TTMA Kitchen Toys

[icedtea]

I've decided to cheer myself up by updating my kitchen appliances and tools. I especially want to get a KitchenAid mixer, and a Vitamix. But there are so many! Recommendations for styles?

I'd also like to update my pots/pans, so up for recs there too! Tell me where to put all my monies. 

[PepperPottsJ]

I've slowly been upgrading to the all clad copper core pots and pans, and it's a dream, but seriously all the monies!

Have you used a kitchen aid before, I feel like it's a bit religious which style people prefer, the swivel in bowl or the lift bowl. If you are heavy duty I'd go for the stronger motor and lift bowl.

Also the Breville sous chef is hands down the most amazing food processor.

Edit for clarity

[icedtea]

May 14, 2016 11:33:12 GMT -5 PepperPottsJ said:

I've slowly been upgrading to the all clad copper core, and it's a dream, but seriously all the monies!

Have you used a kitchen aid before, I feel like it's a bit religious which style people prefer, the swivel in bowl or the lift bowl. If you are heavy duty I'd go for the stronger motor and lift bowl.

Also the Breville sous chef is hands down the most amazing food processor.

I haven't used one before, but I need to step up my cooking game with more vegan options and all the recipes I'm finding are made a lot easier by it. I had a friend tell me to just start with the bigger one so I don't have to upgrade later. 

Ooh I'll look up the Breville. I have a Ninja, but it's not really strong enough to do what I want. It's more suited to smoothies and small jobs. I also have a larger Cuisinart, but I think I'll get rid of that one. 

Is the copper hard to keep up?

[PepperPottsJ]

icedtea I have the below stand mixer, and it was my 3rd upgrade, I wish I had started with it
www.williams-sonoma.com/m/products/kitchenaid-professional-600-stand-mixer/

[gabride2010]

I have a white KA mixer, and I love it! I have the non-professional kind where the bowl swivels in (not raises and lowers). I don't use it all that often, maybe 1x/week or so. If I had to do it over, I would get the same kind, but in the Imperial Grey color. Although, I don't think Imperial Grey was an option when I got my mixer a little over 6 years ago.

H and I have a set of Calphalon nonstick pots and pans, and we don't really like them anymore. The nonstick isn't as good as it used to be, and they are only 6 years old, and they have always been washed by hand. We have several cast iron skillets and Le Creuset pieces, and we absolutely love them. We also have H's great-grandmother's 100+ year old Dutch Oven. It is fabulous. Our plan is to eventually have only Le Creuset and cast iron.

[icedtea]

I have one cast iron pan, but I haven't really used it yet. I need to understand more about the oiling/seasoning.

[wildflower810]

icedtea, I'm moving away from nonstick and going to cast iron. I have one large skillet so far. After I got it, I rinsed it, dried it, and coated it in oil and let it hang out in a warm oven for a few hours.

Now after each time it gets used, it gets "washed." Which means scrubbing it out with water, no soap. I then dry it (usually with paper towel) and lightly coat the whole thing in vegetable oil. Sometimes I let it sit on low heat on the stove, sometimes not. It's honestly pretty easy to clean because you can scrub as hard and long as you want... you aren't going to scratch iron!

The cons so far is that thing is freaking heavy! No easy lifting it up and dumping the contents into a baking dish! Also the whole thing gets hot, including the handle. That has taken some getting used to.

I've made roast beef in the cast iron three times now and ohmygosh. Sear it on all sides on the stove, then cover it in foil and put it in the oven. Take it out when done, remove the meat, and make your gravy with all the glorious drippings. I love how much juices I get and love not scraping tiny bits from one pan into the next.

[gabride2010]

icedtea The seasoning is pretty easy like wildflower810 said. You wash it (H and I occasionally use a tiny bit of soap in ours), we dry it with a dish towel, and then we rub olive oil all over the inside and outside. That's it!

The very first time you season it, you wash it, rub oil all over it, and let it sit in a warm/hot oven (200 degrees??) for a few hours. Even f you neglect one for a while, and it gets rust on it, you can scape it off, re-season it, and use it again.

If you want the benefits of cast iron without having to season it, then I would suggest Le Creuset or something equivalent (enamel coated cast iron).

[icedtea]

May 14, 2016 12:05:40 GMT -5 ugaqueencity said:

I have the basic Kitchen Aid mixer in a really cool textured charcoal color, I'm obsessed with it and love that I don't have to worry about finger prints. I also recommend most of the attachments. I have the ice cream maker, pasta maker, and meat grinder and I'm obsessed with them.

My food processor is meh and probably needs to be upgraded at some point so I'll be checking out the suggestions here

Yes! I really want the pasta maker. 

[MapleMomma]

I have a professional series KA with the lift bowl and love it. It's well abused.

The cuisinart 14 cup food processor is my go to for a zillion things

And caphalon stainless steel pots and pans. I love my big deep skillet.

[notagoddess]

We need to upgrade our old nonstick pots and pans since they are starting to die.

I want this set of Calphalon Contemporary nonstick cookware. They are dishwasher safe and have a lifetime guarantee.

[notagoddess]

I know real cooks stay away from nonstick but it's so freaking convenient. I can't lift a cast-iron skillet with one hand without hurting my wrist. And I hate having to soak and scrub stainless steel.

[Deleted]

I love my kitchen aid artisan series mixer. I've had it for about 7 yrs, and it has served me well. It is a tilt head model with a twist bowl, but it is not the base model. I make cookie dough, pizza dough and whip cream with it, so nothing too crazy heavy duty.

I just got my first food processor, and I love it. It's a basic black and decker model, but I don't rough it up too much so it works well enough for me. I've used it to crush cookies for icecream cake and also to make pie dough.

I love my stainless steel pots, along with a couple of non stick frying pans, and a cast iron pan for roasting small cuts of meat.

[ohinvrtedworld]

Kitchenaid mixer!! So mine is my parents from when they got married in 1987... So obviously they last forever, mine still works like a dream! Ours does get tired when kneading dough sometimes if it's really dense, so if you envision doing things like that fairly often, a heavy duty model would be good for you! I like ours being a lift bowl.

Our friends just got a Blendtec blender and they love it, it's the one I plan on upgrading to after this one.

We just got stainless steel pots and pans because they don't have any teflon (health choice), we went with Cuisinart but All-Clad is some of the very best. Calphalon too. We still have a cast iron skillet and a ceramic nonstick pan, but we love stainless steel. It's actually pretty easy to get stuck bits off by deglazing the pan. I just love not worrying about nonstick coating coming off anymore, these pots and pans will work fine until we just want to get new ones style-wise.

[Deleted]

I just had to go into the kitchen to see what brands my appliances are. Apparently, I like Kitchen Aid. I have a Kitchen Aid food processor (medium sized) and a toaster oven. I also have a Cuisinart blender.

Honestly, MH is the one that does most of the cooking, and i'd have to say that his Bonavita coffeemaker is his most coveted kitchen gadget. He is obsessed.

Now that I think about it my favorite cooking items are my Le Creuset bakeware. I mostly like them because they are blue.

Oh, I do have one other kitchen appliance that I highly recommend. It's my Black and Decker 2-slice toaster. It's white and matches nothing else in my kithen. I got it as a hand me down from my grandma about six years ago and it still works great. (Now that I sing its praises it will probably crap out on me tomorrow.)

[PepperPottsJ]

Not sure why I didn't toss this out there yesterday, but for traditional cast iron, Lodge. My enabled cookware is staub. My only explanation on how I'm a special snowflake with not liking le cruset, was color selections and a bad experience in their outlet.

[Deleted]

May 15, 2016 5:29:06 GMT -5 PepperPottsJ said:

Not sure why I didn't toss this out there yesterday, but for traditional cast iron, Lodge. My enabled cookware is staub. My only explanation on how I'm a special snowflake with not liking le cruset, was color selections and a bad experience in their outlet.

They discontinued the shade of blue I have. I was so mad.

[ironbaby]

This is random, but one of my most used kitchen items is a mandolin slicer I got at a trade show. I got sucked in to the guy's demonstration and bought everything he sold. Best decision ever. It's some German brand, and it's so versatile. I often use it instead of breaking out my food processor.

I have a Kitchen Aid Artisan stand mixer, and while I love it, I definitely use it enough and bake in enough quantity to need a bigger one. I'm eyeing the 6-quart.

[BabyStandish]

I want all these things. Curse you, Dave Ramsey. #doingthesnowball

[PepperPottsJ]

May 15, 2016 9:10:51 GMT -5 ugaqueencity said:

May 15, 2016 7:57:28 GMT -5 @wallflwr926 said:

They discontinued the shade of blue I have. I was so mad.

I got the Crate and Barrel specific blue color, I think it's called Ink, and now I'm kicking myself since they only make it in a couple pieces and I don't want to add a second color. I really like the new matte colors, but I'm worried they won't be around long

This was how I ended up with flat black from staub, and praise their goop Collab for the white pieces !!

[icedtea]

May 15, 2016 5:29:06 GMT -5 PepperPottsJ said:

Not sure why I didn't toss this out there yesterday, but for traditional cast iron, Lodge. My enabled cookware is staub. My only explanation on how I'm a special snowflake with not liking le cruset, was color selections and a bad experience in their outlet.

My one cast iron pan is from Lodge. I'll have to investigate the staub and le cruset. I've been awful about making sure we have quality pans. And I think I've ruined our knife set, so I'll have to look into that at some point.

[Deleted]

I love my Caphalon Tri-ply pots and pans. They have an aluminum core, stainless exterior which means even heat distribution. They are also oven safe, which wasn't a giant selling point when we initially registered for them but has been great since we started learning more cooking techniques recently.

Kitchen-Aides are the best, but you should definitely look at the different models in person to decide which one works the best for you. Before we got our current one for our wedding, I had my grandparents' old one from the late 60s, then I gave that one to my sister. It still works!

[MapleMomma]

May 17, 2016 13:48:36 GMT -5 @bonzo2012 said:

I love my Caphalon Tri-ply pots and pans. They have an aluminum core, stainless exterior which means even heat distribution. They are also oven safe, which wasn't a giant selling point when we initially registered for them but has been great since we started learning more cooking techniques recently.

Kitchen-Aides are the best, but you should definitely look at the different models in person to decide which one works the best for you. Before we got our current one for our wedding, I had my grandparents' old one from the late 60s, then I gave that one to my sister. It still works!

I think we have the same calphalon pans. I've got one in the oven right now. I'm so glad to be able to do that.

And my kitch aid is atleast 20 years old. It's a beast and still going strong. Well worth the investment.

[♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪]

May 15, 2016 11:25:33 GMT -5 icedtea said:

May 15, 2016 5:29:06 GMT -5 PepperPottsJ said:

Not sure why I didn't toss this out there yesterday, but for traditional cast iron, Lodge. My enabled cookware is staub. My only explanation on how I'm a special snowflake with not liking le cruset, was color selections and a bad experience in their outlet.

My one cast iron pan is from Lodge. I'll have to investigate the staub and le cruset. I've been awful about making sure we have quality pans. And I think I've ruined our knife set, so I'll have to look into that at some point.

I love my Cutco knives. But I know people have sooo many opinions on knives, so don't feel bad if you aren't interested. Haha.

[Deleted]

May 17, 2016 17:10:59 GMT -5 ♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪ said:

May 15, 2016 11:25:33 GMT -5 icedtea said:

My one cast iron pan is from Lodge. I'll have to investigate the staub and le cruset. I've been awful about making sure we have quality pans. And I think I've ruined our knife set, so I'll have to look into that at some point.

I love my Cutco knives. But I know people have sooo many opinions on knives, so don't feel bad if you aren't interested. Haha.

OMG I love my Cutco set! They're the only knives I'll use for carving meat now.

[PepperPottsJ]

♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪ and @bonzo2012, for some reason I have a serious issue spending money on knives, however I believe after some serious discussion and research cutco is the way to go, how did you come across them?

[ohinvrtedworld]

Ooh I've not heard of Cutco! Someday I can't wait to get new knives. I heard great things about Wusthof too.

[PirateCat]

May 17, 2016 17:10:59 GMT -5 ♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪ said:

May 15, 2016 11:25:33 GMT -5 icedtea said:

My one cast iron pan is from Lodge. I'll have to investigate the staub and le cruset. I've been awful about making sure we have quality pans. And I think I've ruined our knife set, so I'll have to look into that at some point.

I love my Cutco knives. But I know people have sooo many opinions on knives, so don't feel bad if you aren't interested. Haha.

I am terrified of Cutcos. I don't mind sharp knives but I think they are designed to look extra sharp and terrifying.

[♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪]

May 17, 2016 18:24:43 GMT -5 PepperPottsJ said:

♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪ and @bonzo2012, for some reason I have a serious issue spending money on knives, however I believe after some serious discussion and research cutco is the way to go, how did you come across them?

My mom and her sisters all have them, so I was kind of born into them (OMG, that is such a corny thing to say). They have always held up really well, and customer service appears to be really, really good (although I have not needed it since I got them).

[♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪]

May 17, 2016 18:47:30 GMT -5 PirateCat said:

May 17, 2016 17:10:59 GMT -5 ♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪ said:

I love my Cutco knives. But I know people have sooo many opinions on knives, so don't feel bad if you aren't interested. Haha.

I am terrified of Cutcos. I don't mind sharp knives but I think they are designed to look extra sharp and terrifying.

I can't imagine they are catering to thrill-seakers, so this may just be a fear of yours.

They are sharp, though. Which I love.