Favorite Kitchen Things

I’m not one to run out and shop today. It’s more about knitting by the fire, playing games, and putting away all the special things we used yesterday. And of course, leftovers.

And this post isn’t meant to spur any of you to rush out shopping today, or any day really. But there are some essential kitchen cookbooks and utensils we can’t live without, and today feels like a good day to share all of them with you.

Cookbooks

We have 3 main cookbooks from which we cook. I reach for a cookbook before the internet.

Joy of Cooking, the newest edition (2019)

This book has been revamped by the great grandson and his partner. They have added amazing recipes like kimchi fried rice and really updated the book with some amazing recipes. It’s where I go first when I want to make something I’ve never made like tamales (the recipe is a hit, by the way).

We use it for cakes (genoa, white, devil’s food, olive oil), ice cream (chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, coffee), and crepes. It has plenty of amazing savory dishes too and we use it for baba ganoush, fattoush, basic salad dressings, butternut ravioli, beans, and for learning new methods like caramelized onions (half butter, half olive oil is the key to good browning I’ve recently learned!). This is also where I started from when I developed my ketchup recipe! It really is an amazing resource.

If you only want one cookbook in your kitchen, this one is it. It covers American and ethnic cuisine, and has an extensive baking section too.

The Best Recipe This is a Cooks Illustrated cookbook and is pretty extensively dog-eared and stained. It’s where I go for my yellow cake, northern cornbread, pancakes, waffles, mac n cheese, beef stew, barbequed ribs, and other meat dishes. We were Cooks Illustrated subscribers for about 10 years before we felt all the recipes were started to repeat themselves, at which point we canceled our subscription. We still have many of those magazines too, and one year’s turkey edition remains the method for John to prepare our bird every Thanksgiving.

How to Cook Everything (we have the 1998 edition, purchased used)

This is one of Mark Bittman’s many incredible books. Like Joy, it covers all aspects of cooking and baking, though not as exhaustively. We don’t use it, though it’s definitely one I reach for less often than the other two. We follow his chili con carne, bolognese, and I modify his braised cauliflower. Like Joy, this has a lot of methods in it for learning how to cook.

Here’s a link to the cookbook titles on my Amazon storefront (they aren’t all available as some are older versions currently out of print).

Kitchen Utensils

A few can’t live without items in our kitchen include:

• fish flipper (once you have one, you won’t want to live without it!)

• microplaner (I use it for ginger and garlic mostly, but also spices)

• swivel peeler (ours is an older All Clad version, and I’m only seeing them on eBay)

• ricer (potatoes, pumpkin, ketchup, tomatoes — a frequently used gadget)

• vitamix (we use it multiple times a day)

• dry mill (for vitamix) (for blending spices, grinding corn)

• kitchenaid stand mixer (from sourdough to pulled meats to candy to cakes)

• salad spinner (it’s where I keep my salad greens fresh in spring and summer)

• apple peeler (with our orchard, having a reliable apple peeler and corer is essential. Weekend baked goods are a fall tradition.)

Here is a link to my Amazon storefront Kitchen Utensils list.