6 handy kitchen gadgets that make life much easier
The kitchen is one place in the house that either inspires a great amount of self-satisfaction or an overwhelming feeling of frustration – or maybe both, depending how the dish has turned out and at what cost to your kitchen. Luckily there are some affordable kitchen gadgets that just might change the way you view preparing that last-minute dinner. Prep less and cook more with these six useful kitchen tools.
We all know garlic brings some great aromatic flavours to dishes but painstakingly chopping up cloves is a task we’d happily skip. The garlic press, which minces cloves of garlics in one easy motion, is not a new gadget but this Anolon one, albeit a bit more expensive, has a great feature. While the cheaper ones tend to break and are hard to clean, this press has little rounded spikes to clean the holes for you. No more getting garlic stuck under the fingernails to clean a gadget that was meant to save you time in the first place!
Vegie slicer and ‘spiraller’, $39.95
This nifty gadget makes pasta out of your vegies! Not only is it great for those looking to cut down on carbs but it’s so much fun to use. Watch as the Spirooli makes spaghetti out of zucchini or spiral chips out of your potatoes. If you like your pasta traditional, this gadget is also great to cut up your vegies to make colourful and interesting salads.
Forget the days of patting dry freshly washed lettuce or if you skipped that step, having that dressing slip off wet leaves – the salad spinner ensure all those leafy greens are dried in seconds. There’s no excuses not to eat salad now, just press down and the salad spinner does the work for you.
Anybody who has a love affair with avocado will know there is only a very narrow window for enjoying the creamy flesh. It’s why it is so frustrating when you only need one half an avocado which usually means the other half going to waste (and avos are certainly not cheap). This avocado saver locks in the freshness in the leftover half avocado so you can still enjoy it for a couple more days.
You’ll never use a knife again with this ingenious tool to slice your vegies and fruit. Coming in various thicknesses, your vegies and fruit will now have deli style presentation. Plus, prep time won’t seem so painful with the slicer in your life.
Portion control pasta basket, $19.97
Measure, cook and strain a correctly-sized serving of pasta without counting calories. Or if you find yourself always cooking too much pasta, this little basket will ensure you get it right all the time. It’s also good to use if you want to add powerful spices to a recipe that you don’t want in the final dish.