I hear it all the time. You’ve heard it. You and I have probably even said it at one time.
Don’t spend your money or storage space on single-use items.
The idea is that you’ll end up with a house full of items that won’t get used as often as one multi-use tool which will take up a lot less space. Well, I’m hear to tell you that this rule doesn’t always work out and so you shouldn’t feel guilty at all for buying single-use items.
If you do a lot of preserving like we do there are just some tools that you can’t live without. I have yet to find a multi-use tool that can take care of all the stuff I need to do throughout the year. When I find that cherry-pitting-apple-corer-slicer-peeler-citrus-zester-food-milling-mandolin I’ll be the first to tout it’s amazing-ness here. In the meantime I’m going to go ahead and keep a separate tool for each single use. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE LOVE LOVE my KitchenAid stand mixer, with its gazillion attachments but believe it or not, I don’t use it nearly as often as I use my bread machine or ice cream maker. Hell, my apple slicer-corer gets more play than the stand mixer. Poor stand mixer. At least it looks pretty sitting on my counter.
The bread machine – this one single-use item can be such a hot button topic for some people. Why do I love my bread machine? Because I have a million things to do every damn day and making bread is pretty low on the list of shit that MUST get done every day. You know like milking goats, feeding and watering animals, tending to the garden, and making dinner. If I didn’t have a bread machine bread would never get made. Add on to the fact that a teenage boy can and will eat an entire loaf of bread in a single afternoon, it’s pretty much a must have around here. Before bed you just set it and forget it and the next morning there’s homemade bread waiting for you. If the KitchenAid mixer also baked the bread I’d totally use that instead, but alas, it does not.
My view is if that single-use item saves you time doing something that you do often then own it.
Speaking of bread machine, mine gathers dust… do you have any favorite recipes?
We usually just have a standard recipe that we use as a base for everything, including pizza dough. It is:
1 cup water
3 tbs oil
2 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
3 cups flour
2 1/4 tsp yeast
Put them in the machine in that order.
You are so funny! Thanks for the good post. I love my Vitamixer. We use it for smoothies most every day or I make “icecream” for dessert or blast legumes into powder so that they cook faster. I’ve had mine for 7+ years.
We donated our bread machine, and dedicated pasta maker, years ago when we bought our first stand mixer. I use my mixer for bread dough constantly, but I agree, the machines are nice if you’re super busy and need to set it and forget it.
I’ve never owned an ice cream maker. My trusty ol’ kitchenaid went up in smoke this year (more for a new motor than it was worth), so I bought a new one, and it came with the ice cream maker attachment FREE 😀 Problem is, now we’re making too much ice cream LOL.
Totally with you on the cherry pitter, mandolin (which really is a multitasker IMO) and apple peely corer thingy though. I tried pitting cherries with tip from a pastry bag once, everyone swore it would work, but the tip was smooshed and destroyed in the process. Multitaskers are nice, but I agree, it’s more important to use the right tool for the job!
Yes I love my bread maker too!!! It multi taskd as a bread maker and hand warmer on those cold mornings. I have heard of people making jam in a bread maker. Definitely an item worth its space in the kitchen
I don’t have a bread machine, but hope to score a used one after the holidays (har har, like people give these up once they have ’em…)
I do, however, have a KitchenAid that I bought well over a decade ago and never even used until about 5 yrs ago, which gets used for kneading dough infrequently. And I have a lovely metal meat-grinder attachment for it now, which gets used to grind up chickens for the felines of the household. I have yet to use the sausage stuffer attachment, but that came free w/ the meat-grinder disks :), so it is just a matter of time. Now I just need a pasta attachment and I’ll have it made.
As for single-purpose kitchen gadgets being a waste, BAH and HUMBUG. They are all useful. One just needs to get creative at times. Besides, that describes my blender perfectly. One purpose, to pulverize the heck out of ingredients, and to whip the heck out of homemade mayo.
I found a great deal on my bread maker at the goodwill.. it was exactly the same model as the one I had to leave behind at my ex’s. Plus I got a discount on the already great price because the area under the bread pan was disgusting (crumbs and grease).. It was an easy clean and I think I spent less than $10 on it:) There were several other models there also, and I regularly see at least one in there every time I go in.. So definately check out your local thrift stores….
We gave up our breadmaker after we got a KitchenAid because the thing we used it for most often–pizza dough–was only mixed, not baked, in the breadmaker.
Single-purpose kitchen gadgets I can’t live without? It’s little, but I wouldn’t be without my Henckels garlic press that has two removable sieves. I know some people swear by knife-chopping their garlic, but I’ve use that gadget almost every day for the last ten years and it’s such a time saver.
I totally would spend the $15 dollars again for the cherry pitter I bought this season, after pitting all the cherries I processed last year with a paper clip. Yes, the paper clip worked, but man it hurt my fingers.
Single use sometimes means sanity!
I got my first immersion blender today. I love it. My regular blender broke. Has anyone survived on just an immersion blender? Thanks!
I have a shelf of unitaskers even tho I rail against the concept: waffle maker, bread machine, rice cooker, steam juicer, TWO dehydrators, an immersion blender, a crock pot and a pressure cooker. And a pressure canner, come to think of it. Also a seal-a-meal thingy and a panini maker from hy hipster days. Every one but the panini press is used a lot, and there are certain things I can’t do w/o some (like the pressure canner.) But I should donate that panini press.
I have a bookshelf in one corner of my kitchen for my single-use appliances. I have a toaster, a rice-cooker (REALLY a must-have when you have only one working burner on your stove – and I’ve lived here 8 years… don’t judge me, super-cheap rent!), a vegetable steamer – back to that one working stove burner, a food processor, a small crockpot (the enormous one is in a cupboard), my electric can opener….
Granted, the electric can opener was dumped on me when my mom wanted to buy a new one. I prefer to use a manual can opener, thanks. But in my “specialty” drawer, I have TWO cherry pitters (it’s more fun to have help), an apple slicer/corer, a melon-baller, a lemon zester, a citrus reamer, and a bunch of other useful stuff. I use them all at least once a year (which is my criteria).
I’m the daughter of a carpenter, the ex-wife of a computer engineer, and the girlfriend of a car & bike guy. I’ve been raised to believe in the right tool for the right job. If that means I have a lot of tools, so be it 😉