Most useless appliance in the house (a vote)

Smoothie maker. We bought it thinking we could use it to make Blizzard type ice cream treats. It sucked and hasn’t been used since.

As a single guy living with two other guys, I say: The Iron

I really ment major appliances, but this is OK too.

The biggest advantage of a central vac system is that you don’t spew dust back into the air, it gets exhausted outside (just though you needed this info).

Ahhh. . . let me guess, you’ve got municipal garbage or you live in an appartment, perhaps?

Where I live, we have to pay a company to collect our trash, and they charge by volume. Lots of people around here have trash compactors, which can really save money over time.

We have a smoothie machine that’s pretty damn useless. Also an electric coin sorter.

(I also haven’t used our iron in years, despite being a woman with an office job. I love Silicon Valley)

Actually quite the opposite, many people around here seperate their garbage and burn the stuff they are allowed. I don’t know anyone around here who has a compactor.

Anyone who has smoothie machines and hates them, can one of you give it to me? I’d make really good use out of it! :slight_smile:

Electric can opener. I don’t know why we have one, I’ve never used it.

I assumed (correctly) that the OP meant major appliances that are actually common and used once in a while. That ups the ante a bit. I was trying not to cheat and vote for that broken wok in my closet.

Of the major, common appliances I vote out the oven. I don’t actually hate the oven. It just seems less useful than same the refridgerator or even the microwave.

I’m another one going for the can-opener.

Of course, that’s in part because I don’t have a dishwasher, trash compactor, in-sink garbage disposal, nor an ice cream machine.

I do have a blender, a bread machine, and a steamer (multi-purpose - it does veggies, and rice, as needed.) but I use those all. Some more than others, of course, but they’ve all been used this year.

And I want a deep fryer. I shouldn’t have one. I know this. But I want one. Tempura… battered fried shrooms… pizza bites… wonton… (drool)

And those of you who don’t love your ovens - how do you bake bread, then? Or chicken, or pizza?

My nomination: I have a sandwich press on the shelf in the corner of the kitchen. Never even been out of the box.

What kind is it? Can I have it? I do a fair amount of immersion frying, using a variety of improvised deep pans and pots. I’d use an actual deep fryer at least once a week.

You are quite the do-it-yourselfer I see. Not me. People that come to my house may bake but I sure don’t. You might as well have told me that you make all your own clothes too.

Do cassette decks count? I have five of them in this room, collecting dust. I’ve used the one connected to the stereo system two or three times this year. The three hundred or so tapes I’ve made in the past are also useless - I’ve got 99% of that music replaced on CD.

I’ve got my own culture of San Francisco sourdough, and make pizza dough for freezing so it’s ready when I want it. I like cooking, and as a freelance writer, I have the time to do that while I work. So I indulge myself.

But I wouldn’t make my own clothes. That’s no fun.

Now if only I could get a cabana girl to live with me and clean up the dishes I dirty. :smiley:

I’d never part willingly from my dishwasher. Nor any other appliance I can think of. I guess the least necessary is the electric can opener, because my arthritis has not affected my hands. I use the blender not for fancy drinks but for things like chopping onions. When I’m making meatloaf, I put into the blender chunks of onion, an egg, whatever liquid I’m planning to use, and blend it all up. It can also be used to render dry bread into breadcrumbs.

I like waffles made from scratch much better than the frozen ones, so I “need” the waffle iron.

I’ve never bought any specialty cookers like sandwich presses or vegetable steamers, though. I have a little insert that fits into a saucepan to steam vegetables just fine without the need for a separate appliance.

I’m surprised someone above mentioned dissatisfaction with their ice cream maker. My parents had a basic Sears model that must have been 1960s vintage which they never used. I dug it out of a closet one summer when I was in high school and…made some truly awesome ice cream the first time out of the box. I followed up with a couple other batches which also came out great, better than we could buy at any of the stores near us at the time.

Really, as long as you have a decent recipe and quality ingredients it is no big trick to make good ice cream. I have to admit I never tried to make frogurt though.
I agree with Shagnasty, if I had to get rid of a major kitchen appliance it would be the oven. We use it, but much less than we use the stovetop, dishwasher or microwave. We have a food processor I never use (I find it to be a bitch to clean and I like the results I get chopping stuff with my big-ass cleaver) and a blender that is rarely used. Someone gave us a juicer when we were married (which we didn’t ask for). We ended up re-gifting it.

You know, there is no appliance that we don’t use. The food processor gets used several times a week for bread kneading and cheese shredding. The oven is also in constant use for nachos and bread. The microwave makes soup. The Forman grill makes all of bf’s meat. The dishwasher cleans everything up.

And the fondue pot…

Thats it! The fondue pot. Despite my best intentions, I almost never use the fondue pot.

In the land of small appliances, I second the vote for rice cooker. Rice can be cooked perfectly well in an ordinary pot. Why a specialized device was invented that only cooks one thing is beyond me. That’s like making a machine that does nothing but cooks hotdogs, or steams carrots but no other vegetable.

Food processors are also next to worthless because I already have a cheese grater. And using two cleavers to chop and mince, beats the heck out of having to assemble a machine, then disassemble and clean out all the little nooks & crannies where food got stuck. It takes ten seconds to clean a couple of chopping cleavers.

Don’t shake that box under the Christmas tree too hard.

It’s definitely the dishwasher for me… and add me to the pile of people who would love to have regular access to a deep fryer or bread maker.

You, like, can’t be serious :smiley:

In my house, we have no automatic dishwasher (ours is my husband), no trash compactor, no rice cooker (I have a plastic microwaveable thing for rice since I seem completely unable to make it properly in a pot), no iced tea maker, no ice cream maker, no deep fryer, no waffle iron, no sandwich maker, no food processor, no electric griddle or grill, no electric can opener… hmm. Maybe I should list what I do have that’s electric and work from there.

Stove, refrigerator, microwave, 2 slow cookers (one 3 quart, one ~8 quart), hand mixer (with beaters, dough hooks, processor-style chopper, and immersion blender attachments), blender, bread maker, hot pot (for boiling water), coffee maker/grinder combo, toaster, electric carving knife, and (qualifies since I use it in “cooking” - brewing - and in the kitchen) a Fermwrap “heating pad” plug-in wrap for keeping a carboy warm.

Out of those, the electric carving knife wins hands down. I think it came with a rack intended to put bread machine loaves in, so that you could slice them as thinly or thickly as you want. After that, the blender. I prefer the immersion blender for when I do need something pureed - typically I only blend things in situations that the immersion blender works in, like making cream-consistency soups.