This thread was inspired by the “Useless kitchen gadgets” thread. I don’t have any truly useless kitchen gadgets. My kitchen is so cramped for space that if it’s useless, it gets thrown out.
What I really hate are the kitchen gadgets that have only one use, but they do that one thing really well, so I’m compelled to keep 'em even though they take up a pile of space in the cupboard.
#1 on this list is the hand blender. The real blender makes smoothies smoother & faster, purees soup better, etc. etc. But the one thing that the hand blender does really really well is puree tomatoes. 99% of the time I want diced tomatoes, so that’s what I buy - cans of diced tomatoes. But every once in a while, I need tomato puree. Open can of diced tomatos, insert hand blender, voila, tomato puree. Much easier than setting up the blender, and it works pretty well. I’ll never get rid of it for this one reason.
Hmmm…almost useless kitchen gadgets? I gotta go with lemon zester. Yes, I use it. How often? Once a month, maybe twice. Lord help me I just don’t zest a lot of lemons.
You use your lemon zester every month?? Man, it’s a busy year when I zest more than 2 or 3 lemons. Wow.
My almost useless gadget(s) would be the huge variety of baking pans that I have inherited from various sources. I don’t want to get rid of them–who knows, one day I might need to bake 3 Bundt cakes at once or a star-shaped torte–but I almost never use the damn things!
[snff] I just parted with one of my AUKGs: a Toastmaster waffle iron I inherited from my grandmother; it was a wedding present to her in 1934. Very cool heavy chrome, octagonal base with a round iron, and the niftiest faceted “ready” light that you could almost read by. But it took up too much room, and an E-bay search revealed a value of all of 30 bucks, and y’know, I haven’t used it even once. I only remember Gramma using it 3 or 4 times. So off to Housing Works it went.
After that - hmm. I have lots of one-use gadgets (garlic press, potato nails, trussing needles), but they’re small so they cause no offense. When you only have 45 sq. feet of kitchen, anything big’s gotta multitask, y’know?
Oh, and I don’t own a lemon zester. I use Boyajian’s Pure Lemon Oil instead. Much less fuss.
We have this old clove grinder. It’s kind of pretty, but don’t think we have ever actually used it. My mom swears that she used a while ago, but I don’t know what for. I think she just likes the way it looks, besides you never know when you are going to need a clove grinder. I have many memories of playing with the crank on that old thing. [sub] shh, don’t tell mom[/sub]
I regret having bought a deep fryer. I could use an ordinary pan in a pinch, and I have a suspicion that the fryer doesn’t get as hot as it’s supposed to.