Kitchen Tools I Couldn't Do Without

Since joining Fair Shares and eating locally grown/produced food, I have had to change some of my cooking habits. I have always loved to cook, but I also love convenience. For example, I usually bought bags of salad, pre-chopped garlic in jars, and have even been known to buy a pre-chopped onion for a recipe. Those days are gone. When we get our weekly share fromFair Shares there is a little more work prepping the food, but I find with the right tools it doesn't take much longer, and I know it is worth it. The funny thing is I already owned most of these kitchen tools, but hadn't used them in awhile. It's nice to get use out of those things taking up space in my cabinets.

Here are my most used go-tos:

Hand Held Cheese Grater

I used to buy bags of pre-shredded cheese for pizza, tacos, potatoes, everything. Now I am getting blocks of cheese from Heatland Creamery and Ropp Jersey Cheese so I need an easy way to shred it.

I love using this gadget. I cut a hunk of cheese drop it into the well, squeeze the handle with my left hand and turn the grater wheel with my right. I can shred the cheese directly onto pizzas, salads, or into a measuring cup for a specific amount for a recipe. It is also easy to clean. It comes apart and goes in the dishwasher.

Pampered Chef Garlic Press

This is wonderful. You can drop in a clove of garlic, with the peel on, and it will crush the garlic through, leaving the peel in the press. We have been getting wonderful locally grown garlic from Roundabout Farms.

This press is also dishwasher safe.

OXO Salad Spinner

This is a kitchen tool I

had to buy. I had a salad spinner years ago, but since the introduction of bagged salads I wasn't using it and got rid of it, which was probably good. It was cheaply made and was falling apart. I love my new OXO salad spinner. The bowl is a solid plastic and the spinning bowl can be stopped mid spin to allow the lettuce and greens to rearrange in the basket before re-spinning. It definitely gets out more of the water. I use it for all the various lettuces we get, as well as the greens and bok choi. I've found I can put a couple of handfuls of greens in the bowl, fill with water, agitate the water with my hands to get off the dirt, then pour the greens into the basket to spin. I then lay the cleaned greens out on a dishtowel and start the next handful. After everything is washed and thoroughly dry I put the greens in my green bags, which is my last and probably favorite Kitchen tool I couldn't do without.

Green Bags

I use these bags religiously and have had great luck. Lettuce, celery, greens, even cut cucumbers last longer. The trick is making sure the produce is dry before putting the items in the bag. I have not used them for tomatoes, because tomatoes need to be played on a counter without bags. I have used them for apples, pears, and various greens when keeping them in the refrigerator.