Kitchen Appliance Favorites
I have always loved cooking and would rather make dinner at home than go out most nights. Once I made the switch to veganism, I realized I had to try to make all my meals from scratch in order to get all the necessary nutrients. More and more, I realized all these recipes I was coming across were using the same kinds of kitchen tools. I knew it would be cheaper and easier to buy these items to make dinners, instead of buying similar meals out somewhere.
Below are the exact items I use and love all of them. I am not a big fan of lots of kitchen appliances, but I use them all so often, these are staples for me. I do have a food processor but I find I use the blender for anything I would put in the processor.
Nutri Ninja® Blender DUO with Auto-iQ
I had a basic, $15 blender before and never really used it. Once I started making smoothies almost daily, it became very clear that I needed to update to a more high-powered blender. I looked around and found that everyone was talking about how great the Vitamix line was. They were also talking about the price. Yikes is all I can say. More power to anyone else, but I couldn’t justify paying $400 on even their cheapest blender. The second most talked about blender line was Ninja. They seemed to have about the same feature choices, and overall result was the same. The only difference was they were all a couple hundred bucks cheaper and I like they sound of that.
I really wanted one that had a travel mug as well, to make breakfast smoothies before work a breeze. Kohls had these on sale for about $160 for everything, which was great. I love the 72 oz regular blender with the center blade all the way to the top to help blend even tough things like kale down to liquid. I like being able to make a huge smoothie or blend up a sauce for dinner and know I plenty of room in the blender to work. The two travel mugs are also large (24 and 32 oz) and come with easy to use, screw on lids. This all paired with a 1200-watt motor base, you can make virtually anything a Vitamix can for a fraction of the cost. It’s easily paid for itself since buying it, and I haven’t had to go to a Jamba Juice type of place since.
Hamilton Beach Big Mouth® Juice Extractor
This is the largest of my appliances, but it is worth it. There is nothing like fresh, organic carrot juice to start the day, I’m telling you. Celery juice is another really great way to deliciously fuel your body. These are just two juices that I make on a regular, but any fruits or veggies you juice are great for you. When you use a juicer, you are taking out the fiber but still getting the nutrients. Your body has a better time absorbing the nutrients all while giving your digestive system a break without the fiber.
I did a two-day juice cleanse when I first got this bad boy, and man it was a lot of work. I looked at the cost of buying a prepaid cleanse, and a three day one started at $150. This usually means you are drinking 6-7 juices a day with a good amount of water in between. I used various kits as a guide of what to put in my juices and they all turned out delicious. They all took so much time and prep to make, paired with spending my days around when I needed to drink my next juice. I saved a lot of money by making my own cleanse, but I didn’t feel any different after all of it. I know it was for only two days, but in the end, it seemed like more work than it was worth. I was going to do a blog post about it but didn’t know if it would be worth anyone’s time since I didn’t have any results. Let me know if you would like to get my recipes for the cleanse I did, and I will share them with you. I do however, use my juicer on a regular basis and I like knowing I am not buying juice in plastic bottles at the store.
I found so many recipes calling for various veggies being spiraled like pasta, and I was intrigued. I saw mixed reviews on ones where you spiraled the veggies horizontally, and it seemed like it could be difficult to use. I found this cheap one on Amazon, and it spirals the veggies down vertically making it so easy to use. It comes with a little tray to catch the zoodles and cleanup is a breeze especially with the little cleaning brush they included. It comes with a handy cookbook for anyone needing to be inspired.
Insignia™ - 5-qt. Digital Air Fryer - Stainless Steel
I waited years to get one because I didn’t think I needed another kitchen appliance. I was wrong. I found this beauty at Best Buy on sale awhile back and decided to go all in on the size, so I had room to put a whole meal in at once. Not only does it “fry” up anything you can think of without the use of oil and its amazing. You can’t put battered items in obviously but everything else, especially frozen items work great in here. It also is great for those hot Vegas Summers where it’s 120 outside, the last thing I want to do is use the oven to cook something. I found a place on a shelf for it so it’s out of the way unless I need it and it has paid for itself ten-fold at this point.
