Some of My Favorite Kitchen Items

That's right, no fancy recipes today, just some pasta for dinner. Instead I want to share some of my biggest helpers in the kitchen. These items will help you with organization, storage, and efficiency when cooking. Some people will say that a lot of women in the world cook without any fancy gadgets, with very limited equipment. I know that and I respect that - ability to do a lot with very little is certainly admirable. But that is not my point here. None of the items below are so essential that you can't survive without them (we do go overnight camping into wilderness -  no cars, no electric outlets, just what we bring on our back! we do know minimalism!). What I am about to share here are nice-to-have extras in your kitchen for when you can afford to spend a few extra dollars and you can also afford some space to keep them, although some are meant to save you money in long run and others are meant to optimize your space usage - planning ahead and considering all scenarios does help. Despite their non-essential nature, once you have these items, you'll appreciate them and will wonder how rest of the world functions without them.

Brown sugar saver/softener

This is actually one of my most recent purchases for a solution to an age-old problem. You know how you buy that packet of brown sugar, and before you open it the first time, it is nice and soft? Then you open the packet, use whatever amount you need, which, unless you are making enough cookies to feed all the kids on your block, is never the whole bag, and no matter how tight you seal the bag, no matter which covered container you use to store the remainder (I use OXO pop-tops which are great! I will get to them later), that brown sugar will harden. And the next time you reach for that brown sugar, you have your work cut out for you to either soften it or carve the chunk that you need from the rock that it becomes. Enter brown sugar softener. I stumbled upon it on Amazon purely by accident, but given the description and reviews  I decided to give it a try. It is simply a piece of terra cotta pottery that you wet and then add to the brown sugar and it works! Here's the link: click here. Instructions stated to soak the piece for 15 mins in water, then add to the sugar in a air-tight sealed container.

I let it stand overnight and the next day I checked on the sugar, and it was actually soft! I love this!

(before - I leaned the container on the side to demonstrate the the sugar inside was in a solid state)

(after - I again leaned contained on the side to demonstrate that now sugar is no longer rock solid, yay!)

Product is supposed to keep sugar soft for 3 month, it is also reusable. And I do like the various designs of the pieces. Under $10 it is a great bargain for your kitchen.

OXO pop-tops containers

Where to begin? First of all, OXO brand is really great - they make durable, well-designed kitchen gadgets for almost everything. But today I want to talk about their pop-top storage containers only. I think we bought first few containers to store some Indian snacks.

Containers are clear, so you can see what is inside. Plastic is durable, but if you knock it hard enough (such as dropping from height onto a hard floor), container will crack, so don't drop it. I love the air-tight seal lids. We live in very dry climate, so air-tight seal certainly is a good thing. It will come in handy if you live in a humid climate just as much. But my most favorite feature of these containers is that they are square. This allows you to make the most of the space in you pantry or cabinets. If you are using round containers to store your grains, pasta, spices, other dried foods (I did!), have a look at them and just how much space is being lost in between! These containers are square/rectangular and come in variety of sizes and are stackable.

If you want to try them out, I suggest you buy a 10 piece set - it contains various sizes and is a very good value. Once upon a time Amazon was selling the set for just under $70, but now upped the price to just under $100, which is the same price you'll find this set at both Williams Sonoma and Crate and Barrel. Here are the links: Amazon, Williams Sonoma, Crate and Barrel. I was lucky enough to snatch two sets on Amazon when they were at the lower price, and then I purchased a number of various sizes open stock to match my needs. I have quite a lot of these bad boys in my kitchen and pantry now.

I use them for spices.

Pastas, lentils, flours.

Other various dry foods.

I do add my own hand-written labels to the containers (hand-written because labels are in English and then some other more exotic tongues), but I believe a regular label-maker can be used just as well.

Tovolo silicon ice cube trays

Quite often for the kind of dishes that I make I need certain pastes or sauces that can be made ahead, in larger quantity, and stored ahead. It certainly is a big time saver to prepare a big batch of something like garlic-ginger paste, freeze it, and then use it in cooking for many dishes. If you prepare sauce and you intend to use it within a few days or a week at most, it is OK to keep sauce in refrigerator. You do not need to freeze it. If you however made quantity large enough for a month worth of preparations or you do not intend to reuse the sauce anytime soon, it needs to be frozen. Now, if you have ever made some sauce or paste, then put it in the freezer and then next time you need it and you take it out, it is frozen solid, and your choices are either to thaw out the whole thing or start carving and sawing to get the amount you need. A simple and obvious solution is to freeze in portions.

I found these silicon ice cube trays that are the best to use for this task. Silicon is such a wonderful material for so many things in the kitchen. One wonderful quality that is most helpful here is that it is non-stick, naturally. The trays that I chose are by Tovolo and come in at least two sizes. Bigger cube tray makes 6 cubes of almost 2 inches (actually 1 7/8" to be exact) wide and almost 4 ounces by volume. Smaller cube tray makes 15 cubes of 1 1/4" inch wide and 1.5 ounces by volume. Very convenient.

Because of flexibility of silicon, it is very easy to get the frozen cubes out.

And these trays also make perfect cubes of ice too, if all you want is ice.

You can purchase these on Amazon: larger cubes, smaller cubes. Some may be eligible for 4-for-3 promotion.

Assorted glass mixing bowls

And last, but not least, that I will share with you today are glass mixing bowls. If you've read my previous blogs where I describe what I cook in detail, you must have noticed that I get all my ingredients ready before I start cooking. Several years ago, back when we were living in New Jersey, I saw this 10 piece set of glass bowls on sale at Williams Sonoma outlet (so it was a sale on outlet price - what a deal!) in Woodbury Commons. Unfortunately WS outlet closed at that location (there were some great deals there), and there are also none here in Colorado. But, back to the bowls. What a great purchase it was! I never knew I needed them, but now I can't live without them. It is very convenient to store cut vegetables, spices, other ingredients, before you use them in cooking. Round bowl shape is of course also good for mixing. If what you are cooking requires addition of various ingredients every one, two, three minutes, i.e. amount of time not enough to get your ingredient ready, cleaned, cut, measured, etc, you need these! Available at Williams Sonoma online: click here.

These bowls are very durable - none got broken during our move from NJ to CO and they survived several years of regular usage already. The ten bowls that come in the set are one of each size and vary from very large to tiny. They fit one into another perfectly for storage like a set of Russian dolls. These bowls are made of glass, so all 10 together do get a bit heavy. I was amused reading one of the reviews of this set on Williams Sonoma website - reviewer was dissatisfied with having to lift 9 bowls to get to the largest. I think a bit of common sense is needed to resolve such a situation. Let's face it - your usage of the smallest bowl (1.25 oz) and largest bowl (4.5 qt) will be very different, so separate your bowls. No, do not store each individual one separately on the shelf, but do break them up in group. I have my large and medium bowls in one stack, my medium small ones in another, and smallest in another stack. I get most use out of medium and medium-small bowls, so it makes sense to store mediums inside the large ones to save space - I really don't mind lifting that stack occasionally to get the largest bowl, it doesn't happen that often. I do have to mention that I have also bought a 8-piece set which contains 4 of each 5.5oz and 12 oz bowls (click here for this set). So my stacks are getting tall.

You might wonder why I use glass - it is heavy and it can break, unlike plastic or metal. Certain plastics and metals can react with certain foods and that is something to avoid. Glass won't react with any food you put in it, glass is very easy to clean, and it won't stain from any kind of food or spices (for example turmeric).

Just recently I purchased a 15 piece set on Amazon (click here) - same 10 bowls as in the set from Williams Sonoma and 5 plastic lids to fit five of the bowls of various sizes. I think having lids is a great idea, because sometimes I want to keep the ingredients covered, for example when I want to marinate my protein for a few hours. Before getting this last set I would use cling wrap, but that is a one time use and I would have to throw that piece of plastic out. Lids are a more sustainable, environmentally-conscious way to achieve the same task.

I do not use these same bowls to store any foods in refrigerator. Rememeber what I said about space saving and circle vs square? If you want a more efficient glassware for storage, stay tuned. I have some good finds for this function as well.

Until next time, happy adventures in your kitchen!