A Few of my Favourite Things

This past week in my kitchen I have experienced multiple times when I thought "Man, I wish I had two of these!" Do you experience that? For some reason these are items I use all the time and always seem to need a second, yet when I have extra money they are never things I think to buy myself. So, if you're planning a kitchen, or a gift registry, or are contemplating what to get someone ELSE to keep their kitchen nicely stocked, these are some items I highly recommend.

Everyone needs two:



Pyrex (glass) 9x13 pans. This is a pan you use for cakes, bars, casseroles etc. It always seems that I plan a meal and a dessert that both need the pan. I have a couple teflon ones, but really, I hate teflon pans, especially if you're going to be cutting the item with a sharp knife. And some things need the presentation of a clear pan.

I own this knife set from Rachael Ray:



I love everything about it, except what I have discovered is a flaw of every knife set. They assume you use every knife equally. However, I use my east/west and paring knives every single day. My fish knife, not so much (admittedly I use it when all the other knives are dirty). So I think every knife set should come with two chef's knives and paring knives. If you're buying a new set, stock an extra of each of these two. You won't be sorry.



Crock-Pot. This is the only entry of which I actually do own two of the items. When I was in grade 12 I got this brilliant idea that I was going to use a slow cooker to cook all my meals when I was in college and then I wouldn't have to think about food, it would just be ready for me. I got a smaller slow cooker for Christmas that year. I was so excited. My confession is that I only used it to make apple cider one cold day when I was in dorms my first year. And then my third year I made some ribs, that didn't turn out. But I kept the smaller size pot. Then when I got married I was given a bigger one. I debated returning it for all of about a minute when I realized that owning two crock pots meant that i could cook two different parts of a meal at the same time, which meant even less cooking for me! Brilliant. I have loved my slow cookers much more as a married woman. I don't know how people live without them. I have also recently figured out that they are a beautiful way of cooking in the summer when it is entirely too hot to turn on the stove and you don't want to BBQ again. My only tips? Get one with a removable centre, really it's worth it. And a timer function is a beautiful thing!



Ice Cream scoop. Without fail, mine is in the dishwasher when I need it. Perhaps this is a sign that I eat too much ice cream, but it's one of my summer favourites. And if you have two kinds of ice cream you're not carrying over one flavour to the other. Some people (like me) don't really mind that, but for those more picky people, get a second scoop.

Okay, those are just a few of things that I recommend. I'm sure i'll come up with more later. Have any of your own to add?