I’ve found in recent months and as the weather gets cooler I’m spending more time in the kitchen cooking . We often have our favourite brand or size of product but the reason I posted was to find out , like me , what products or utensils you reach for to use on a daily or regular basis ./
The products I;ve shown are a part of my cooking arsenal and I could reach for others similar , gifts I have been given or purchased myself , but find I reach for these items regularly . I was wondering what other appliances or utensils my fellow forum uses reach for on a regular basis ./
Clock wise from bottom left I will describe what I use .
1 ) Pastry scraper I use for scooping diced vegies off the cutting board
2 ) Analon 19cm Brunello Series Santoku knife . I have 2 others but that seems to be the one I always pull out of the knife block.
3 ) Maxwell & Williams Accacia Wood 33 cm Turner
4 ) Staub Olive wood 30cm spoon .
5 ) Le Creuset Pasta or multi pot depending on what school you went to .
6 ) Solidteknics 26cm and 30 cm Skillets . Would be lost without them .
7 ) Chasseur 18cm Dutch oven . Used nearly daily . Great French made product .
8 ) Academy Brand 28cm Colander . I reach for that one . Don’t know why . Notice the Tumeric is starting to colour the white enamel .
Well that’s what I reach for very regularly in the kitchen . How about you ??
Here are 3 jar scrapers, not yet found anything like them in Australia although they are ubiquitous in the US. It doesn’t show well but the middle one is like a miniature hoe.
We buy a few when there, but between trips search Amazon for jar spatulas and bottle scrapers. Postage has only been about $US7 for a few scrapers and ice cream paddles in one go.
It reads like you have seen 2 of them here. Might I ask where?
Kitchen Warehouse, Peters of Kensington, et al also have them …
Edited to add: and thanks - I never knew they existed before this topic, now I need one !!! or like my collection of peelers to overcome the “I’m not helping because you haven’t got the type of peeler I like” problem, I might need a selection of them just to be sure no jar escapes with contents. And do you think I can stop there with a kitchen shop order?
I have an account with Everten . I think I will get one of those jar scrapers too . I have quite a few items in the OXO Good grip range .Great products . Don’t know how I missed these scrapers . Better than using a knife and ending up with sticky fingers
No it doesn’t Tamas . Guess what I ordered a Jar scraper from Kitchen Ware house online . On sale with free delivery . I did not get the OXO that is similar to Phils . I ordered a Le Creuset Scraper . /
Tamas do you think I’m becoming a utensil snob ?
I could not help myself so I ordered an Oxo Stainless steel potato masher as well . Took advantage of the free postage .
I also mentioned the ‘ice cream paddle’. I expect this misses product translation. Note the sharpened edge. Paddles are wonderful if you have weak wrists or hard ice cream. My partner struggles with the common scooper but has no worries with this.
A pity that your santoku cannot be pressed into that role, it is the right size and even has dimples on the side to stop the slices adhering. Or you could pick up the board and scrape it into wherever the veges are going, just about any knife would do then.
Deep frozen ice-cream is an abomination served by philistines. A true aficionado would have a separate freezer for the ice-cream so that it can be kept at the correct consistency for eating. This would also slow the proliferation of redundant gadgetry as it may then be served with a spoon. Yo’all have spoons don’t ye?
Regards lifting my cutting board . It is 610 x460 mm and 75mm thick hard rock maple . Manufactured by Boos Blocks in the USA , it weighs 23.5 KG so lifting it to scrape would be impractical ./
Regards to using the Santoku to pick up diced vegetables I prefer to use the stainless steel scraper as I find it easier to manage and as the picture shows much wider and therefore more practical in picking up the volume of diced vegetables I cut .
The first is a garlic press. We recently had to purchase a new one as the old one was about 20 years old and the handle failed/broke. This one was $5 from Kmart and surprised about its quality (appears to be chrome plated alloy and very robust). It also has points which grip the garlic and also push it through the presses holes. The only negative is these points protrude when the press if full closed…and has to be opened slightly when using a knife to scrape the last of the garlic off the face of the press.
Why a garlic press? Well, we eat a lot 0f garlic, about a bulb (12-16 cloves) a week. Must used in Asian cooking but also used in Mediterranean dishes. Usually we chop garlic finely for stirfires but use the garlic press for making Asian sauces/marinades.
The second being a wood flipper/spatula. This one is about 15 years old and is still going strong. It is used when cooking Asian dishes and also when using our non-stick appliances/pots and pans.Wood is also important when using a steel wok so that it isn’t scratched leaving a place for food to stick.
The third may seem to be a bit ridiculous, but hands are one of the most important utensils in our kitchen. They are used for kneading,mixing/stirring/blending, pressing, picking, scraping, pipping crushing, measuring, pinching etc. Without hands, many of the dishes we enjoy would not be possible, as they could not be replaced with a manufactured utensil. Being less accurate for measuring than scales/measuring cups/spoons, each dish also becomes unique and something to savour and enjoy.
We do have many more, but these are possibly the ones most regularly used and appear in the sink for washing up.
I love garlic, it’s almost at the point where there’s very little I wouldn’t add it to on the savoury side - but I don’t feel I’ve ever found a good garlic press, it seems to me they always leave residue which I always find myself scraping from the press to add to the food anyway. I’ve seen small garlic choppers as well, and tried grating on a fine grater. Is this the best kind and I just need to accept it? is ‘pressing’ rather than cutting or grating a key element for everything or just some dishes?
Wooden/bamboo utensils I can also relate to. Not a fan of plastic for anything. Grabbed a couple of those bags of assorted bamboo utensils a few years back on a supermarket clear-out - no-name stuff - works well.
… and it’s always amusing watching someone trying to use an implement of some sort when the task is just screaming for a pair of clean hands to do it in half the time and twice as well I agree with Mike, you nailed it on number three.
At one stage we had a plastic screw type garlic press…which was disappointing to use…there was a lot of (wasted) garlic left in the bottom of the press and it had a life of about 2 years before the screw mechanism, which was also plastic, broke.
Our next one was a chrome steel one, the part containing holes could slide out for easy cleaning. While it worked well in pressing the garlic, some garlic tended to squeeze out between the chamber and the plunger. It also left considerable pressed material in the chamber.
When this broke, we has a spare plastic and metal one, I beleive it was given to us, but it was flimsy and not good to use at all… .so we hunted for a new one.
The $5 Kmart one did surprise us as it is superior to the last one we had. Some garlic does squeeze out along the side of the chamber when garlic is compressed, but this can be easily pushed back into the chamber with my finger utensil for a second pressing. The amount of residue left in the chamber post pressing is very minor and the holes are clear of garlic (something which did’t happen with the last one). The clear holes and minor residues make it very easy to clean. The chamber is slightly small and larger cloves need dividing to fit in.
It also seems robust and we hope that we will have many years of enoying the press (it is about a month old)…and continue to maintain our faint garlic aroma. They do say if one also consumes garlic, one doesn’t notice others aromas.
or like my collection of peelers to overcome the “I’m not helping because you haven’t got the type of peeler I like” problem, I might need a selection of them just to be sure no jar escapes with contents. And do you think I can stop there with a kitchen shop order? 
I agree with Mike, you nailed it on number three.