My Favorite Kitchen Tools
As I've gotten more and more into cooking I have found specific tools to be extremely helpful in making the cooking process a little bit less time consuming! Thanks to my mom, I have found several tools that I can no longer live without in the kitchen! Now I'd like to share those tools with you, so that your time spent in the kitchen can be made a little easier too!
Collapsable Salad Spinner: A salad spinner is a great tool to dry your lettuce after you wash it. Who wants a soggy salad? :P Plus, the fact it's collapsable is AMAZING. It makes it so much easier to store.
Needle Nose Pliers: These are a LIFE saver when it comes to having to remove the bones from salmon. They successfully yank them right out. Sure, you can bake your salmon and remove the bones as you eat it... but what if you're cooking for other people? Do you want them to get a bite of bone in their delicious piece of salmon?
Cookie dough scoop: These are great to use for just about anything where you want a uniform size! So I not only use these for cookies, but also for energy bites, homemade burger patties, meatballs, or even my chicken nuggets! These are especially nice when working with raw meat, because I can just scoop and release onto a plate or tray, and then flatten with the back of the scoop (if making burgers) without getting my hands all icky!
Garlic press: Ever mince fresh garlic, had a hard time cutting it small enough, and have smelly garlic fingers for the rest of the day.... no matter how many times you washed your hands? No? Just me? Well, IF YOU HAVE... I have a solution for you! The garlic press is AWESOME. This one in particular, allows for me to stick in a fresh garlic clove (with skin on), squeeze the handles and WA LA I have garlic minced to perfection, and no smelly fingers!!!
Silicone bottom ice cube tray: This ice cube tray has silicone bottoms. Silicone being especially nice because stuff doesn't get stuck to it, and it's easy to clean. I love to freeze left over pumpkin puree for smoothies,, tomato sauce, homemade pesto, and more in these trays! The little ice cube slots are the perfect single serving size. I freeze in the tray, and then remove and store in a plastic bag and then use the cubes as needed in my cooking!