your toolkit:
Crockpot/InstaPot. This is something to look into later if you desire, but this will be a game-changer for you. With crockpots, you can literally just throw everything into the pot, set it on low before you go to work that day and let the crockpot do all the cooking for you. And it can cook desserts, breakfast, lunches, dinners, etc. InstaPots are crockpots to the next level, because they have so many different settings for culinary creations. Once you get these, you are pretty much set.
AirFryer. If you, like me, don't like trying to fry in hot grease (a grease fire in college scared me straight for awhile) and/or you want the comfort of fried food without the greasy guilt, Airfryers are amazing to have. Using way less oil in a controlled setting, you can get your fried cravings on without a lot of mess and fuss to deal with.
Blenders. You can do more with a blender than just make smoothies. Blenders are helpful to pulse and breakdown ingredients for sauces too. They are useful for other uses too, like roughly chopping ingredients.
This is not an exhaustive list by any means; there are plenty more tools that you can include here. But this gives you an idea of what you can include to create different recipes. But you don't have to have everything in the kitchen section at Target. Get what you know you will use and what you know you need.
We About The Love of Kitchen Tools ... they are the key to successful dishes!
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