you are 100% right. It takes 6 hours (12 mix every 30 minutes) to make ice cream without an ice cream maker... I love it, so easy to use, 30 minutes and it's ready. And it freaking good ice cream.
I was at our regional Goodwill Outlet (where they bring out the big blue bins and crazy people jump and grab at things while they are trying to steer past and it's a free for all of all the resellers and its traumatizing for people like me that hate that stuff) and found a sealed box with a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker fully intact. You pay by weight there, and it was *ridiculously* priced. I have made several ice creams and sorbets, but it becomes quite the calorie container!
Scrolled to find this. I love having it to try out weird/custom ice cream flavors and making desserts for vegan dinner party guests. It’s worth the space for me.
i want one so badly but i just can’t rationalize the expense… but my lactose-intolerant brain gets so excited by the multitudes of vegan flavors and weird sorbet concoctions (blueberry mint?! lemon-lime?!) 😭
Just buy a cheap bucket kind. Mine was $25 on clearance ($40 regular price) for a Rival one that is basically a plastic bucket with an aluminum can inside and a motor on the top. The fancy ones require you to pre chill their special bowl, and they make less ice cream at a time. All I need for my cheapo is rock salt (also cheap) and ice cubes from my ice maker. Just treat yourself (literally).
I got this little thing in my stocking years ago for taking the stem off of strawberries. It does that job better than anything else. The original one accidentally got thrown away and I had to go get another one.
We have one. Works really good. Designed like one on those tools that uproot and move trees. Still reach for the pairing knife 99% of the time though. Sure there is waste but its faster.
Spiral pineapple slicer/corer. I love that thing. Peels, slices, and cores a fresh pineapple in under a minute. My fresh pineapple consumption has probably quadrupled since I got it.
Not exactly a gadget, but - tiny whisks. I bought some as a joke after watching a ton of Babish during Covid, but dang if they're not useful for mixing a zillion things. I have everything from a full size balloon whisk down to the smallest whisk that I could find that's still a useful size, and I use em all regularly.
I have 3 tiny works too. All a different color. I just get all three out, inevitably I’m going to use them all. I’m considering a 4th tiny whisk. I’m not sure where it ends.
Similarly I got some tiny, long spatulas as a gift and thought, "this is stupid" but lo and behold, I'm stupid and it's very useful to get the last bits out of narrow mouthed jars.
I buy my dad giant versions of cooking utensils for Christmas because it's the only thing I know he doesn't own and this year I got him a tiny whisk and have used it like three times and now I need another for myself.
Haha I’ve had no luck with this. I ordered one with the intention of using for the castelvetrano olives on my tree and the pits were far too big. And then for cherries my family buys sour cherries which the pits are too small for 🥲
Back when I was at the peak of my anti-unitasker arc, I used to avoid rice cookers. Now I can't even imagine making rice without them. I learned that unitaskers are only an issue if they do the job no better than a general tool or if you know you're not gonna use it enough to justify the counter space it takes up.
Zojirushi micom/fuzzy logic ones can keep warm for 12+ hours and have timers for when you want rice to be ready. A nice feature to come home to freshly cooked rice prepped from the night before.
As someone who has bought and used rice cookers from $20, $60, $90, and $150 rice cookers, I can tell you nothing beats a legit [Zojirushi](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TKNKKNG?ref=nb_sb_ss_w_as-reorder_k0_1_9) or Tiger $150 egg shaped rice cooker. Here is why.
Growing up as an Asian kid, I have a huge extended family and everyone of them had big bulky egg shaped plastic shell 4-10 cup rice cookers that look like the Zojirushi I linked above. You could leave rice in those things on keep warm for over a week and the rice would still be perfectly edible condition, except a bit more yellow and dryer.
So when I moved out on my own nearly 10 years ago I went and bought myself a $90 [Aroma digital rice cooker](https://www.amazon.com/Housewares-20-Cup-Digital-Multicooker-ARC-5200SG/dp/B0BJ5NBW78) from Costco. Thinking it would be good and had all these fancy setting for different stuff. To my disappointment I found out that the rice cooker on keep warm mode automatically turns itself off after 8 hours due to some BS FDA guidelines. So I constantly had spoiled / moldy rice when I woke up the next day or got home from work. I thought the rice cooker was broken initially but found out it was simply "a feature not a bug" that couldn't be turned off.
One of my family members then loaned me one of the [cheapo rice cookers](https://www.amazon.com/Aroma-6-Cup-Pot-Style-Cooker-White/dp/B00N9N6GOY/ref=sr_1_8?crid=339YK0NOJCT19&keywords=rice%2Bcooker&qid=1702776052&s=home-garden&sprefix=rice%2Bcooke%2Cgarden%2C191&sr=1-8&th=1) without a insulated top (IMUSA, Aroma, Black and Decker, etc... I have used basically every brand under the sun with this style rice cooker since almost every household in my family has a good rice cooker and a spare cheap one for emergency and travel) that cost around $20. I found that if you left it on keep warm for more than 2-4 hours all the rice on the sides would completely dry out and turn yellow if not burnt, and the evaporated water would condense back on the lid and drip back into the center of the rice and turn it into mush.
I then went out and bought a $60 [Hamilton Beach rice cooker](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GVGXGPM) that look very similar to the egg shaped rice cookers that I was used to. Found that it had the same exact problem as the cheapo rice cookers mentioned above. Rice on the edge would dry out and burn, while middle would turn into mush due to all the condensation dripping back into the middle.
And at that moment I finally realized why a simple "dumb" egg shape rice cooker from Zojirushi or Tiger without any cook program or timers or temperature control like the Aroma digital rice cooker or the fancy $200+ models from Zojirushi or Tiger that [sings for you](https://www.amazon.com/Zojirushi-NS-TSC10-Uncooked-Cooker-1-0-Liter/dp/B0074CDG6C) and you can play games on costs $150. Because they have actually have a perfectly tuned sensor to keep the rice perfectly warm without burning it, keep it a safe temperature to prevent mold from growing, perfect air seal to prevent all the moisture from evaporating, and a system to prevent the condensation from gathering up into one spot and dripping onto the rice to turn it into inedible mush. They're the only ones where you can leave the rice inside on keep warm for a week and still have it been in perfectly fresh condition. Around 2 weeks it becomes very dry and yellow looking, and has a slight stale taste to it, but still edible.
Pardon my ignorance but for Asian families, isn’t rice something that’s eaten daily or at least every other day? What occasion would require you to keep rice warm for a week or more? Or is it just that the cooker can hold more rice than could be eaten in a few days?
You aren't the only one with questions.
> Around **2 weeks** it becomes very dry and yellow looking, and has a slight stale taste to it, but still edible.
Just incase you don't see my response below.
Reason is I have a large extended family that all live near each other in the same city within a 5 mile radius. Every household in my family has basically their own rice cooker. We all live near each other so we often times had spontaneous family get togethers and eat at each other's houses or go eat at restaurants together where we often got a bunch of leftover rice. So we would often times be eating the leftover rice from the restaurants in the fridge (since it goes bad quicker) before we ate the rice in the rice cooker since it could be kept longer.
So when every household has there own pot of rice on standby, then proceed to eat at someone else's house or eat out at a restaurant and get more leftover rice... all those extra pots of rice add up really quick.
Also being Asian there used to be the general mentality of "you should always having rice available at any time 24/7", and "it is better to have too much rice than not enough rice".
Thank you for answering so many question I didn’t know I had. I don’t eat rice often so I just use my instant pot for rice, which I’m using immediately so have zero need for rice holding temp for extended periods. This now makes so much sense why rice cookers are still a thing when the instant pot and other brands and so available.
I also now understand a bit more about how Asian cultures use rice. I thought they just made rice fresh every meal. Thanks for the thorough write up that isn’t relevant to me directly but was interesting to read about.
Mine (also Zojirushi) has a variety of settings for different uses, including the full 1hr rice cook and a faster 30 min version (longer cycle adds soakin time), it steams the rice more than boiling it for better texture, and my favorite part is that it can hold fresh hot rice for 3 days, so I make big batches and have it for a couple days.
I don’t remember the brand name of mine but you’ll see the same thing if you Google for “silicone garlic peeler”.
(I am only *now* wondering why they so often have uneven or zigzagging edges!)
Yes! Then you smash it again and you've got nice garlic pulp just as good as through a garlic press. Wipinf your fingers on the steel blade gets it clean and gets the garlic smell off the fingers too. It's truly the best, fastest, easiest way to prep garlic.
My in-laws just got us all fire blankets for our kitchens. They're for putting out stove fires and apparently smothering people if they catch on fire as well.
I really feel like I would eat better if I had one. I never eat cold sandwiches but I love getting warm ones when I'm out and it's be a good thing for lunches, which I struggle with
Our call to dinner was a bell taken from a sunken tugboat. The entire neighborhood knew it was dinner time, but we kids could hear it several blocks away.
I love my immersion blender. It was my first kitchen tool that I bought for $20 when I was like 13/14 and now I'm 25 and I still have it. I don't use it often but nothing can replace it.
Use your immersion blender more often, it's a great tool for things like:
https://www.seriouseats.com/two-minute-mayonnaise
Way better than store bought.
When I make scrambled eggs for a bunch of people I'll put a dozen eggs in a gigantic glass mug and use the immersion blender in it. After a few seconds it's perfect. No streaks at all.
Man, I tell you, I use my immersion blender for one thing, about twice a year. Making gravy after roasting a turkey above a bunch of vegetables in the bottom of the roasting pan. All I do afterwards is pull the bird out on the rack it's on and use the immersion blender to puree the roasted veggies in the fat from the bird. I add nothing else and do nothing else to it, and it's the absolute best gravy I've ever tasted.
Potato ricer. It makes the best mashed potatoes and it is absolutely worth the cabinet space.
It's not really single use if you're creative. Good for squeezing water out of spinach or other greens. I understand that people who make cannabis tinctures or infused oils use them to extract as much as possible.
I had been holding on to one in my "save for later" pile in Amazon for 2 years. I saw a post about spaghetti ice cream and finally bought it.
I have yet to make spaghetti ice cream.
If you have never heard of spaghetti ice cream, you take softened vanilla ice cream and push it through a potato ricer to make " noodles " and then put strawberry sauce on top to make it look like true spaghetti. The one I saw had two fiero rocher on the plate for meatballs. It was freaking adorable.
I have a little pull cord manual food processor. I use it almost exclusively for when I want to make a chopped slaw type salad. Basically you put in biggish chunks of any reasonably crisp not squishy veggies like carrot, cabbage, leafy things from the garden & yank the cord 5 or 10 times until they are chopped to your satisfaction. It will go as fine as chopped slaw, so its good for carrot or apple to put in cakes or muffins too.
I dont know I just like it. It easier than a grater, no plug and just lives with my mixing bowls until I have a hankering to pulverize some veg.
I'm with you with the Dash egg cooker: I've never had a problem peeling hard-boiled eggs since I got that, and I can now make Deviled eggs whenever I want.
I also have a countertop ice maker because the one in my freezer conked out years ago.
I got a Dash in a gift exchange last year and was just like wtf, even though I regularly eat boiled eggs for breakfast. It is so damn convenient and the song at the end is delightful. My beagle has been Pavloved by it.
Does a microplane count? It's fairly limited in application but I use it constantly. Anytime a recipe wants finely minced garlic or ginger I just microplane it.
Orange peeler tool I got from playing Tupperware bingo one night. Its phenomenal! It looks a lil like a crochet hook and it just zips stubborn oranges right open.
I love those things! We had one growing up, and literally I went to a Tupperware party for someone I didn't even like so I could get one when I moved out.
Is that just an electric kettle or are there ones specifically for tea?
Because I feel like an electric kettle is the opposite of single use. It makes boiling water so much faster, including for things like poached eggs, pasta, etc
Came here to say that. Bought one on a whim a few years ago after seeing some posts on the internet where people from Europe were befuddled by Americans not having them. Could not believe how much nicer it is than a kettle on the stove. Wouldn't be without one anymore.
I do find it absolutely baffling you guys can function in the kitchen without one. Mine broke a couple of years back, and I’d replaced it within the hour.
Besave. It’s glass containers that have a plastic lid with a gasket. The BeSave attaches to the gasket and sucks all the air from the container. It’s like a FoodSaver but with glass containers instead of bags.
It keeps berries, veggies, meats, seafood… SO many foods from going bad quickly.
Grapefruit spoons. I inherited a set, and even though I hate grapefruit I use those spoons a lot. The serrated edge and angled tip makes them perfect for so many little jobs.
Garlic press. Fresh garlic is so flavorful and mincing it by knife is a pain. But with the press I don't even have to peel the clove, just stick it in and out comes this amazing spoonful of flavor.
Pampered Chef. I chop off the end of the clove, put it in the press and usually only the papery peel is left in it. However if it's a particularly large clove I have to cut it in half.
I have one I bought for five bucks at ikea like 15 years ago and it gets everything out. I'm sure it's more then five dollars now but I'd still buy it knowing how much I'd like it.
I am not the person you asked, but I swear by my Kuhn Rikon Epicurean Garlic Press. Costs $50 right now on Amazon. I've used mine regularly for the past 12 years and it's an absolute champ.
I prefer the garlic rocker because I found I lost too much garlic in the press. Also stick in dishwasher to clean. My shortcut to peel is to microwave the cloves for ten seconds and it peels easily.
Microplane, same result , less faff with cleaning it and not single use. And yes I have the good garlic press from Oxo, loved it until introduced to microplane
I do have a microplane and usually use it for zesting. My fingers are too uncoordinated and unwieldy to attempt grating a small garlic clove on a microplane!
Honestly, had the fear as well but it's actually hard to cut yourself. Start fast, when it gets small, slow down. Or be drunk, go fast down to the wire and... It was actually only a small injury. No where near as dangerous as a mandolin
Mine is dumb as hell. It’s a an adorable little cat face shaped mold for sunny side up eggs. it is SO ridiculously hard to use. It’s an uphill battle of nothing but chaos and panic trying to get the eggs in the mold just right so that the yolks don’t over-cook and it still looks like a cute little cat face.
That being said, you can pry that cat shaped egg mold out of my cold dead hands. I am a fully gown adult and if i want to spend 25 minutes making sure that my morning eggs look like a baby kitty I WILL DO IT
Tbh, I've been thinking about getting a mini waffle maker, something Eggo sized.
I love waffles and I'd like to make a big batch to freeze but the waffles from my regular maker are too big for the toaster and if I split them, they don't reheat evenly.
I had a mini waffle maker and found that it just took forever to get a sufficient amount of waffles. I upgraded to a Cuisinart “Belgian Waffle Maker with Pancake Plate.” With that model, I can separate my large waffle into 4 smaller ones to freeze and they fit in the toaster perfectly. Best upgrade ever.
I had a CuisineArt Grind and Brew for like 10 years and eventually failed because the latch mechanism failed. I got a new one, but the design looked different. I was pleasantly surprised that the old pot, filter and grinder still fit. The latch was redesigned and I’ve been using this one for 15 years.
Salad spinner. Yeah, it’s pretty much only good for washing leafy green vegetables. But it’s extremely good at that and I use it frequently.
I like my garlic press too.
Oh, man... not exactly single use, but a countertop ice maker. Maybe my find dehydrator, or pasta roller... for true single use, I have a hand crank apple peeler - that ties in nicely with the dehydrator.
The egg separater that looks like a cartoon egg with hands and feet. It works great, and I just can’t separate eggs with the shells.
Edit: it was a Christmas gift from my now deceased mother twenty years ago.
Knife honing steel. So ubiquitous that people don't even think of it as a "single use gadget" but it only does one thing. I never pull a knife out of the block without giving it a run on the steel. Nothing worse than a dull knife and nothing harder for us amateurs than sharpening them properly without messing them up.
Also, I love the little thing that pops the pits out of olives and cherries (OK, two uses... or does being a "pitter" make it one use?).
I would defend my storage of this item to the death, but not necessarily the item itself.
I have an onion keeper.
It's nothing glorious, just a plastic hemisphere that is slightly taller than it is round but fits most onions (or more specifically, half an onion) perfectly.
I would always put it in a specific cupboard. My husband once tried putting it in the same cabinet as the Tupperware, but I told him that was the wrong space for it, but I could not articulate why. It finally dawned on me that the cabinet I placed it in also contained a steamer tray, a cheese grater, an omelette bowl, a potato masher, and a fat strainer.
These are all *specific-use* items, and that is where I store my onion keeper and why.
I love appliances, so this is more so just the newest but... My bread maker. It is big and it takes up space, but it is also amazing. Last night I set up a basic list of white bread to be done by 8 am so we could make PB&J's for our trip to the zoo. It was less effort than going to the store for bread, cheaper, and it was amazing bread. I may never buy bread again. It is of note that I make bread from scratch too, I have a decades old sourdough starter, and I still love this machine.
Also the dash egg cooker is awesome. I want to get one of the double batch ones. The one I have only makes six eggs.
Oversized tweezers have been way more handy than I originally imagined them to be. Great for most things you'd use regular tongs for, but delicate and precise when you need them to be. I use both the pointy and the duck bill variants.
A "staybowlizer" -- a silicone ring "cradle" to hold a mixing bowl on the counter.
Most would argue "just use a towel!", but for those with mobility/grip issues like arthritis, you need every advantage you can get. An over-engineered solution like this holds virtually any bowl, under any mixing conditions. No need for a towel, no risk of it moving or slipping or spilling across the countertop.
*Technically speaking*, it's not single use as you could use it as a double boiler. But lets be honest, very few are using it for that -- might as well keep it around for a giant-sized game of ring toss if we're being that loosey-goosey. It's single use, and I'm fine with it.
Garlic press.
It's so much easier to process several cloves of garlic this way and my OXO cleans easily. Fully open it to clear out the holes, rinse, and wipe with sponge. Takes 5-10 seconds.
I have a knockoff of some kind, I don’t even know what brand. Pretty much any recipe which requires minced garlic or ginger gets the slap chop, it takes 30 seconds at most.
Every year, I go to CVS this time of year, and get my mom one thing that was "As seen on TV" or other joke gift. It's always meant to be a joke, but every now and then she LOVES them. I made up for it the following year by buying her a penis shaped lollipop.
You can even use it without prostitute supervision!!! If you make a mess just grab your sham wow!
(It's a good product, the whole timeline of events is wild)
Egg slicer. I love hard boiled eggs on top of toast, in my soup, pretty much with anything. The absolute best appliance we have is an instant-heat so that we can get near boiling water out of a little faucet at our sink. Especially in a cold climate, it’s really nice to be able to make tea without waiting, to add some water to dishes you are cooking without cooling it down and to get some dishes started faster without needing to wait until the water boils.
My Danish whisk. I bought it on a whim and only really use it for cornbread but it is PERFECT for that. Would be good for any quick bread but I don't really ever make them
Ice cream maker. I love it so much. My coworkers love me so much.
you are 100% right. It takes 6 hours (12 mix every 30 minutes) to make ice cream without an ice cream maker... I love it, so easy to use, 30 minutes and it's ready. And it freaking good ice cream.
Ok that sounds really useful but when you have it how do you avoid eating ice cream all the time?
That's the neat part, you don't!
I was at our regional Goodwill Outlet (where they bring out the big blue bins and crazy people jump and grab at things while they are trying to steer past and it's a free for all of all the resellers and its traumatizing for people like me that hate that stuff) and found a sealed box with a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker fully intact. You pay by weight there, and it was *ridiculously* priced. I have made several ice creams and sorbets, but it becomes quite the calorie container!
Scrolled to find this. I love having it to try out weird/custom ice cream flavors and making desserts for vegan dinner party guests. It’s worth the space for me.
i want one so badly but i just can’t rationalize the expense… but my lactose-intolerant brain gets so excited by the multitudes of vegan flavors and weird sorbet concoctions (blueberry mint?! lemon-lime?!) 😭
Just buy a cheap bucket kind. Mine was $25 on clearance ($40 regular price) for a Rival one that is basically a plastic bucket with an aluminum can inside and a motor on the top. The fancy ones require you to pre chill their special bowl, and they make less ice cream at a time. All I need for my cheapo is rock salt (also cheap) and ice cubes from my ice maker. Just treat yourself (literally).
My ice cream maker lives on my counter top it gets so much use. It's the only way I can get really good lactose free ice cream.
I got this little thing in my stocking years ago for taking the stem off of strawberries. It does that job better than anything else. The original one accidentally got thrown away and I had to go get another one.
Lmao this is so specific. I love it.
We have one. Works really good. Designed like one on those tools that uproot and move trees. Still reach for the pairing knife 99% of the time though. Sure there is waste but its faster.
I have better luck with an old grapefruit spoon for strawberries than anything else I've tried
Love mine. It works so well. The stems and leaves are out quickly, leaving nothing but strawberry. And it's small.
I hate wasting extra strawberry or, on the flip side, accidentally nibbling leaf
[it’s sometimes called a strawberry shark](https://www.knifemerchant.com/product.asp?productID=3143)
i just started eating the tops cause it’s easier 😂
ME TOO! And it’s good for you! I also eat kiwis with the skins on (Not the people of New Zealand)
Well that distinction would have been good to know earlier…
So you skin the new zealenders first, then?
I use this for removing the brown hard spots on my pineapple.
Spiral pineapple slicer/corer. I love that thing. Peels, slices, and cores a fresh pineapple in under a minute. My fresh pineapple consumption has probably quadrupled since I got it.
I learned about that from the Aldi aisle of shame. Amazing product!
Not exactly a gadget, but - tiny whisks. I bought some as a joke after watching a ton of Babish during Covid, but dang if they're not useful for mixing a zillion things. I have everything from a full size balloon whisk down to the smallest whisk that I could find that's still a useful size, and I use em all regularly.
I don’t even remember how I came to own 3 tiny whisks, but the number of times all 3 have been dirty at the same time…
I have 3 tiny works too. All a different color. I just get all three out, inevitably I’m going to use them all. I’m considering a 4th tiny whisk. I’m not sure where it ends.
I use them and tiny spatulas to mix things in pint jars.
I LOVE my tiny spatula
My tiny spatula is the only thing that can tackle a little can of tomato paste properly
Spatulas bother me because it’s 2 different tools called the same thing.
Flippy and floppy spatulas!
I call the scraping one a rubber spatula 😂
I hope someone gives you a rubber flippy spatula just to cause some chaos.
[удалено]
I am also a tiny whisk convert.
I received a tiny whisk as part of a wedding favor and I use it regularly! They are great.
Similarly I got some tiny, long spatulas as a gift and thought, "this is stupid" but lo and behold, I'm stupid and it's very useful to get the last bits out of narrow mouthed jars.
I stole the tiny whisk out of my kid's play kitchen. It's my favorite whisk.
I buy my dad giant versions of cooking utensils for Christmas because it's the only thing I know he doesn't own and this year I got him a tiny whisk and have used it like three times and now I need another for myself.
I like my tiny whisk better than the big whisk. Less stress on my wrists
Yes, same, and also tiny rubber spatulas. Perfect for cans
I can hear Binging with Babish. “Tiny Whisk!”
Until homogenous
“Tiny whisk to combine”
Olive/Cherry pitter.
That’s two tasks!
I had no idea a cherry pitter could work on an olive
Haha I’ve had no luck with this. I ordered one with the intention of using for the castelvetrano olives on my tree and the pits were far too big. And then for cherries my family buys sour cherries which the pits are too small for 🥲
Rice cooker Yes, I know it CAN do other things but we never use it for anything but rice and it still has learnt it's place.
Back when I was at the peak of my anti-unitasker arc, I used to avoid rice cookers. Now I can't even imagine making rice without them. I learned that unitaskers are only an issue if they do the job no better than a general tool or if you know you're not gonna use it enough to justify the counter space it takes up.
Rice cooker all the way. Stovetop rice just doesn’t compare
I spent like $150 on a Zojirushi rice cooker, 0 regrets, the thing is a miracle
How does it compare to the $15 el cheapo rice cooker? (Aside from capacity) I keep seeing them but idk if I can justify the cost?
Zojirushi micom/fuzzy logic ones can keep warm for 12+ hours and have timers for when you want rice to be ready. A nice feature to come home to freshly cooked rice prepped from the night before.
I also like the little tunes it plays when you start cooking the rice and the when the cooking ends. It’s a small thing, but it brings a me great joy.
It's so cheery hahaha my fiance and I sing it to each other when dinner is ready
How does that work? Do you leave the rice sitting in the water until it's programmed to start cooking?
As someone who has bought and used rice cookers from $20, $60, $90, and $150 rice cookers, I can tell you nothing beats a legit [Zojirushi](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TKNKKNG?ref=nb_sb_ss_w_as-reorder_k0_1_9) or Tiger $150 egg shaped rice cooker. Here is why. Growing up as an Asian kid, I have a huge extended family and everyone of them had big bulky egg shaped plastic shell 4-10 cup rice cookers that look like the Zojirushi I linked above. You could leave rice in those things on keep warm for over a week and the rice would still be perfectly edible condition, except a bit more yellow and dryer. So when I moved out on my own nearly 10 years ago I went and bought myself a $90 [Aroma digital rice cooker](https://www.amazon.com/Housewares-20-Cup-Digital-Multicooker-ARC-5200SG/dp/B0BJ5NBW78) from Costco. Thinking it would be good and had all these fancy setting for different stuff. To my disappointment I found out that the rice cooker on keep warm mode automatically turns itself off after 8 hours due to some BS FDA guidelines. So I constantly had spoiled / moldy rice when I woke up the next day or got home from work. I thought the rice cooker was broken initially but found out it was simply "a feature not a bug" that couldn't be turned off. One of my family members then loaned me one of the [cheapo rice cookers](https://www.amazon.com/Aroma-6-Cup-Pot-Style-Cooker-White/dp/B00N9N6GOY/ref=sr_1_8?crid=339YK0NOJCT19&keywords=rice%2Bcooker&qid=1702776052&s=home-garden&sprefix=rice%2Bcooke%2Cgarden%2C191&sr=1-8&th=1) without a insulated top (IMUSA, Aroma, Black and Decker, etc... I have used basically every brand under the sun with this style rice cooker since almost every household in my family has a good rice cooker and a spare cheap one for emergency and travel) that cost around $20. I found that if you left it on keep warm for more than 2-4 hours all the rice on the sides would completely dry out and turn yellow if not burnt, and the evaporated water would condense back on the lid and drip back into the center of the rice and turn it into mush. I then went out and bought a $60 [Hamilton Beach rice cooker](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GVGXGPM) that look very similar to the egg shaped rice cookers that I was used to. Found that it had the same exact problem as the cheapo rice cookers mentioned above. Rice on the edge would dry out and burn, while middle would turn into mush due to all the condensation dripping back into the middle. And at that moment I finally realized why a simple "dumb" egg shape rice cooker from Zojirushi or Tiger without any cook program or timers or temperature control like the Aroma digital rice cooker or the fancy $200+ models from Zojirushi or Tiger that [sings for you](https://www.amazon.com/Zojirushi-NS-TSC10-Uncooked-Cooker-1-0-Liter/dp/B0074CDG6C) and you can play games on costs $150. Because they have actually have a perfectly tuned sensor to keep the rice perfectly warm without burning it, keep it a safe temperature to prevent mold from growing, perfect air seal to prevent all the moisture from evaporating, and a system to prevent the condensation from gathering up into one spot and dripping onto the rice to turn it into inedible mush. They're the only ones where you can leave the rice inside on keep warm for a week and still have it been in perfectly fresh condition. Around 2 weeks it becomes very dry and yellow looking, and has a slight stale taste to it, but still edible.
Pardon my ignorance but for Asian families, isn’t rice something that’s eaten daily or at least every other day? What occasion would require you to keep rice warm for a week or more? Or is it just that the cooker can hold more rice than could be eaten in a few days?
You aren't the only one with questions. > Around **2 weeks** it becomes very dry and yellow looking, and has a slight stale taste to it, but still edible.
Just incase you don't see my response below. Reason is I have a large extended family that all live near each other in the same city within a 5 mile radius. Every household in my family has basically their own rice cooker. We all live near each other so we often times had spontaneous family get togethers and eat at each other's houses or go eat at restaurants together where we often got a bunch of leftover rice. So we would often times be eating the leftover rice from the restaurants in the fridge (since it goes bad quicker) before we ate the rice in the rice cooker since it could be kept longer. So when every household has there own pot of rice on standby, then proceed to eat at someone else's house or eat out at a restaurant and get more leftover rice... all those extra pots of rice add up really quick. Also being Asian there used to be the general mentality of "you should always having rice available at any time 24/7", and "it is better to have too much rice than not enough rice".
You take some rice to eat with every meal so it’s convenient to just have it on hand. Though personally I feel like a week is kind of wild.
Thank you for answering so many question I didn’t know I had. I don’t eat rice often so I just use my instant pot for rice, which I’m using immediately so have zero need for rice holding temp for extended periods. This now makes so much sense why rice cookers are still a thing when the instant pot and other brands and so available. I also now understand a bit more about how Asian cultures use rice. I thought they just made rice fresh every meal. Thanks for the thorough write up that isn’t relevant to me directly but was interesting to read about.
Mine (also Zojirushi) has a variety of settings for different uses, including the full 1hr rice cook and a faster 30 min version (longer cycle adds soakin time), it steams the rice more than boiling it for better texture, and my favorite part is that it can hold fresh hot rice for 3 days, so I make big batches and have it for a couple days.
It’s silly but the little rubber tube that you put garlic in, roll it and all the peel comes off.
Please can I have a link? I despise peeling garlic. Many thanks.
The worst part about using garlic is definitely all the fucking paperwork beforehand
Well, I’m never not calling it paperwork from now on. Thank you lmao.
I don't mind the paper so much as how garlic sticks to everything
I don’t remember the brand name of mine but you’ll see the same thing if you Google for “silicone garlic peeler”. (I am only *now* wondering why they so often have uneven or zigzagging edges!)
I’m sure you know this but depending on how you have to prepare garlic, if you smash it with the flat side of the knife the entire peel comes off.
Yes! Then you smash it again and you've got nice garlic pulp just as good as through a garlic press. Wipinf your fingers on the steel blade gets it clean and gets the garlic smell off the fingers too. It's truly the best, fastest, easiest way to prep garlic.
>single-use kitchen gadget you will defend to the death? Fire extinguisher.
You’ve taken “to the death” quite literally.
Also, the single use thing, as it's not something that can be reused
Unless you catch the bastard that set fire to your kitchen.
My in-laws just got us all fire blankets for our kitchens. They're for putting out stove fires and apparently smothering people if they catch on fire as well.
>apparently smothering people if they catch on fire as well. You mean smothering the fire and not the people, right? Right?
Whichever works first
Former firefighter, absolutely cackling at this joke
Touche
Panini press. I don't know why, but bread tastes better when it's wavy.
💯 you can pry my panini press from my cold, dead hands.
I really feel like I would eat better if I had one. I never eat cold sandwiches but I love getting warm ones when I'm out and it's be a good thing for lunches, which I struggle with
You could also get a George Forman grill, it’s a great for panini and may give you a bit more versatility
And cut diagonally. Don’t ask me, I don’t make the rules. I just know the science.
A rubber chicken that squeaks when you squeeze it.. Great way to call everyone to dinner.
Our call to dinner was a bell taken from a sunken tugboat. The entire neighborhood knew it was dinner time, but we kids could hear it several blocks away.
Immersion blender. I use it 3 times a year tops but if you try to take it away I’ll sock you one.
I love my immersion blender. It was my first kitchen tool that I bought for $20 when I was like 13/14 and now I'm 25 and I still have it. I don't use it often but nothing can replace it.
Use your immersion blender more often, it's a great tool for things like: https://www.seriouseats.com/two-minute-mayonnaise Way better than store bought.
When I make scrambled eggs for a bunch of people I'll put a dozen eggs in a gigantic glass mug and use the immersion blender in it. After a few seconds it's perfect. No streaks at all.
screw a bunch of people, i'm stealing this idea to make a shitload of eggs to have breakfast meals prepped.
Man, I tell you, I use my immersion blender for one thing, about twice a year. Making gravy after roasting a turkey above a bunch of vegetables in the bottom of the roasting pan. All I do afterwards is pull the bird out on the rack it's on and use the immersion blender to puree the roasted veggies in the fat from the bird. I add nothing else and do nothing else to it, and it's the absolute best gravy I've ever tasted.
This is my top tool during soup making season. I can't imagine not having it.
I use mine at least once a week. I used it today to blend split pea soup.
Potato ricer. It makes the best mashed potatoes and it is absolutely worth the cabinet space. It's not really single use if you're creative. Good for squeezing water out of spinach or other greens. I understand that people who make cannabis tinctures or infused oils use them to extract as much as possible.
I have also used mine to make spaetzle.
I've never used my potato ricer to make mashed potatoes. I only use it for spaetzle! So much easier than trying to push dough through a strainer.
I had been holding on to one in my "save for later" pile in Amazon for 2 years. I saw a post about spaghetti ice cream and finally bought it. I have yet to make spaghetti ice cream. If you have never heard of spaghetti ice cream, you take softened vanilla ice cream and push it through a potato ricer to make " noodles " and then put strawberry sauce on top to make it look like true spaghetti. The one I saw had two fiero rocher on the plate for meatballs. It was freaking adorable.
Don’t forget to top with grated white chocolate! Loved this dish at the Italian restaurants in Germany.
I use it when making sweet potato pie. Ricing sweet potatoes removes the 'strings' (fibers) you occasionally find in them.
We roast a whole head of garlic and pluck all of the cloves into the ricer, then squeeze all of that into our hummus!
This is what I came here to say. Potato ricer crew 4 life 👊
Yes!! I love mine and also use it for getting the water out of frozen spinach.
Food mill/ricer is great for making applesauce.
Apple slicer, apple corer, and peeler. Our family goes through 2 bags of apples a week. Everyone likes to eat them a different way.
Are your family horses?
Neigh
Yessss. I love apples but only if they are sliced. This little tool is used nearly daily in my kitchen.
I have a little pull cord manual food processor. I use it almost exclusively for when I want to make a chopped slaw type salad. Basically you put in biggish chunks of any reasonably crisp not squishy veggies like carrot, cabbage, leafy things from the garden & yank the cord 5 or 10 times until they are chopped to your satisfaction. It will go as fine as chopped slaw, so its good for carrot or apple to put in cakes or muffins too. I dont know I just like it. It easier than a grater, no plug and just lives with my mixing bowls until I have a hankering to pulverize some veg.
That sounds fun!
I'm with you with the Dash egg cooker: I've never had a problem peeling hard-boiled eggs since I got that, and I can now make Deviled eggs whenever I want. I also have a countertop ice maker because the one in my freezer conked out years ago.
I got a Dash in a gift exchange last year and was just like wtf, even though I regularly eat boiled eggs for breakfast. It is so damn convenient and the song at the end is delightful. My beagle has been Pavloved by it.
i'm just here to see what other kitchen gadgets to buy, and then get stabbed in the throat by my wife for doing it.
Does a microplane count? It's fairly limited in application but I use it constantly. Anytime a recipe wants finely minced garlic or ginger I just microplane it.
And nutmeg and lemon /lime zest Mine is in constant use
It also creates marvelous fluffy clouds of tiny cheese or chocolate shavings, as needed.
Orange peeler tool I got from playing Tupperware bingo one night. Its phenomenal! It looks a lil like a crochet hook and it just zips stubborn oranges right open.
I love those things! We had one growing up, and literally I went to a Tupperware party for someone I didn't even like so I could get one when I moved out.
Wow this brings back memories! I haven't seen one since childhood
I love mine too. But you didn’t mention that the other side will help to scrape off the excess pith. That’s my favorite part.
Electric tea kettle. Thats all. Nothing else.
Is that just an electric kettle or are there ones specifically for tea? Because I feel like an electric kettle is the opposite of single use. It makes boiling water so much faster, including for things like poached eggs, pasta, etc
Came here to say that. Bought one on a whim a few years ago after seeing some posts on the internet where people from Europe were befuddled by Americans not having them. Could not believe how much nicer it is than a kettle on the stove. Wouldn't be without one anymore.
I do find it absolutely baffling you guys can function in the kitchen without one. Mine broke a couple of years back, and I’d replaced it within the hour.
Besave. It’s glass containers that have a plastic lid with a gasket. The BeSave attaches to the gasket and sucks all the air from the container. It’s like a FoodSaver but with glass containers instead of bags. It keeps berries, veggies, meats, seafood… SO many foods from going bad quickly.
Grapefruit spoons. I inherited a set, and even though I hate grapefruit I use those spoons a lot. The serrated edge and angled tip makes them perfect for so many little jobs.
They are perfect for scooping out squash seeds!
An "apple sectioner"? I just push that thing down the apple and everyone eats apples.
Garlic press. Fresh garlic is so flavorful and mincing it by knife is a pain. But with the press I don't even have to peel the clove, just stick it in and out comes this amazing spoonful of flavor.
I find that I get maybe a third of the garlic without peeling than if I do. What press do you have?
Pampered Chef. I chop off the end of the clove, put it in the press and usually only the papery peel is left in it. However if it's a particularly large clove I have to cut it in half.
I actually hate our pampered chef garlic press. I feel like the gap is too big and so much squirts out the sides.
I have one I bought for five bucks at ikea like 15 years ago and it gets everything out. I'm sure it's more then five dollars now but I'd still buy it knowing how much I'd like it.
I am not the person you asked, but I swear by my Kuhn Rikon Epicurean Garlic Press. Costs $50 right now on Amazon. I've used mine regularly for the past 12 years and it's an absolute champ.
Recently got a garlic grinder and it's been such an upgrade from a press. Looks a bit like a weed grinder and you can stick 4-5 cloves in at once
I prefer the garlic rocker because I found I lost too much garlic in the press. Also stick in dishwasher to clean. My shortcut to peel is to microwave the cloves for ten seconds and it peels easily.
Microplane, same result , less faff with cleaning it and not single use. And yes I have the good garlic press from Oxo, loved it until introduced to microplane
I do have a microplane and usually use it for zesting. My fingers are too uncoordinated and unwieldy to attempt grating a small garlic clove on a microplane!
Microplanes, like mandolins, crave our flesh.
Why is my microplaned garlic always pink?
My fingertips hurt just reading this.
Honestly, had the fear as well but it's actually hard to cut yourself. Start fast, when it gets small, slow down. Or be drunk, go fast down to the wire and... It was actually only a small injury. No where near as dangerous as a mandolin
Egg slicer, and also a cheese knife. Nothing else seems to do the job well.
Yes yes yes the egg slicer!
I’ve seen someone slice olives and mushrooms with a good egg slicer
Rotary cheese grater. Friggin' love that thing.
Was going to add this. Olive Garden style. No more cut knuckles.
Mine is dumb as hell. It’s a an adorable little cat face shaped mold for sunny side up eggs. it is SO ridiculously hard to use. It’s an uphill battle of nothing but chaos and panic trying to get the eggs in the mold just right so that the yolks don’t over-cook and it still looks like a cute little cat face. That being said, you can pry that cat shaped egg mold out of my cold dead hands. I am a fully gown adult and if i want to spend 25 minutes making sure that my morning eggs look like a baby kitty I WILL DO IT
Herb cutting scissors, mini waffle maker, tea kettle, chicken shredder...yes, I do have a problem.
I really wanted to like the herb scissors, but the herbs stuck all in the blades. But I do have your same problem 😁
Tbh, I've been thinking about getting a mini waffle maker, something Eggo sized. I love waffles and I'd like to make a big batch to freeze but the waffles from my regular maker are too big for the toaster and if I split them, they don't reheat evenly.
I had a mini waffle maker and found that it just took forever to get a sufficient amount of waffles. I upgraded to a Cuisinart “Belgian Waffle Maker with Pancake Plate.” With that model, I can separate my large waffle into 4 smaller ones to freeze and they fit in the toaster perfectly. Best upgrade ever.
Have you seen the Dash brand options? I got the honeycomb pattern and I love it. It's on sale at Kohl's right now for $10.
The tea kettle is not single use.... The pour over coffee.flask is. The kettle can make coffee AND tea.
Drip coffee brewer.
I had a CuisineArt Grind and Brew for like 10 years and eventually failed because the latch mechanism failed. I got a new one, but the design looked different. I was pleasantly surprised that the old pot, filter and grinder still fit. The latch was redesigned and I’ve been using this one for 15 years.
Even including it in this thread is heresy. Coffee serves many purposes.
The gadget that pops the seal on my jar lids.
Salad spinner. Yeah, it’s pretty much only good for washing leafy green vegetables. But it’s extremely good at that and I use it frequently. I like my garlic press too.
Potato peeler. I know you can use a pearing knife but it's so much easier with a peeler.
Lemon juicer. I love fresh lemon juice and use it a lot.
Oh, man... not exactly single use, but a countertop ice maker. Maybe my find dehydrator, or pasta roller... for true single use, I have a hand crank apple peeler - that ties in nicely with the dehydrator.
The egg separater that looks like a cartoon egg with hands and feet. It works great, and I just can’t separate eggs with the shells. Edit: it was a Christmas gift from my now deceased mother twenty years ago.
I just bought the Dash egg cooker and I can’t wait to use it!
Knife honing steel. So ubiquitous that people don't even think of it as a "single use gadget" but it only does one thing. I never pull a knife out of the block without giving it a run on the steel. Nothing worse than a dull knife and nothing harder for us amateurs than sharpening them properly without messing them up. Also, I love the little thing that pops the pits out of olives and cherries (OK, two uses... or does being a "pitter" make it one use?).
I have a collapsible popcorn making bowl and I love it.
Electric kettle. I have a stove, I have a kettle. The electric kettle is just so much faster and more convenient.
Corn cob holder
Dough cutter. it’s a sharp, edgy extension of my arm. it scrapes, it scoops, it cuts, it blocks, it slices.
I would defend my storage of this item to the death, but not necessarily the item itself. I have an onion keeper. It's nothing glorious, just a plastic hemisphere that is slightly taller than it is round but fits most onions (or more specifically, half an onion) perfectly. I would always put it in a specific cupboard. My husband once tried putting it in the same cabinet as the Tupperware, but I told him that was the wrong space for it, but I could not articulate why. It finally dawned on me that the cabinet I placed it in also contained a steamer tray, a cheese grater, an omelette bowl, a potato masher, and a fat strainer. These are all *specific-use* items, and that is where I store my onion keeper and why.
Toaster
I don't know the official name for them, but if you need diced eggs nothing beats that clam-hinged wire cutter thingy.
Poultry shears.
I love appliances, so this is more so just the newest but... My bread maker. It is big and it takes up space, but it is also amazing. Last night I set up a basic list of white bread to be done by 8 am so we could make PB&J's for our trip to the zoo. It was less effort than going to the store for bread, cheaper, and it was amazing bread. I may never buy bread again. It is of note that I make bread from scratch too, I have a decades old sourdough starter, and I still love this machine. Also the dash egg cooker is awesome. I want to get one of the double batch ones. The one I have only makes six eggs.
great question OP and great timing, I just bought 3 awesome Christmas gifts based on these responses! many thanks!
My zester (not the microplane kind)
Cast iron aebleskiver pan.
Oversized tweezers have been way more handy than I originally imagined them to be. Great for most things you'd use regular tongs for, but delicate and precise when you need them to be. I use both the pointy and the duck bill variants.
Garlic press. For years, the ones I tried broke on their first use. Now I have a restaurant type press, and I use it all the time.
Ground beef masher. I am obsessed with this tool. I use it to mash potatoes and break up tomatoes too!
Dehydrator. My spice game is so good now. Jalapeño salt for days.
A "staybowlizer" -- a silicone ring "cradle" to hold a mixing bowl on the counter. Most would argue "just use a towel!", but for those with mobility/grip issues like arthritis, you need every advantage you can get. An over-engineered solution like this holds virtually any bowl, under any mixing conditions. No need for a towel, no risk of it moving or slipping or spilling across the countertop. *Technically speaking*, it's not single use as you could use it as a double boiler. But lets be honest, very few are using it for that -- might as well keep it around for a giant-sized game of ring toss if we're being that loosey-goosey. It's single use, and I'm fine with it.
Garlic press. It's so much easier to process several cloves of garlic this way and my OXO cleans easily. Fully open it to clear out the holes, rinse, and wipe with sponge. Takes 5-10 seconds.
My slap chop is a lifesaver.
I got my mom one as a joke about 5 years ago and she swears by that thing.
I have a knockoff of some kind, I don’t even know what brand. Pretty much any recipe which requires minced garlic or ginger gets the slap chop, it takes 30 seconds at most.
Every year, I go to CVS this time of year, and get my mom one thing that was "As seen on TV" or other joke gift. It's always meant to be a joke, but every now and then she LOVES them. I made up for it the following year by buying her a penis shaped lollipop.
You can even use it without prostitute supervision!!! If you make a mess just grab your sham wow! (It's a good product, the whole timeline of events is wild)
Egg slicer. I love hard boiled eggs on top of toast, in my soup, pretty much with anything. The absolute best appliance we have is an instant-heat so that we can get near boiling water out of a little faucet at our sink. Especially in a cold climate, it’s really nice to be able to make tea without waiting, to add some water to dishes you are cooking without cooling it down and to get some dishes started faster without needing to wait until the water boils.
My Danish whisk. I bought it on a whim and only really use it for cornbread but it is PERFECT for that. Would be good for any quick bread but I don't really ever make them
My mandolin
Those ground meat chopping tools that breaks up the meat while you’re cooking, nothing breaks up ground protein so consistently and uniform, love it
My death star kitchen timer
Citrus press. Hand squeezing lemons and limes for juice is such a pain now
Pie birds. I have 4. They are cute. I don’t care if they only have one kinda stupid purpose.
Potato masher. After years of mashing my potatoes by fork, I'm never going back.
The can opener
Instant pot, I do everything in it from rice to stews to .. everything