Oh, the Things I Like

I’ve been making quite a few kitchen acquisitions during my absence. You need to know about them. Obvs.

Giant Wooden Tweezers

Do you know, I genuinely never used to think to myself ‘What I really need is a pair of oversized tweezers in my kitchen’. Weird, right? They are now easily my most used kitchen utensil. Aileen got them for me when we visited the tip shop in Leamington, so I can’t even tell you where you can get them, or even if they have a name beside Giant Wooden Tweezers. Sorry about that. But snap them up if you ever see a pair.

They’re much better than wooden spoons for cooking rice, stir fries or stirring stews, you can use them to easily turn anything on a griddle or when roasting, and it makes lifting chicken out of a roasting pan much more stable so you don’t have to awkwardly use two forks stabbed into a bit of meat to lift, then have it fall back in to the roasting juices and splash on your top (which will never come out) because you thought if you were just getting something out of the oven it’s not worth the bother of putting an apron on. You idiot.

Potato ricer

Ok, this sounds like a frightfully middle class and unnecessary extravagance. A masher should be perfectly serviceable. And it is, but the ricer is better. And cool.

It’s basically a giant garlic press for potatoes. Since I’ve had problems with finding the right sort of garlic press in the past, I was quite specific about the type I wanted – wedge shaped rather than circular, not too many detachable pieces. It was well worth it, and makes some top notch mash.

One thing I would say is that you either need to boil the potatoes until entirely soft, or after you’ve riced them once re-pack it and rice again. I would recommend the latter. You can remember this technique with the handy mnemonic ‘Rice twice. It’s nice’. Combine twice riced potato with a generous proportion of salt and butter and your mash will be unbeatable. By people who don’t have a ricer, that is, cos it won’t beat mine.

Iron Griddle

I recently treated myself to one of these as I was regretting the fact that it was barbeque weather and we don’t have a barbeque (or a garden to put it in, which itself would make the possession of a barbeque somewhat moot). I don’t know what took me so long – it’s brilliant. The only thing I can’t cook on it that I would on a flame is marshmallows, and I’ve always got candles for those. Sure it takes a while, but if I’m in the mood for toasted marshmallows then I’m going to have some toasted marshmallows, damnit.

So far sausages, steak, halloumi and vegetables have all come out beautifully. I’m not a fan of fish but I have no doubt that would work well too. One side effect of my enthusiasm for griddling is my tendency to griddle pretty much everything that comes along. Fancy an apple? No thanks. Griddled apple? Now you’re talking. This should keep me happy until I can do proper outdoor cooking.

Enormous Jar of Skips

I bloody love skips. Like, a lot. For Christmas Pete got me this enormous Kilner jar…

…and filled it with skips (the sauce is there for scale, by the way). He said it takes precisely eleven packs of skips to fill, and as you can see, it is now empty.

The best thing about this present is that on special occasions he will go and refill the Skip Jar. He’s just the best.