Thursday, December 22, 2011

Non-electric kitchen items

I love cooking.  I have a almost 25 feet of shelves with cook books and cooking magazines.  In the kitchen I have a really nice Kitchen Aid mixer, a blender, a small food processor, a stick blender, a pancake griddle, waffle iron, a dehydrator, rice cooker, crock pot, coffee maker, microwave, and the list goes on and on.  Most of my appliances are over 10 years old, the dehydrator I bought in 1979 when the company was 6 years old!  I don't have a bread maker.  I used to but gave it away.  I found it was just as easy and made a better loaf if I just made it myself.  I also didn't replace the electric can opener.  A swing-away is all we need. 

Most people don't have many electric appliances because they don't have room for them all.  That's not the case here.  The appliances I use several times per month are stored in the kitchen.  The rest go on the shelves in the garage.  I don't buy every gadget.  Some are stupid...the mix the egg in the shell gadget as an example...  Because I'm concerned about the future, possibly without electricity unless I generate it myself, I have been thinking about my kitchen appliances.  How well would I get along without the electric gadgets?  So I started listing the gadgets that I have that only need hand power - then I need to figure out if those items would take the place of my electric gadgets or if I could use some other hand gadgets.  Hint, hint...it's holiday and birthday time!

The Kitchen Aid: Not only does my mixer have the three mixing blades I have the shredder attachment, the pasta attachment, and the meat grinder attachment.  How do I replace all of this?  I have several whisks.  I have mixing spoons.  I also have a hand mixer.  It's about 60 years old but it still works.  I think they make hand mixers that are a bit more ergonomically better.   I have a hand crank pasta maker.  A friend of mine just gave me his mandoline slicer.  I have an old (100 year old) hand crank meat grinder with different size grinding attachments.  

The blender:  This I would miss the most because I like to take fruit, ice, and a little sweetener and mix it up in the morning for a drink.  I suppose the grinder would work and then I'd just mix it all together with a spoon.  I'll have to work on this.  Is there a hand crank blender?  I do have a Hawaiian ice shaver.  They turn ice into snow.  On the other hand, if I don't have electricity I'm not going to be having ice that needs shaving!

The stick blender:  Another of my favorite tools, especially for blending up soups.  I could use the old hand mixer.  I could also take the soup and put it into a ricer or the food mill that you rotate the plunger. 

The rice cooker, crock pot, griddle, waffle maker, coffee maker:  I can use the stove top with a pot, pan, or percolator to replace these.  It sure is convenient to keep the crock pot going most of the winter! 

The microwave:  I'd miss the convenience.  There's no substitute.  Don't tell me about using a pressure cooker to cook fast.  I don't do much cooking in the microwave; it's mainly used to reheat...fast!

I guess I'm pretty well set up in the kitchen if the power goes out.  I can say that my new mandoline slicer is fantastic.  My sister has had one for a long time and I never really saw the need for it since I had the food processor and the slicer attachment for the Kitchen Aid.  But after thinking about no power it seemed like something I would want.  My new slices doesn't adjust for thickness but it sure made great french fries tonight.  I may be on the lookout for a used mandoline that does adjust for thickness. 

Any other kitchen tools that people just love and don't want to live without?

6 comments:

  1. I like the kitchen aid mixer but a couple of good coffee grinders is my go to tool for all small mixing/grinding jobs.

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  2. Hi, new follower. I love looking at the thrift store, or old antique stores for non electric kitchen gadgets. Now if I can just convince the hubby I NEED to spend the money on it.

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  3. I have seen battery operated blenders - regular blenders but battery operated-for camping I guess because that was the department I saw them in. You could get a solar battery charger like I have. And there is always those cabbage graters. You know what I am talking about? The old knuckle busters.

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  4. http://www.walmart.com/ip/Coleman-Portable-Blender/5646066

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  5. http://www.amazon.com/GSI-Vortex-Blender/dp/B0000Z6JZU

    Lehman's carries one too.

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