5 After 5, Kitchen Gadgets Edition

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It's time for another round of 5 After 5!  In case you missed it, last week's list was 5 of your favorite National Parks and if you're new to this series, you can read more about it here.


Today I've got my list of 5 to share, as well as next week's topic for you to stew about over the upcoming days.


And this series is now a link party, so be sure to scroll down and join in all the fun with us this week!




List 5 of your favorite kitchen gadgets


You've probably figured out by now that I love to cook (why else would I have tackled the crazy-involved menu for this fun night?), so I have a long list of things that I love to use in my kitchen.

Some are common, some are not, but I believe that all five make whipping up tasty treats way easier:




1.  A garlic press




Sure, it's not that big of a deal to mince up a bit of garlic for a recipe, but when you like garlic as much as we do (How much is that?  Well, just substitute "head" for "clove" in any recipe and you'll get an idea of the scale I'm talking about here), then this gadget's worth increases tenfold.

Plus, smashing and squeezing a bunch of allium goo with a press to then slather over everything I eat whenever I feel a tickle in my throat is the only way I can handle the heat of copious amounts of the raw stuff I ingest to kick a cold to the curb!







This is one of those things I that fought for the longest time.  How ridiculous is it to spend a ton of money on something you can buy and throw away a zillion times over in the meantime?

But once I took the plunge and invested in some really high-quality cutlery, I realized how wrong I had been.

(It also helped to actually spend zero dollars on these things - because I applied a cashback bonus to get a gift card to a major home store which always has coupons for 20% off, making my free expenditure even more of a great deal!)

The cool thing is, I realized I really only need three knives in order to do everything I needed to:  

santoku




paring



bread





3.  Good kitchen shears


 

There are times for fancy knife skills when uniform size matters, and then there are times when you just need something cut up and higgledy-piggledy is just fine.

I find that most of the time, higgledy-piggledy is just fine in our house, so I use my kitchen shears daily to do things like get our monster salad into manageable-sized bites, snip the green onions that often get sprinkled on top, and even cut our weekly pizza into slices if I'm not in the mood to use the pizza wheel.




4.  A thermometer



I'd used my thermometer pretty often for years (like when I'd make my coconut-milk caramels), but once I started making my own cheese, it became a truly indispensable tool.

Now I use it pretty much weekly, which is basically how often we devour a gallon's worth of cheese around here...



5.  A good silicone spatula spoon



 
I've found that I use this tool for practically every job I have - whether it's stirring, mixing, scraping - in a bowl or on the stove.

It really is the perfect 2-in-1 kitchen tool.





For next week:


List 5 popular travel destinations you've been to



I love to travel and have been able to see a good chunk of this amazing world we live in (and I still want to see more!)

I've been to some unusual locations, but our next list is all about five of the most popular travel destinations that we've been to.  I can't wait until next week to find out which spots you've seen!


And now, here's this week's link party!  Two other fabulous bloggers have teamed up with me to create lists of five each week and we hope that you'll join us, too!



That's right, every post will be read, pinned and tweeted!  

Every Saturday, just stop by one of our three blogs to add your own list of five, then pop over and read as many other posts as you're able to each week - treat it like a true party and really mix it up and mingle with our fun little community!

The rules are simple:  just write your own list following the prompt each week (feel free to interpret it loosely - or in a unique way!), follow each of the three hosts on the social media channel of your choice, and then get into the spirit of the party by grabbing your favorite beverage or snack and reading the lists of the other party-goers.



Your Hosts:

Lisa, at Syncopated MamaFacebook // Twitter // Pinterest // Google+ // Bloglovin'
Samantha, at Motivated DaysFacebook // Twitter // Pinterest // Google+ 
Heather Marie at Life, Love, and LasagnaFacebook // Twitter // Pinterest // Instagram // Bloglovin'


What's your list?  I'd love to hear!  Either leave a comment below or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.

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