10 kitchen gadgets under $20 to simplify your Thanksgiving
It’s the time of year when we give thanks for food, friends, and family. Well, we’ve got something else for you to be thankful about—low-cost kitchen gadgets that’ll streamline your Thanksgiving dinner process and make your holiday cooking as easy as pie.
Let’s start with the herbs and spices. If you’re using fresh rosemary in your stuffing or roasting your turkey in basil and thyme, grab the Chef’n ZipStrip Herb Stripper ($8) to help you quickly pull those fresh herb leaves off their stems.
The Chef’n ZipStrip Herb Stripper also comes with a SpiceCube Herb Freezer Tray, so you can prep your fresh herbs ahead of time and pop them in the freezer until the big day.
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If you’re a fan of garlic mashed potatoes—and who isn’t—use the Smart Technologies Inventions Grater Plater ($9) to quickly peel and grate fresh garlic. I love my Grater Plater, so consider it highly recommended.
If you’re making garlic rolls or any type of garlic bread, the Grater Plater’ll help you there too: grate the garlic onto the plate, add a bit of oil, and use the brush to apply garlic oil to just about anything that needs it. Maybe this’ll be the year you do a garlic turkey.
Some of us eat our mashed potatoes with the skins still on, but for a lot of us, Thanksgiving is about peeling—potatoes, carrots, apples, and more. You probably already have an old peeler hiding in the back of a kitchen drawer somewhere, but treat your hands to a good peeling experience with the Oxo Good Grips Swivel Peeler ($9) and the Oxo Good Grips Y Peeler ($9, with 5-stars on Amazon). The two peeler shapes should get you around most of the vegetables you’ll be peeling this Thanksgiving, and having two high-quality peelers means you can share the labor!
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After you’ve peeled, you’re ready to chop. I swear by my Norpro 583 Grip EZ Chopper, Scraper ($6.50) to quickly chop through multiple vegetables simultaneously and then—you guessed it—scrape the pieces into a bowl. The Norpro EZ Chopper also works for measuring and cutting pastry, dividing dough into sections to make rolls, and even cutting those cakes or brownies you’re serving for dessert.
While we’re talking dessert: some of those peeled and chopped fruits are probably going to make it into a pie, which means it’s time to use the Norpro Ceramic Pie Bird ($11.50) to help your pie cook to perfection. Here’s how the pie bird works: put your bottom crust into your pie dish, stand the bird in the center of the dish (on top of the crust) and then add your filling and upper crust. As the pie cooks, the pie bird provides a space for steam to escape the pie and helps prevent the filling from boiling over. Plus, it’s cute! Watch this YouTube video on how the Pie Bird works.
You’re going to have a lot of pies and turkeys going in and out of your oven on Thanksgiving day. Use the Devil Oven Pull ($10.00) to pull racks out of your hot oven without getting burned. You can also use the oven pull to move dishes around on oven racks, though you’ll want to avoid pulling them so close to the edge that they tip off. In some cases, you’ll probably just want to go ahead and use the Ove Glove ($5.10) to handle hot items.
As your food is cooking, don’t forget about your drinks! If you’re serving multiple varietals of wine, use the Kikkerland Wine Bottle Thermometer ($8) to make sure you serve each bottle at the correct temperature. After all, you want your guests to enjoy the wine as much as they enjoy the meal you’ve prepared for them!
After dinner, it’s time for clean-up. I’m guessing you already have plenty of dish soap, sponges, and dishtowels to get those roasting pans, mixing bowls, and countertops clean.
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Here’s one more tool to keep close at hand: Mr. Clean Magic Eraser ($18.99 for four packs of four erasers). This magical tool helps get food and grease stains off walls, oven ranges, and any of those other hard-to-clean places. You can even use them to get the scuff marks off your floor, since you’ve probably had a lot of people coming in and out of your kitchen!
When you’re all cleaned up, take a look around and give thanks that this year’s Thanksgiving dinner was so easy to prep. Then enjoy another slice of that pie!
Yahoo Shopping readers: What’s your favorite Thanksgiving cooking gadget? See anything on this list you want to add to your kitchen?
