I need some holiday gift ideas (that I will probably gift to myself as well)!
Sounds dumb, but dishwashing gloves. I don’t have a dishwasher, and not getting my hands clammy when I do dishes makes the process infinitely less horrible.
Waternymph 360 Degree Swivel Sink Faucet Aerator. https://a.co/d/5GcJVli
Cut gloves
Pour over coffee maker
More if or when my back is hurting way less.
Dreamfarm cooking utensils: https://dreamfarm.com/
Squishmallows for comfort
USB-C cable tester, to tell you what a cable can actually support
Velcro cable ties
Cable labels https://a.co/d/jkEJrgl
Label printer
Victorinox kitchen knife
Sharpening stone
Leather strop for sharpening
Ruffwear dog leash
Ruffwear dog leash bag, attaches to the leash and is so useful!
Pepper gel spray with UV dye
Water filled pepper spray training aid
Door stopper security device
Karabiner with screw lock for keys
Nite Ize does all sorts of neat products. This is useful: https://a.co/d/bhSR9I7 a hook that doesn’t fall off
Resqme car escape tool
Reusable shopping bags/totes
Pyrex or steel reusable food containers
https://a.co/d/5fx7YJm first in first out can dispensers
Leather strop for sharpening
I’m genuinely curious here - really? As someone who always has to mess with the old fashioned ‘steel’ (mind your hands cus there’s no guard on it!) sharpener, are they better? Honestly, heard of them, never used but interested.
Yeah, after getting the profile on the blade correct, you finish it by polishing the edge. It really, really makes a huge difference. I could never use a steel correctly though, I always messed up.
I never understood the need for a pour over coffee maker. Why drink just one cup when you can drink a whole pot? :P
It doesn’t make just a single cup. Usually 6 to 8 cups.
Oh! Well then, I may need to reconsider this then! More coffee is always best
Second the Victorinox kitchen knife. Add in their paring knife, too, and that’s pretty much all you’ll need.
I third both Victorinox knives (specifically the ones with the Fibrox handles, not wood).
That said, I suspect other brands of similar knives – broadly, the good-but-cheap commercial-grade kind found in restaurant supply stores, which have stainless steel stamped blades, grippy plastic handles, and are NSF-certified to survive being sanitized by restaurant dishwashers – would be just about as good. Think something like a Mercer Culinary or a Dexter-Russell.
Definitely the opposite of making life easier but I love the stone mortar and pestle I got. I’m using it regularly not only to grind up spices like pepper or basil, but I also make pesto for pasta or rice dishes.
Ryobi Desktop Vacuum. I do a lot of small-scale craft stuff and absolutely love this thing. Good for cleaning up odd crumbs and whatnot, too. It’s surprisingly powerful and fairly quiet (a LOT quieter than a standard handheld vacuum).
Great topic idea! Here are some of mine, I’ll add links later:
- Heat resistant cooking gloves. These are basically oven mitts, but because they’re gloves, you can keep them on while cooking. I’ve gifted a few pairs of these and everyone loves them!
- A percussion massager is great for getting out muscle knots. Foam rollers too.
- Collapsible creates for the car and around the house - mine are made by InstaCrate
- A refillable oil sprayer so that you can buy any oil you want and evenly coat a pan. Great for searing and air frying
- Stainless steel pots are amazing. IKEA sells a set that’s around $50. Totally dishwasher safe, heat tolerant, just all around easy peasy
- Costco membership
Second on the mandolin that was on someone’s list.
Caveat being don’t buy a shitty one or it will have the opposite effect.
Wallet
Xiaomi Mi Band 6
A full size electric blanket (by full size I mean big enough to lay on it completely, like the size of a single bed mattress. I love mine
I recently got a double puffy blanket in my endevors to stsy warm while living offgrid. Its one of ny favorite posessions now I use a lot. Feels great, Keeps you very warm when cold, and can be buttoned up as a cloak/poncho. This Halloween I drunkenly wandered around town in near freezing weather with it in and was comfy as hell. Protected me from wind and fufilled my secret dream of wearing a batman cloak.
I am the night, bitch! snuggles up into blanket cloak
Kitchen scale. Baking is much better with weight measurements instead of volume. Also useful for calculating calories.
Headlamp. Having light where you don’t need to hold a phone or a flashlight is great.
Digital meat thermometer. No more guessing.
USB charging hub. Charge many devices at once.
I’ll second the meat thermometer. I bought one a little while ago and find that it prevents me from overcooking things out of an overabundance of caution.
Wireless ones are fantastic, can BBQ and cook in the kitchen without worrying about over/under cooking
No more dried pork chops or chicken! I probe everything I eat. I also used a “Meater” to cook our Thanksgiving turkey, came out ridiculously juicy.
Why stop with one head lamp? I have so many flashlights and head straps.
I bought a scale to start measuring my coffee a couple years ago and only recently realized I could be using it for cooking. Was definitely a game changer
Headlamp is the low key goat of tools for home improvement.
A really great meat thermometer, like a thermapen, can be very pricey
Yep, got one. They’re lovely and read in one second and are extremely accurate, but a simple 4 or 5 second reader will do the job just fine for most applications. Those can be had for around 25 USD.
They should call those thermomeaters… random thought
To my brain, that sounds like what someone would call their penis while jokingly trying to get their partner to take their temperature.
“Open up for the thermomeater babe, gotta make sure you don’t have a fever!”
…I was referring to taking a temperature orally, but I guess they could mean rectally, too, lmao
We like to keep it inclusive
I call them meatmometers.
Instant Pot (on sale): There is legitimately so many things you can make in these. Many of them do sous vide too, which is one of the best ways to cook meat.
Powered ratchet: For anyone who works on their own vehicles, a cheap powered ratchet is a godsend. I bought one for oil changes and car repairs and it’s my most used tool in my bag. I’m mad I spent so much time without one. Walmart’s Hyper Tough brand powered ratchet is $40 and holds up very well. Extended reach one is often on sale for $50-55.
E-Ink reader: Another often on sale item. If you have someone who loves books, having an entire library in your pocket with a built-in backlight for night reading that’s also easy on the eyes is a great thing. Coupled with Calibre and some…sourced epub files…and you can read a lot for free.
Vacuum sealer: Never have freezer burned stuff again. And keeps things fresh in the fridge longer. Also works great for sous vide for the above-mentioned Instant Pot.
Can you share some instant pot meals/ideas? I got one and it barely gets used. Every time I look stuff up or ask peoole it’s the same “crack chicken” recepies.
Mine is essentially a big power hungry medium boiled egg maker. Really wish it got more use.
It’s basically a pressure cooker, so……
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/pressure-cooker-chili-recipe-1942714.amp
Dried beans (includes garbanzo etc). With an automatic pressure cooker like that cooking dried beans goes from an ordeal where you have to soak them overnight and watch a pot for 5 hours and probably get indigestion because they’re undercooked anyway to, spend 2 minutes throwing in the beans and water and pressing the button and then come back sometime between 1-5 hours later to perfectly cooked beans. Save money and space in your pantry getting rid of cans.
You’re not selling it too well there, beanboy 😂
When was the last time you made beans not from a can? How did it go?
Genuinely can’t remember the last time I ate beans, other than a full English
You should sort that out.
Fresh veg > beans of any kind
Get on my level then lmao
Here’s my favorite recipes, I use it every week:
Ribs - easy to get super consistent results, pressure cooking helps keep moisture in. (https://www.pressurecookrecipes.com/easy-bbq-instant-pot-ribs/)
Clam chowder - creamy New England style, I add extra seasonings to amp it up. The clams I get in cans and bottled clam juice so the only non-shelf-stable ingredients are onions, carrots, celery, and garlic (https://recipes.instantpot.com/recipe/new-england-clam-chowder-2/) My additions: To make it more hearty and thick I do 3 cans of clams instead of 2, 4ish strips of bacon bits, an extra stalk or 2 of celery, between 1.5 and 2 lbs of potatoes instead of 1, and parsley and paprika in the same amounts as the thyme and oregano.
Spaghetti carbonara - my new cook book addition. grating the cheese adds more work, but overall still very simple as far as instant pot recipes go - saute the pancetta and reserve, saute onion and garlic, pressure cook pasta in broth, stir in butter, cream, cheese, egg, and pancetta when done (https://pressureluckcooking.com/instant-pot-spaghetti-carbonara/)
Corn chowder - really similar to the clam chowder but good for if you’re not feeling seafood, like most of the recipes I favorite, the steps mostly amount to dumping all the ingredients in, pressure cooking, and stirring in something extra at the end (in this case cornstarch and half&half to thicken) (https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/instant-pot-corn-chowder/)
I also use the instant pot some for other recipes but I lean heavily towards 1 pot meals and stuff where I can get away with putting 90% of the ingredients in for the pressure cooking step, that does mean a lot of soups but I’m working on adding more pasta dishes to my repertoire.
(Edited to add recipe links)
Any recipes you recommend for the ribs?
The ribs are the simplest, at its most basic all you have to do is remove the membrane on the back and then curl it up on a trivet over a cup of water, pressure cook high for 25 minutes and let sit under pressure for 10-25 more minutes after it’s done (depending on how fall-off-the-bone you want, I usually like 25mins), glaze with bbq sauce and broil in the oven until it gets a bit of char.
You can also salt & pepper it before putting it in, use apple cider vinegar instead of water, and/or add a few drops of liquid smoke in the instant pot. But it turns out great even when I forget to do those things so really all you need is ribs and sauce.
I got the recipe from here: https://www.pressurecookrecipes.com/easy-bbq-instant-pot-ribs/
Sounds great! I’ll have to try the recipe. Thanks!
Love making risotto in mine. Easy weeknight meal (depending on the recipe).
- Easy Vegan Pressure-Cooker Miso Risotto - my favorite recipe. I’m not vegan, it’s just really good.
- Pressure cooker corn risotto - also pretty easy, and you can absolutely sub canned or frozen corn if you don’t have/want to deal with corn cobs. Just bring frozen corn up to temp on saute mode before you start pressure cooking.
- Pressure cooker mushroom risotto - very tasty but more of a weekend project for me. That many mushrooms can get $$.
A lot of my use for my instant pot is to make batches of chicken stock to stick in the freezer.
Other than that these are a few of my most frequent recipes:
Spicy Instant Pot Carrot Soup
Chicken Tikka Masala
Chicken Adobo
Cilantro Lime ChickenThe last one isn’t really a pressure cooker recipe, but you can make nearly any slow cooker recipe a pressure cooker recipe by just cooking it under pressure for about 30-45 minutes.
Anything sous vide (if yours has a sous vide button). You can use ziplock bags in Leiu of a vac sealer. Chicken or steak sous vide and then quick seared in a hot pan for color is the best.
Olive Garden style Chicken Gnocchi soup (dozens of copycat recipes online). You can buy pre-packaged gnocchi or make it yourself. Get a loaf of French bread to toast cheap at the grocery store and it’ll blow your mind.
Basically any Chili recipe can be made 5-10x faster pressure cooked. No need to simmer it for hours.
Use it as a rice cooker. Pressure cooked white rice tastes like Chinese restaurant sticky rice and take 10 minutes. Get a box of frozen orange chicken from Costco and you’ve got Orange chicken over rice in about 18 minutes. Or cook some refried beans, brown rice, and fried eggs for a quick breakfast. Nothing beats a salt and pepper runny yolk egg soaked into rice.
Hard boiling eggs you mentioned already, but if you like egg salad it’s a great way to make easy peal boiled eggs for mashing into egg salad in the fridge.
Those are just a few things I use mine for ranging from moderate to simple.
Hah. I think my problem might be that I have gadgets for all of these things already.
I have a sous vide, so no need to use it for that
Chili I usually make in my slow cooker because it yields larger amounts (I usually fill the whole thing up and freeze a bunch of it)
I have a Zojirushi rice cooker, but I’m willing to try the instant pot if it is faster. I will check that out.
Chicken Gnocchi soup sounds amazing though.
PS: Older refurbished kindles are a steal!
Indeed
Seconding the vacuum sealer.
If you have decent freezer space, there’s no excuse to not use a vac sealer. I have so many friends that constantly complain about meat prices but don’t take advantage of buying meat on sale in bulk. With a vac sealer, you can really get ahead. Also processing and preparing your own meat products (burgers, sausage).
We also vac seal soups and broths!
Also, on the topic of slow cookers, while not $50 and under, a ninja foodi is a pressure/slow cooker and air fryer combo. I literally use mine everyday. It gets more use than my microwave or stove.
How do you vacuum seal things with liquids? Mine says absolutely no liquids, like if it gets a single drop of moisture on it, the company will come shoot me
That’s odd, mine actually has a “moist” mode. It has a little cavity where any juice that get sucked up go. You just have to empty it often if you’re doing alot of meats that are juicy. As for soups, I do one of two methods, freeze over night in a Tupperware, then remove from Tupperware and Vac seal or ill just let it cool and vac seal, which might leave a small air gap, but I haven’t notice it effect the soup like it does meat.
$35 gets me twelve bottles of soylent, which I use as twelve days I get to skip breakfast but still be well fed.
Pre bottled Soylent got me through a very rough time in grad school when I couldn’t eat because I was afraid to leave my room. The powdered stuff wouldn’t have worked because you have to prep it and clean up (meaning I would have to have left my room). So pre bottled practically saved my life.
I’ve moved past that now. It’s a bit pricey to keep up with when you go pre bottled and it’s not available in stores like Walgreens. Plus the best flavor (Cafe Mocha) was hurting my stomach. The only other flavor I didn’t mind was the strawberry flavor. All the others kind of suck. But it really has some pretty good utility.
If I’m ever in a pinch now, I just go with whatever nutrition shake is at my local corner drug store instead. Usually it seems to be a brand like Ensure or something. I can’t stand the regular chocolate or vanilla flavor that these meal shakes generally have, so I try to seek out a dark chocolate. Soylent didn’t seem to have that yet when I stopped buying from them.
Just steer clear of the Soylent Green flavour and you should be ok.
I heard it tastes like meat! Sounds great.
Ehh, it varies from person to person…
Yeah green my ass. They’ve definitely got some kind of animal protein in there
https://youtu.be/sR8M4zARBXY?t=720
Some soy proteins, some plant oil, organic acid from brown algae, ribonucleotides and salt of aminoacid.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/sR8M4zARBXY
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Why were you afraid to leave your room? No worries if you don’t want to share, just curious.
I was super stressed out from grad school and living with roommates at the time. I didn’t realize I would have an issue living with other people, as I had never done it before. I suppose you could call it extreme social anxiety or something. I was afraid of running into them or them seeing me or seeing what I eat even though they were all nice. I was just weird. After I graduated, I was able to get my own place so I didn’t have that problem anymore.
Social anxiety/phobia, at least that’s what I went through.
Also, mint-flavoured Huel instead of Soylent.
I hear you. That must have been a rough time. I hope you’ve found some useful coping mechanisms 🙂
A good, bright head lamp. See everything!
Probably a bit out of the $50 budget: a massage.
Eco 6$ toothpaste dispenser from AliExpress. I love it every time I use it
