cooking appliances

[cdxx]

i've thinking about eating better and that means cooking more at home. i have a pasta pot, a nice omelet pan, a rice cooker, a teapot, but that's about it. i need to expand the arsenal if i am to get serious about it.

any suggestions? i've been watching the infomercial for Magic Bullet (http://buythebullet.com) which seems like it would be very useful. i've also always wanted to get that rotisserie grill.

anyone have those? are they good? what else do i need to take my cooking past the basics and into the essentials?

[deacsoft]

The Foreman Grill is awesome.

[Onaflag]

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The Foreman Grill is awesome.

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Make sure you get the one with the removable grills. Also, the George Foreman rotisserie is great.

Onaflag.........

[cdxx]

yeah, lived in a house with one. but i don't cook that much steak/burgers. i'm probably misinformed. so what kind of meals do you cook on your foreman?

[deacsoft]

I don't cook at all but the girlfriend does. Mostly burgers and such on the Foreman. If you don't eat them often it would probably be a waste.

[HDPM]

The older I get the more I seem to find that the things I use are simple and often expensive. I have been cooking more and don't seem to use some of the gadgets we have around. Do not get too much specialized stuff. No foreman grill. Instead of the foreman grill I recommend the cuisinart pannini press and griddle combo. I like pannini and I have actually used the thing for something other than pannini because it is a griddle and gives you some more cooking space. Not the best griddle out there tho.

Get three good knives. Big, medium, small. I have seen packages recently that have exactly this. The Global one looked pretty good. I like my global knife.

I cheat and use a garlic thing. The Zyliss one. I can use the knife, but I have found I'd rather cheat and use the fast thing. Works well for how I use garlic a lot.

Good pans seem to work better than cheap. Problem is they aren't cheap. We are slowly increasing our collection of good pans.

Get an 8 quart 4 piece pasta/steamer set. I like it for pasta and steaming with it works a lot better than the stand alone steaming machine someone gave us for a wedding present and we used too long.

Overall I think it boils down to spending on good quality stuff rather than having a lot of gadgets. You won't use the rotisserie/foreman grill/gadget du jour enough IMO and it will clutter your kitchen.