Kitchen Tools

If you’d like to support Kei & Molly Textiles and get a hold of some wonderful goods at the same time, they’re offering Simply Recipes readers a 10% discount on their Gardener’s Delight Bundle ($38), a special gift bundle they’ve assembled for the holiday season!

The bundle includes their popular Bees and Tree of Life flour sack dish towels, two Lavender Sprigs sponge cloths (which are super absorbent and naturally biodegradable), and four sweet vinyl stickers.

Enter code SIMPLYRECIPES10 at checkout. A fantastic gift for you, a beloved home cook, or the favorite gardener in your life!
Please note while we encourage you to peruse and purchase all their goods, the 10% discount only applies to the Gardener’s Delight Bundle. LEGGI TUTTO

Hard brown sugar, be gone! This magic brown sugar keeper ensures you’ll have soft, pliable brown sugar whenever your baking requires it.

Welcome to One Simply Terrific Thing, our ongoing series highlighting the small tools and kitchen goods that make life better!

It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that brown sugar and butter are two of my favorite food groups. Brown sugar is a must for my favorite holiday cookies, but it also finds it way into winter squash, stir fries, glazes for vegetables and salmon, and best of all, candied bacon!
There’s only one problem: I am usually fighting a hard brick of sugar, and that adds about 10 minutes to my projected cooking time, not to mention a boatful of aggravation.
But one day I found a brown sugar keeper that solved all those problems.
HOW TO SOFTEN BROWN SUGAR: OTHER WAYS
Before I had a designated brown sugar keeper, I tried the trick of adding apple slices to my brown sugar and enclosing it in a plastic bag. That yielded unappetizing and shriveled apples, and the sugar was still mostly hard.
Next I tried microwaving those brown sugar bricks with a damp paper towel, to mixed results. I was still doing battle with more than a few hard clumps and dealing with melted, gooey sugar. And the same irritation of having to wrestle with a bag of sugar!

Progressive International’s Brown Sugar Keeper 
I’m not a big fan of single-purpose tools or gadgets, but one day, out shopping in my favorite discount store, I saw this brown sugar container by Progressive International ($13 from Amazon).

(Discount stores have a strange effect on my brain. My resolve to stay focused and on budget usually melts with the first shiny object on the shelf that catches my eye. For a cook, a shiny object could be a brown sugar keeper. We have small but important desires.)
Could such a purchase—we’re not talking about breaking the bank here, friends—make a difference in my life? The short answer is: yes!
I’ve had this keeper for about eight months, and I can tell you, when I need a tablespoon of brown sugar for a marinade or stir-fry, I no longer have to scrape the top off a block of brown sugar cement.
It’s not rocket science to understand how the brown sugar keeper works; it’s just a very efficient way of using the apple trick. A terra cotta disk soaked in water attaches to the lid of an attractive plastic container and helps keep the brown sugar from drying out. The airtight lid closes with a satisfying snap and the container can be stored at room temperature.
It’s like having a stone in your shoe, and suddenly, the stone is gone. You didn’t even notice how much it bothered you until you started to enjoy your walk without the nuisance of that pesky little stone. LEGGI TUTTO

Kitchen ToolsOne Simply Terrific Thing

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Welcome to One Simply Terrific Thing, our ongoing series highlighting the small tools and kitchen goods that make life better!

The nut milk bag’s terribly-specific name screams unitasker! but it’s actually an incredibly useful tool that can replace many single-use or clumsy, large items in your kitchen and/or home bar.
In terms of practical value, it’s right up there with a reliable cocktail shaker.
The nut milk bag is made of fine, breathable mesh. Because of the airflow, you can use it as a container for drying herbs or edible flowers. It can also replace cheesecloth, fine strainers, coffee filters, and any of the other unwieldy gear you reach for when you need to separate solids from liquid. (And oh yeah, and it strains nut milks, too.)
These bags come in various sizes, but this wide 12-inch size is the best overall. It can hold quite a lot (I used mine recently to strain chicken stock scraps), but also doesn’t seem excessive for straining smaller items like a batch of fresh ricotta cheese. The wide opening also ensures that you can fold it over a bowl or a measuring glass.

I’ve had my current nut milk bag for around four years now and only just recently needed to grab an extra one, since quarantine life had me straining cold brew coffee and homemade cheese concurrently. Not only is this a versatile kitchen tool, but if you’re also a home bar enthusiast (like me!), then this also comes in handy for infusing liquors or straining that batch of homemade orgeat.
The best part of owning one is saying goodbye to so many single use items, and those annoying threads from cheesecloth. And when you’re done with it, it folds up teeny tiny into your drawer until next time.

This post may contain links to Amazon or other partners; your purchases via these links can benefit Simply Recipes. Read more about our affiliate linking policy.

Elana Lepkowski
Elana Lepkowski is a professional photographer, writer, and recipe developer with almost 20 years in the food industry. She began documenting her cocktails in 2011 after mixing drinks in her home bar for years, and her website Stir and Strain is now a widely recognized resource for cocktail enthusiasts. Elana has contributed to Serious Eats, Dinner Party Download, Imbibe, and numerous other publications. When she’s not concocting new syrups at home, you can probably find her at Disneyland.
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Kitchen ToolsOne Simply Terrific Thing

Forget a knife or food processor! This glass hand-cranked nut chopper is the best way to chop nuts.

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Welcome to One Simply Terrific Thing, our ongoing series highlighting the small tools and kitchen goods that make life better!

Are you nuts for nuts? I sure am, and not above deploying bad puns to prove it.
To aid me in achieving maximum nut consumption, I love the Norpro Nut Chopper. It’s a smart upgrade to an old-fashioned gadget you may very well have seen in your grandmother’s kitchen.
Why the Norpro Nut Chopper Is the Best
I am usually not a big fan of single-use tools; that this nut chopper has earned a nook in my cabinets for years is a mark of its handiness.
The Norpro Nut Chopper is the spitting image of an old relic I found at a thrift store when I was in my 20s that I still use out of stubborn sentimentality. It features a glass jar and stainless steel blades, and I highly recommend it over choppers made from plastic. The sturdy glass jar can withstand the stress from handling, while users report threads cracking in the jars of plastic models. (I remember customers returning plastic choppers to the cookware store I worked at years ago for the very same reason.)
It chops nuts better than either you or your food processor, and the nuts are consistently sized. When you load nuts into the top compartment, depending on which direction you crank the handle, the blade will chop coarsely or finely and the chopped nuts fall into the jar below.

One caveat about hand-cranked nut choppers is they’re not that great with almonds, which are perhaps a bit too hard for them to handle with ease. But that still leaves pistachios, cashews, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, macadamias, and peanuts for hours of nut-chopping pleasure. (PS: Kids love using this thing.)
As intended, I use the chopper for nuts only, and thus hardly ever wash it. The jar can go in the dishwasher if you like, but the top fares best simply wiped off.
Cheers to good tools!

This post may contain links to Amazon or other partners; your purchases via these links can benefit Simply Recipes. Read more about our affiliate linking policy.

Sara Bir
Sara Bir a graduate of The Culinary Institute of America and the author of two cookbooks: The Fruit Forager’s Companion and Tasting Ohio. Past gigs include leading chocolate factory tours, slinging street cart sausages, and writing pop music criticism. Sara skates with her local roller derby team as Carrion the Librarian.
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Kitchen ToolsOne Simply Terrific Thing

Garlic presses get a bad rap, but if you find a good one it’s an incredibly useful, helpful tool. The OXO garlic press beats all others!

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Photography Credit: Sheela Prakash

Welcome to One Simply Terrific Thing, our ongoing series highlighting the small tools and kitchen goods that make life better!

For a long time, I was very anti-garlic press.
I used to think a garlic press was the #1 most unnecessary kitchen tool, and I would get on my imaginary soapbox and share my strong feelings to anyone who would listen.
But just a couple of months ago, I found myself retracting this bold statement after using the OXO Good Grips garlic press.
WHY THE OXO GARLIC PRESS IS THE BEST
My encounter with OXO’s garlic press was quite unplanned.
After years of growing up with a constant stream of useless garlic presses, I’d always felt this tool never worked as well as it claimed to, and was a pain to clean. I promised myself I’d never own a garlic press.
But when we went to stay with my dad a few months ago near the start of COVID quarantine, one night during dinner prep he pulled his own garlic press –the OXO one– out of the drawer. I grumbled, but when he insisted it actually worked, I gave it a try.
It turned out OXO magically solved every single qualm I’d had with the garlic presses of my past.
What’s ingenious about the OXO garlic press is you don’t have to peel the cloves. Slip one, two, or even three cloves into the press (yes, it conveniently holds multiple cloves), squeeze it using the comfortable, rubber-gripped handles, and the sturdy press efficiently pushes the garlic pulp out of its large hole.

To clean it, simply flip the handles around and a red rubber strip pushes out the papery skin and any pieces of garlic that remain in the press. After that, it’s usually already pretty clean enough that a good rinse or a gentle wash is all it needs. If you don’t want to do that, you can toss the press right in the dishwasher.
Since I’ve been using this garlic press at my dad’s over the past few months, I’ve become a total convert – so much so that after years of putting my foot down, I’ve already ordered one for myself to finally add to my own kitchen.
Cheers to good tools!

This post may contain links to Amazon or other partners; your purchases via these links can benefit Simply Recipes. Read more about our affiliate linking policy.

Sheela Prakash
Sheela Prakash is a food and wine writer, recipe developer, and the author of Mediterranean Every Day. Her writing and recipes can be found in numerous online and print publications, including Kitchn, Epicurious, Food52, Serious Eats, Tasting Table, The Splendid Table, Culture Cheese Magazine, Clean Plates, and Slow Food USA.Sheela received her master’s degree from the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy, holds Level 2 and Level 3 Awards in Wines from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET), graduated from New York University’s Department of Nutrition and Food Studies, and is also a Registered Dietitian.
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