Small Appliance Grinch

We avoid small/countertop appliances and gadgets in the micro-kitchen for a few reasons.  First, they take up space -- which there is not a lot of, secondly, they aren't cheap.  Chances are your kitchen heavy lifter -- the stove and oven -- can do the job.

We've been treated to foods baked in an air fryer.  People who have them swear by them.  We are not interested because we have a convection oven.  This batch of crispy oven fried chicken was made in our oven.  Air fryers cost upwards of sixty bucks or more.  Skip the small appliance and when it comes time to buy your next stove/oven, spend a little extra on one that has a convection oven.  It's worth a couple of extra bucks.  At camp, we bake in a toaster oven and picked a model that also has the convection option. 

There is simply no way that a loaf of bread from a bread machine will taste as good as one baked in an oven.  We start breads that require a pan in the "regular" oven.  Half way through, we pull the loaf out of the pan (which is lined in parchment), and finish it in the convection oven.  The interior is moist and the exterior is crusty.

Baking bread requires two appliances -- the Kitchenaid mixer (a multi-functional tool) as well as the oven(s).  That doesn't break the small appliance rule in our world, because the mixer serves so many purposes.  Plus, it's over 20 years old -- you can't argue with an appliance that is used almost every day and has held up for decades.  That classifies it as a kitchen workhorse.

It seems that every year or so, another hot kitchen "must have" comes out.  If we bought the hottest new pot/fryer/blender/etc. every year, we'd have no room for anything.  Avoid the temptation and use your stove/oven.  The best way to get a return on one of the biggest kitchen investments, is to use it!