Preparing food yourself is more important than ever. Everywhere you look in grocery stores you see carbs. The packaging and taste may seem different but the bulk of the products are just endless variations of carb-loaded instant-pleasers, which we now know them as the main culprits for cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and diabetes epidemic. It was never the fat, eggs, or bacon, but carbohydrates, especially processed ones.
Which is why keto and paleo diets have skyrocketed in popularity due to their demonstrable, clinically-tested weight loss and maintenance effects, and long-term health benefits. In addition to health reasons, cooking for yourself opens up a whole new dimension of experimentation; you could create something that tastes like no human tongue has ever sampled before! Not to mention that you avoid infusing your body with all sorts of chemicals regularly used for prolonging food shelf life in the stores.
As you see, everyone should cook and enjoy cooking, but sometimes you get that nagging feeling that cooking involves too much work for a few minutes of pleasure, and a life-time of health. With these gifts ideas for the kitchen, you may streamline the process of cooking, making it all the more pleasurable, and remove that nagging doubt.
Spice Storage Set
Don’t just buy spices in those tiny little containers you see in the store. When you are cooking on a regular basis, you should buy all the ingredients in bulk, especially spices. Doing this will save you hundreds of dollars on a yearly, or even monthly basis.
Usually, to save on cost, the bulk-packaged ingredients come in cardboard or plastic packaging instead of sturdy containers, which is why you need a long-term solution for properly storing and organizing spices, and other types of ingredients.
The Ikea Droppar line of storage sets come in all sizes, can easily be organized because they have labels placed on a frosted glass, and they are made from stainless steel – which ensures life-time longevity, and beyond.
Everyone who enjoys cooking should have at least one of these sets.
Food Processor
There is no more versatile kitchen gadget than a food processor. The time you can save with it is immeasurable, as every food-preparing task you are used to doing manually can be automated, at great speed and efficiency.
There is practically no type of meal in which the inclusion of a food processor would not be beneficial, so you can view it as a top gift for any person who likes to cook. After all, people who like to cook do it for the end result of a delicious healthy meal, not because they necessarily enjoy the drudgery of food preparation and the cooking process itself.
A food processor drastically alleviates that drudgery.
One of the most cost-effective food processors would be the Hamilton Beach 12-Cup Stack and Snap Food Processor. Its biggest features being:
- Cheap while not sacrificing on functionality and longevity.
- Easy to clean.
- Has a big feed tube so you rarely have to precut ingredients that are to be processed.
Smartphone Thermometer
Whether you like to follow the hugely popular paleo or ketogenic diets, or just want to organize an occasional family grill party, it is important to verify if the meat is cooked just right. Of course, with accumulated experience and a deeper familiarity with your cooking gear, you can eyeball it, but that doesn’t work all the time.
With a smartphone thermometer you can leave the guessing game behind you, and always be certain that your juicy steaks and hamburgers will turn out perfect.
The NutriChef BBQ Grill Thermometer is just such an elegant solution. Over 90% of people own smartphones already, so you just need to attach the stainless probe to any meat, while the wireless detector communicates with it and relays all the data to your smartphone, which can be either Android or iPhone.
And yes, you don’t have to worry about breaking the probe; you can safely leave it in the oven or grill throughout the entire duration of cooking/grilling.
Silicone Molds
When looking at most cooking recipes, they will often emphasize spraying the pan with oil, preparing parchment paper so the food doesn’t get stuck to the surface, etc.
With silicone molds you can avoid all of that preparation entirely. Silicone molds are simply outstanding:
- They are exceedingly easy to wash.
- They last for a life-time.
- They spread heat evenly across the area that needs to be cooked.
- They come in all kinds of templates so you can effortlessly make muffins, baguettes, differently shaped breads, etc.
Furthermore, if you want to create keto-friendly pastry, you can’t rely on conventional sugar, yeast, and gluten to puff up the pastry. Silicone molds remove this issue because you can directly influence the shape and volume of the batter.
These three silicone molds should cover all of your needs for breads, sandwiches, cakes, pizzas, lasagnas, etc.:
- Large, universal one.
- Rounded for smaller pizzas, cakes…
- Perfect set for sandwiches.
Knife Set
And lastly, nothing is more frustrating than not having the right tools for the job, so you have to improvise or use substandard tools that extend the time of food preparation.
People often buy knifes and kitchen utensils as they need them – individually – because they think it will save them money, or even worse – they ‘inherit’ it from their parents. In both cases you will lack the quality and versatility of a proper knife set, suitable for every purpose and lasting beyond your own life span.
With this Stainless Steel Knife Set, you will wonder at the new swiftness with which you will be able to prepare all types of foods. And besides the knifes for every occasion, it also comes with peeler scissors, cheese pizza knife, and a stylishly designed acrylic stand, suited for any modern kitchen.
Unless a person already has that exact knife set, you can be assured that no matter what kind of knives they have, this knife set will always be highly welcomed as a gift. Simply a must-have for any cooking enthusiast.
