Whats the most useless kitchen item you`ve bought?

prepareathome

I have had a few things in the kitchen I ended up giving away

Vacuum sealer - I bought this about 6 years ago as wanted to vs some things to go into freezer to take up less space but I cannot understand how to use it and everyone I have asked agrees instructions are hopeless, so it sits there in the hope I find someone who actually has one and uses it and can tell me how to use mine.

One note about the slow cookers I have found you have to not let food cook to long in them or you do get everything tasting the same. I tend to put meat in frozen ( not chicken) and then can leave it on all day knowing it will be perfect at mealtime - I rarely use the high setting. Chicken after about 4 hrs I tend to keep checking and minute its done out it comes. I adore mine - I have two - and use the nearly every day and no one complains all my food tastes the same, and ready meals are something that in all my 31 years marriage I have never bought, a bought pizza is the only thing I keep in for hubby for certain times when I cannot cook for him.

terra_ferma

Love this thread!
My OH would have a couple of things to add...
When I got to have something I can't be stopped!

About 3-4 years ago (had more money and less sense than I have now..:o) I bought the largest magimix, that can do all sorts of things and comes with '00s of attachments...
very exciting until I realised that it takes more time to clean it than to do things the old fashioned way, as we are a small family.
I've used it probably 3 times, it's so big that its parts are very awkward to clean, the bowl is huge.

Another gadget which I use, but I went OTT with, was my handheld mixer, I wanted the same brand I had before, which they stopped selling in the UK. I found all the new ones on sale too bulky, compared to the old one. I ended up buying it from ebay.de, thinking it would be similar to the old one I had, but when it came it was huge, too big, and with lots of attchments I've never used...

But the best gadget, highly recommended is a Kenwood Intellichef (there are a couple of other versions, one was from QVC I believe), it's a rice/pasta cooker, slow cooker, steamer, but you can also shallow fry food (handy so you can brown meat/soften onions before you use the slow cooker), and it has a stew program which I use all the time.
I use this practically every day, it's fantastic, easy to clean, saving money (and washing up time) on pots and pans, and not having to clean the gas hob either!

The other one I love is a large GF grill, fantastic, the food tastes really good, in particular grilled chicken marinated in olive oil/ginger/lemon etc.

blackandwhitebunny

My most useless gadget was a fancy slicer thing. It was a disk with a hole in the middle and a series of blades that slid into the hole and cut things into a fancy waterlily shape. You had to take it apart to clean it and having used it once I could never get the blades to syncronise and so after one use it was useless and I'm not too sure where its got to.
I find the microwave very useful as somewhere to put defrosting meat where the cats can't get it

LondonDreamer

Norma_Desmond wrote: »

I've got 3 different gadgets bought over a number of years for making the 'perfect' poached egg.

None of them do, and they make a terrible mess into the bargain.

Stuff it - I've just decided to never attempt poached eggs again.

Use the cling film method. It's brilliant.

Swan wrote: »

I've had a few but the worst was a slow cooker, which is only just about OK for making soup, but a pressure cooker is way better

I was inspired to buy it by the OS forum ... disclaimer, I do not intend to sue ... but everything cooked in it tastes like ready meals or institution food _pale_

& just don't get me started on 'roast' chicken done in it, falling off the bone??? no ... vile, slimy, tasteless slop, not to mention the disgusting smell in your home

anyway, I 'gifted' it to my Ex husband

I have to agree with this, sorry OS as a general whole! Made a few things. Gammon was OK, but couldn't stand the texture of the chicken and the bolognese was tasteless compared to my normal method. Gave it away to a friend who loves it.

So for me, definitely the slow cooker.

ETA: Followed closely by the meat slicer. I have a very good chef's knife, and the pain of cleaning the slicer isn't worth the slightly thinner slices it can make. I tend to shred meat more than slice it anyway. I still have that one though, will be the next to go once I find a new home for it.

PixieDust

V slicer (still in cupboard)
Candy Floss Maker (still in cupboard because Mum bought it and the bl00dy thing won't break and she asks about it occasionally)
Slow Cooker (chucked out)
Pressure Cooker (also lobbed)

we are looking everywhere for a CHEAP milk/hot choc frother :S

morganlefay

Slow cooker.
I am a good cook but everything tasted the same (and disgusting) in it, and it filled the house with its nasty chemical smell all day. Yeuch.
(Give me a Remoska and a KR pressure cooker any day)

angeltreats

PixieDust wrote: »

we are looking everywhere for a CHEAP milk/hot choc frother :S

Just use a cafetiere! Heat up milk, pump it up and down a few times with the plunger, froths it up perfectly. I drink espresso myself but like to be able to do a cappuccino for visitors and I find this works much better than the little battery operated frothers you get.

Re the slow cooker, I'm not a huge fan of ours but I do like it for cooking gammon, and it's great for keeping the mulled wine warm at Christmas :T

PixieDust

hmmm...you could have something there.......we do have a cafetiere gathering dust in the cupboard. Now, to decide whether I can be bothered washing it out when DS wants a frothy hot chocolate

Alison_Funnell

Nicer dicer (yeah I know!) absolutely useless after a few uses, same with a similar slicer that I bought at the same time. TBH I tend to avoid JML products completely now.

Slow cookers - I do use then for stock, cooking beetroot and cooking vast batches of apples in season. Hate meat and veg cooking in it.

My Kenwood food processor - my old and sadly dead one was far better than it modern equivalent.

Jam cooker - everything cooked in it doesn't store at all and goes mouldy really quickly.

Swan_2

PixieDust wrote: »

hmmm...you could have something there.......we do have a cafetiere gathering dust in the cupboard. Now, to decide whether I can be bothered washing it out when DS wants a frothy hot chocolate

I bought a 'gadget' for making frothy hot chocolate a couple of years back, it looks like a china coffee pot, but is a cafetiere inside LINK

I got it for less than £15, which is just as well because I've never gotten round to using it it just sits around looking pretty :rotfl: