Image courtesy of Williams-Sonoma
With wedding season fast approaching, it’s time to think gifts. In preparation for this spring’s festivities, I’ve been looking around my kitchen and quizzing my foodie friends about their favorite kitchen items. Here’s a list of inexpensive kitchen gadgets and novelties that should be on any cook’s registry.
The microplane grater led the top of everyone’s list, including my own. The grater comes in rasp and coarse (if you are only buying one, get the rasp.) It makes everything from grating parmesan cheese to zesting lemons a snap. The microplane is dishwasher safe and easy to clean for quick reuse. Retails for about $10-$15.
Also at the top of the list were silicone utensils for baking. These included baking (Silpat) and pastry mats, loaf pans, oven mitts, spoonulas, and spatulas. These generally run in the $10-$20 range.
If you want to give a truly unique gift, look no further than non-stick muffin top pans from Chicago Metallic. In addition to muffin tops, they are perfect for making eggs for breakfast sandwiches and even hamburger buns. They run about $15/each—get two of them, as they come six per pan.
Another one of my personal favorites is a mini-prep Cuisinart. I use mine in place of a blender to make salad dressing or to chop items quickly when creating sauces. This is easy to set up, easy to use, and easy to clean—everything but the motor is dishwasher safe on the top rack. It retails for about $40.
Other top recommendations included a 1-ounce ice cream or cookie dough scoop. These can have multiple uses from meatballs to muffins. Good measuring cups and spoons were a must. In the juicing department, the trend is toward reamers and special mention went to the Williams-Somona lemon press. Slow cookers and liners were another big hit, particularly for people who are gone all day and don’t want to deal with clean up.
So feel free to venture off the registry with any one of these and know you’re giving a gift they will love—they just may not know it quite yet!
