7 Kitchen Gadgets You Can't Live without ...

A food mixer is one of the more expensive but essential kitchen gadgets if you really enjoy cooking. It needn´t be ridiculously expensive though; how much to spend depends on what you want to use it for. The more you spend, the more attachments it will have. Food mixers are very versatile though, and will be useful for everything from baking cakes to making soup.

I have a friend who adores her bread maker, and thinks it is the greatest gadget ever. The fab thing about bread makers is that you can set the timer and wake up in the morning to freshly baked bread, without having to go to the bakery. They needn´t be expensive either - $50 or less should buy you a machine.

Juicers have become quite trendy in recent years. A basic citrus juicer is cheap and simple to use- fresh orange juice is delicious and healthy. You can of course buy a juicer for all kinds of fruit, but I would recommend starting with a citrus juicer. Only buy a more expensive juicer if you are sure that the novelty won´t wear off – chopping lots of fruit and cleaning the machine can get pretty tedious, whereas cutting oranges in half and cleaning a citrus juicer is easy.

Basic kitchen gadgets are often the most useful items to have. Why do you need a garlic press? If you use a lot of garlic (which is great for helping prevent colds and fend off unwanted attention), a garlic press saves fiddly chopping and also stops your hands smelling of garlic (which really lingers …).

Of all the kitchen gadgets you can't live without, a corkscrew has to be the most essential! It´s really hard to open a bottle of wine or beer without one – unless you´ve mastered that trick of being able to tap the beer bottle top on a surface to open it. For the rest of us, a corkscrew just makes the job so much easier – and there´s nothing more frustrating than realising you haven´t got a corkscrew when you need to open a bottle for guests.

This is another of the simple but essential kitchen gadgets. Have you ever tried baking when you don´t own any scales? I have, and guesswork does have its limitations with some recipes. Digital scales are especially useful if you use recipes that need accurate quantities (and are also useful if you sell on eBay).

Any half-serious cook should have a pepper grinder. I´m not that into cooking, but I would never use ground pepper in anything. It just doesn´t add the right flavour. A pepper grinder really makes a difference when it comes to seasoning a dish, and they´re so cheap that everyone should buy one.

Nobody wants to waste money, and these essential kitchen gadgets are items that you will get plenty of use from. The more expensive gadgets will be worth the investment.

What are the kitchen gadgets you can't live without – and have you ever wasted money on others that you´ve never used?

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