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Vita Mix, without question. I just finished some great carrot soup that I made this afternoon in the Vita Mix.
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Slow Cooker/Crock Pot.
Most used appliance is probably my rice cooker, which I also use for steaming whatever needs to be steamed (veggies, dumplings, tamales, etc).
Most beloved appliance would be my toaster that simultaneously cooks an egg so you can make an egg mcMuffin all in one go. (there’s even a tray for heating cooked ham/sausage off the steam from the egg).
Man, that’s tough. If we’re going for appliance-not-tool, then (skipping the fridge and the gas stove) it’s a tie between my Braun Multi-Mix 4-in-1 hand mixer (for the immersion blender and mini-chopper attachments) and my KitchenAid stand mixer. The stand mixer wins on the beloved scale, the Multi-Mix on how often it’s used.
Am I the first person to name the stove? Ultimately, all cooking comes down to the stove or the oven, and I much prefer being able to continually watch, sample, and adjust as I’m cooking, so the stove beats out the oven for me.
Yeah, I have a waffle iron, but I hardly ever go to the trouble of making them, and a mixer, but I could do the same job (albeit slower) with a fork and muscle power, and a microwave, but I mostly just use it as an oversized timer. But the stove, I do everything on the stove.
I almost named my stove.
I’ve got a 15-year-old dual-fuel convection oven Dacor that I’ve hauled with me from Colorado to Michigan, and is now in the third home I’ve lived in with it. It’s funny how people seem to think you can’t bring your stove with you when you move. I spent a lot of cash on it when I bought it initially, and the hell if I’m going to drop another $3-$4K every time I move to buy a new one.
It’s getting old; the front faceplate is cracked. It doesn’t match our other appliances. One of the burners refuses to self-light even though I’ve had it repaired several times. But I know its ins & outs, I know how to adjust the oven heat to accommodate recipes written without convection in mind.
I do wish it had hotter burners and a really powerful fan/hood. But I can cook wonders with it. I’m keeping it until it or me dies, I think.
I think the OP is looking for what’s usually labelled “small kitchen appliances”, which is pretty much anything that plugs in and isn’t a fridge/stove.
Otherwise, the fridge and stove would be #1 and #2 (not necessarily in that order), since they’re pretty much essential for the modern-day cook. I mean, sure, I’m perfectly capable of cooking in a firepit when necessary (as evidenced by my bad-ass grilling skills), but it’s a very limited cooking method. And don’t get me started on what a pain it is to keep food fresh without proper refrigeration.
Anyway, if we exclude the obvious two, the one kitchen appliance I’d never give up is my ice cream maker. We’ve been making our own ice cream for the past couple of years, and I absolutely refuse to touch store-bought stuff now that I know what real ice cream is supposed to taste like.
Ferret Herder - I have a Braun Multi-mix, too. Very useful! These last few months while my dog Grace was so sick, I was making her eggs scrambled with sour cream for breakfast. The chopper tool blended everything to creamy perfection, and I used it to mince chicken livers to add to the eggs after microwaving them. That 400 or so calories was sometimes the only thing I could get her to eat.
My stand mixer is a Bosch Universal. I love it. I unfortunately took apart my cheaper Bosch Compact and couldn’t get it back together. That was a great stand mixer that folded up and had lots of good attachments.
StG
I have nothing fancy, but I do love my big crock pot because I use it almost every week.
I have a nice food processor but I rarely use it. I do enjoy it in late for grinding pecans into meal for baking. I don’t even think I’ve used it since last year.
Every time I read a reply on this thread, I think, “Oh, yeah! I couldn’t live without that either!” I never realized what an appliance and kitchen tool junkie I am. I really adore my Wustoff knives. I’ve just got three - one that looks almost like a cleaver, a smaller one that’s multipurpose and a really large one that is so sharp I once chopped part of my finger off with it (don’t ever try to cut a chunk of chocolate if you have an eye swollen shut). Despite our torrid history, I love that knife.
Cuisinart Coffee maker. I put the whole beans in a compartment, water in another and 10 minutes later ,very good coffee. Easy to use and can not screw it up.
My crock pot and my new stove. It’s a stove with a cook top, but has a double oven. It has a small upper oven and a large lower one. I use the upper almost exclusively and it holds so much!
It’s hard to choose. But I think from a standpoint of pure chemical addiction, I’d have to say my Mazzer Mini burr grinder and my Rancilio Silvia espresso machine. I’d grieve if my rice cooker or my stick blender were taken away, but I’d go nucking futs if I couldn’t pull myself shots of espresso every morning.
Stove, or, for smaller appliances, my KitchenAid stand mixer. Named Matilda. I love Matilda.
After that, probably crockpot. I use it a couple of times a week, rice cooker only gets used once a week or so.