Unsure or regrets on Kitchen/Home products

[Kittyblue]

I have a toaster oven that was a gift, I so rarely use it I forgot about it until another poster mentioned it here.

I like the air fryer, but I rarely use it because it's so small I have to cook for everyone in batches.

 

[jujubiee4]

Bread machine was probably the gadget we used the least. We donated it years ago.

Couple of years ago I finally ditched the Showtime Rotisserie we got way back in 2000. Before I donated it my husband said, "hey, look on eBay to see what they are going for." O. M. G.! Up on eBay it went, and we got $200 for it. If you have one sitting in your cabinet never getting used, clean it up and sell it!




I received an Instapot for Christmas last year. It took me a month to get it out of the box, but I do use it. I use it in spurts. Sometimes several times in a week, other times once every three weeks.

I have found by far and away the BEST thing to use it for is cheap cuts of meat. Beef especially. Beef and broccoli, stroganoff, pepper steak all come out so tender in the instapot (beats the pants off crockpot with how tender it becomes). Chicken thighs come out fantastic too. I have made bourbon chicken, butter chicken, and some other kind that the sauce stunk but the chicken was super tender (lol).

Do you make your own recipe or follow from a website? Honestly i am always looking for FOOLPROOF
recipes if possible to cut down unnecessary trips to grocery stores during these times.

 

[fly girl]

Do you make your own recipe or follow from a website? Honestly i am always looking for FOOLPROOF
recipes if possible to cut down unnecessary trips to grocery stores during these times.

Here are a few I have used as a guide:
(I wouldn't say foolproof as what we like you may not care for)


(I do not use as much brown sugar as they call for. If you don't like too much heat, take down red pepper flakes.)
https://sweetandsavorymeals.com/instant-pot-beef-and-broccoli/

https://onceamonthmeals.com/recipes/instant-pot-honey-bourbon-chicken-traditional-version/

https://thesaltymarshmallow.com/best-ever-instant-pot-beef-stew/

(I prefer another recipe, but I cannot find it. This one was good but the ingredients aren't your typical stroganoff.)
https://www.pressurecookrecipes.com/instant-pot-beef-stroganoff/

https://twosleevers.com/instant-pot-butter-chicken/#wprm-recipe-video-container-5002

 

[dmfordo]

Thanks for the mandoline reviews. I was thinking about getting one. I think I'll pass as I like all of my fingers.

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

Hmmm, you may have just found me a use for my instant pot, other than egg cooker. Thanks, going to try this.



This reminds me of another useless appliance buried in my cabinets. I had completely forgotten about it. It's another thrift store find, that was new and sealed for a few dollars. Even so, I should have left it on the shelf. It's the completely useless Rival Cookie Factory. For the life of me, I don't know how it has five stars on Amazon.

I use this recipe. I do get a 'burn' notification the last 10 or 15 seconds of the 3 minute cook, but I haven't had it actually burn; just almost perfect rice every time.

https://realandvibrant.com/instant-pot-jasmine-rice/

 

[superme80]

a bread maker. I have used it 3 times. Bread only came out once.
Best is air fryer. I use it all the time.

 

[mousefan73]

Mandoline Slicer. Not sure I would say I regret the purchase (it was fairly cheap) but I don't use it like i thought I would. Mainly because the largest guide is too thin for my purposes.

Between the three of us we use our rice cooker and air fryer several times per week. Don't own an insta pot.

Funny we have 2 of those and looove one and regret the other. We use one many times in a week as we love cucumber salad and use our cheap simple one that is almost 20 years old. Can only cut super thin or thick a basic slice.

Regret: Then I bought 2 years ago a super expensive one from Tupperware that does a lot more but is a PIA to drag out/ set up and clean. Has a stand thing and different slices types. AND can slice a finger off.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

Instant pot... we got as gift, we have used it a couple times. For some reason DH thought we needed an indoor grill, that has been used a couple times and it takes up a lot of space.

My bad idea was an air fryer. I ended up replacing it with a combination air fryer/toaster oven which works great. I gave away the original air fryer.

 

[Jre1206]

I have to agree with you on this one. But it was hubby who wanted it, not me. So far the only things I've made in it are home made fries, chicken wings, and frozen battered fish. It does take up too much counter space, and I don't have room in cabinets or cupboards for it.

Exactly my problem! I have no where to put it other than the attic and if it goes up there it isnt coming down lol

 

[Eeyore daily]

I regret buying cast iron skillets. I hate seasoning them, cleaning them, and anything I have made on them tastes funny or ends up cooking weirdly. They now stay in my cabinet and I should really just get rid of them.

Now I love my air fryer. It’s a fantastic alternative to using my oven in the Florida summer. I use it almost every day

 

[belleatdisney]

Instapot. It cooks faster but by the time it reaches pressure it doesn’t save as much time as I thought it would. It takes way to long if you need multiple ingredients with different cooking times. I am ready to get rid of it as I haven’t used it in almost 2 years.

I love my large(ish) convection toaster oven. I rarely use the big oven now. It preheats super fast and the whole house doesn’t get hot.

 

[_19disnA]

Have owned a few breadmakers over the years and NONE of them do nearly as good of a job kneading as a good quality stand mixer (Kitchenaid, for example). Those tiny twirling blades of the bread machine do a terrible job kneading and the results are just average. Would never buy another bread machine since it is only good for one thing while a good stand mixer has so many other uses.

Do you make your own recipe or follow from a website? Honestly i am always looking for FOOLPROOF
recipes if possible to cut down unnecessary trips to grocery stores during these times.

I think you are asking about breadmaking and I use various websites and also make up my own. Almost all basic bread recipes are similar and you can compare the ratio of ingredients to get a sense of what works (flour, sugar, butter, eggs). I like the Foodnetwork recipes and other similar sites with proven/well-written recipes from professional chefs. Only site I do NO use is allrecipes. com since they have do not have a test kitchen and you find a lot of recipes posted by home cooks having obvious defects in either ingredients/quantities or directions.

 

[_19disnA]

Thanks for the mandoline reviews. I was thinking about getting one. I think I'll pass as I like all of my fingers.

Mandolines are safe to use as long as you use the blade guard. Where people get injured they do NOT use the guard and likely are rushing to cut up something. I like that you get uniform/thin slices using a mandoline so the food cooks more evenly.

 

[cmrdgrs]

DH was into juicing things for a while, that phase ended, and now I have a Juicer and a Ninja Bullet that just take up space on my shelf. I also agree with the Air Fryer. It's not that I don't like the appliance, it just is a pain to clean, and you can only fry things in small batches. It's really just a form of a convection oven, so I've gone to "frying" things in my oven on the convection setting using a baking sheet. Holds a lot more and much easier clean-up.

My rice cooker and my Instant Pot are two of my most used appliances. I use my rice cooker so much that I bought one of the Japanese rice cookers that pressurizes the rice, and has various settings depending on the type of rice you're cooking. If you don't eat a lot of rice I wouldn't recommend it, but we eat rice 3 or 4 times a week, so for us, it's been worth the cost.

 

[easyas123]

I don't use my air fryer as much as i thought i would and it takes up way too much counter space

Us as well -

 

[DumboDash2006]

My oven is both regular and convection. I have never used the convection because I have no idea how to do it.
I have a toaster oven but don't use it anymore because it takes too long to make toast.
I have three bread makers in my garage, two of which I inherited. I also have two brand new bullet blenders that I never used.

My oven is the same and I've also never used the convection oven for that reason. I should try and figure it out, but I'm lazy.

 

[mrsstats79]

The indoor grill - biggest waste of money for me. Pain to clean. I agree on the cast iron pans. Hate cleaning them. Air fryer I just use for french fries. I use my crock pot. The casserole crock pot I only use on occasion.

 

[mjkacmom]

Honestly i think the echoes are so underrated. I love mine and also use as a "intercom" to call upstairs
that dinner is ready. Also you mentioned convection toaster oven. I bought one couple weeks ago.
I only made banana bread and some garlic toast but they were perfection! I'm suspicious of anything
not cooked in a full sized oven so I was pleasantly surprised. Pork chops eh? Did you use bake or
convection setting? thanks

I use the regular bake, have made lasagna, Mac and cheese, brownies, pizza, banana bread - anything in a 9 x 11 pan. I brought a pan of Mac and cheese to a friend’s house and put it in her toaster over, the whole family was shocked that I was toasting it, they didn’t realize it could be used as an oven.

 

[tasha99]

My airfryer is a big regret. We have 2 ovens, one is already convection, and the airfryer is just a teeny tiny convection oven. The airfryer sits in the garage. We'd donate it, but I think my son might like it when he moves out (he does make a lot of precooked frozen foods, that do come out well in very small quantities in the fryer).

Also, I have a mandoline but never use it. Even when recipes suggest using one, I think it looks like too much trouble to clean. I can get an even thin cut with a knife, especially cooking in amounts for 2-3 people. I think of a mandoline as more of a restaurant tool, when you need mountains of chips cut, instead of 3 cups.

 

[Praying Colonel]

We needed a new nonstick skillet and DW wanted to try a ceramic one. I couldn't find one with really good reviews on Amazon, SIL had one and didn't recommend it--we got it anyway. In spite of really babying it, it stopped being nonstick after about 6 months. "Only wasted $20" is the best thing i can say about it.

Woks. I've bought several and never really could keep them seasoned well enough to work well. (Having a glass cooktop probably didn't help, either.) Plus we just didn't use them often enough to justify the space they take up in our kitchen cabinets. If I stir-fry now I just use a skillet, and if it doesn't turn out like it would in a wok, we just live with that.