Must have kitchen gadgets

CRANKY40

My breadmaker, but not in the usual way. I quite often call in to see my friends on a Sunday afternoon and used to take them a bottle of wine.....until I discovered how much they like my BM bread! They're like the Bisto kids now when I show up :rotfl:It's cheating a bit as the BM makes it not me....

I'm another dustpan and brush user too.

LJM

i recycle all my jars papers and food scraps,i only boil the kettle with amount of water needed.if im cold during the day whilst my girls are at school ill put my dressing gown on instead of heating.i tend to make alot of my meals from scratch,make homemade bread/cakes biscuits etc instead of shop bought,plus i find it relaxing.we have the hot water bottles,my cleaning products have changed i use alot of bicarb/borax/stardrops etc rather than those filled with a lot of chemicals.

EssexHebridean

I'm another with a dustpan and brush - invaluable for the kitchen floor. Rather than lighting all the lamps in the front room we now use one with a low energy bulb and then light candles on the mantlepiece to add a nicer light. We rarely use the immersion heater at the weekends either - for what little properly hot water we need we boil a kettle - for washing up for instance. I wouldn't be without my breadmaker or slow cooker, but then on the other end of the (totally non OS) scale I wouldn't be without my dishwasher either! :rotfl:

Penelope_Penguin

Lalaladybird wrote: »

What OS items around the house help you to save money?

I started using my teapot again yesterday because I always want a 2nd cup of tea and was reboiling the kettle and using another teabag (tut, tut, tut ). It got me wondering what other OS things I could use

As this has fallen from the front page of OS, I'll add it to an exisitng thread on saving in the kitchen

Oh, and I always make tea in a pot (even if it's just for me) as tea made in a mug tastes yeuch

Penny. x

purpleivy

Well, I do use my food processor! Was just reading back through this thread and found there are a lot that don't use them.
I have hand mixer, bamix blender (only with the little pot- wonderful , will chop one clove of garlic), food processor (on its last legs- motor is fine, but spindle and various other bits cracking up. Plastic fatigue) and a Kenwood chef that I was gifted on Freecycle. I wouldn't be without any of them, they all get regular use.

Lots of complaints about how fiddly things are to wash. I try very hard to rinse things as soon as they are used and by that I mean before doing whatever the next bit is. ONce rinsed things like beaters are very easily washed when the rest of the washing up/dish washer load is done.

SunnyGirl

I'm another one who doesn't use the food processor much, maybe for grating carrots in the summer for salads and the odd big batch of cheese is all really. But I wouldn't be without my stick blender. It's a Tesco Value one and was less than 5 pounds. It does soups & sauces in seconds. I puree all soups so that the fussy kids don't see whats in them LOL! Apart from Minestrone of course but 2 of the 3 reckon on not to like it Grrrrr!

I also use the smoothie maker for both smoothies, frothy coffe/hot chocolate & for mixing sorbets in. I make smoothies when I've been to Lidl as they do massive tins of pears, pineapple & peaches etc in natural juice or it'd be cost prohibitive to make them.

I make tea in the pot as a habit really but always drink it. I did try the old put your boiling water in a flask trick but it just made the tea taste rubbery so I haven't done that again. The other thing I have that is OS but gets commented on by lots of people is a collection of Lyle's golden syrup tins. Some of them are the standard green & some are gold. They're on a shelf & hold pens, paper clips, drawing pins, pennies etc all sorts really. It's handy to know where to find stuff when you need it.

spam.jam

thanks for all the fab tips. iv got a couple

-use strong plastic clothes pegs on plastic bags to keep food fresh in the cupboards or freezer, can't stand the thought of my petit pois escaping
-keep a thermos by the kettle for any little bits of hot water you don't use, i put this to use in hot water bottles or even washing up if theres quite a bit
-timer switches on the microwave, and any other electrical appliances in the house in case you forget to switch them off, everything goes off at midnight in our house
-old toothbrush under the kitchen sink to clean any scummy bits around the taps
-keep all fruit (except bananas) in the fridge, last longer
-notepad and pen handy, good ideas always come to me whilst im beiong creative in the kitchen

SunnyGirl

My friend has just reminded me of something I've always done that amazed her the first time she saw me do it. When I open a bag of anything, either frozen or not, I cut about an inch off the top of the bag then use the offcut to tie the bag back up with. Nothing has ever leaked in the freezer or cupboard doing this. I use it for frozen veg, chips, fish fingers, pasta, rice, big packs of crisps, cotton wool balls, 'lady products' & anything else that is in a bag. HTH

onetomany

my fabs are my slow cooker, electric steamer, hand blender, wok, one cup kettle, ive started batch cooking and freezing stuff, ive got some great recipes from this site, ive just brought a bread maker but none has turned out yet so hoping that will become one of my fabs

bibbly

I use my food processor a lot, though in "waves"! Depends how organised I'm being so sometimes it'll get used several times in a week, other times it languishes in the cupboard for a few weeks without seeing the light of day! The children prefer hm cakes and biscuits to shop bought - do fairy cakes freeze well btw? Something I haven't tried.

My BM hasn't been out in months but I really could do with getting that out again. Problem I've found is that it goes hard really quickly (the bread, not the maker!!) - within 2 days it's inedible really - any tips please?

Great ideas on here though, both the board in general of course and this thread.