I have been meaning to make a list of all our favorite cooking tools for a while. I keep remembering things to add so I will keep adding things to this list. And if you buy any of these fun items from Amazon through these links, they kick a little back to us, which we greatly appreciate. Without further ado, I present to you some of our favorite things:

KitchenAid Pro 600 Mixer

This mixer is a machine. It has taken anything I threw at it and asked for more. I can double bread recipes without having to worry about killing the motor. It is big, heavy, and well made…and I like that. If you want a light weight, portable mixer, this is not the one for you. If you want a beast of a machine that can muscle through hard work, you can’t go wrong with this.

KitchenAid Pasta Rollers

Hand cranked pasta makers not only take a lot of work, but also take a bit of coordination. You have to crank the rollers, feed the dough and then catch the sheet of dough coming out. These rollers plug into your KitchenAid mixer and give you one less thing to do. This set makes it easy to throw together a batch of fresh pasta after work.

All Clad 12″ Fry Pan

This pan is as shiny as it is useful. Sauté and brown meats and veggies with the greatest of ease. Its three-ply construction helps distribute the heat, ensuring even cooking and preventing hot spots. Food can stick, which is a good thing. The little browned bits are full of flavor and are the beginning of a great sauce. Stainless steal also cleans up easily with a little Bar Keepers Friend.

Lodge 12″ Cast Iron Skillet

Cast Iron is the original non-stick pan. After a bit of use and a little butter, eggs will flip with the greatest of ease. This is a heavy pan–and that is a good thing. The heavier a pan is, the more heat it will hold and you want a lot of heat when you are trying to sear a steak. You can put a nice carmel crust on a steak and then throw the pan in the oven to finish it, without having to worry about damaging the pan. It also doubles as the perfect corn bread pan.

Le Crueset 7 1/4 Quart Dutch Oven

If you ever make soup, this dutch oven is a must have. It distributes heat so evenly that you can caramelize 4 pounds of onions without fear. It easily browns meat for the perfect stew. It is also oven proof and has a heavy lid, making it perfect for slowly braising a roast. The dutch oven is enameled allowing for easy clean-up.

Victorinox 8″ Chef’s Knife

There are more expensive, fancier knives out there, but this knife will keep working day in and day out and will not let you down. The blade stays sharp, the weight is well balanced and the handle is comfortable– what more could you want? Throw in the knife’s low price and this is a guaranteed winner.

J.K. Adams 12″ End Grain Cutting Board

End grain cutting boards are just easy to use. Unlike traditional wooden cutting boards where you are cutting into the wood grain, end grain cutting boards are arranged so that you are simply parting the wood grains. This helps cushion the blade, keeping it sharper and making it easier to mince and chop. Because of the orientation of the grain knife cut marks disappear.The 12″ square is perfect for vegetables and the larger 16″ board is great for prepping an entire meal. If you keep the board moisturized with mineral oil it will last forever.

Taylor Thermometer

The perfect roast and cup of coffee both depend on the correct temperature. This thermometer makes it easy to check both. It gives a reading pretty quickly and the digital display is easy to read. There are more expensive thermometers that give a quicker reading, but who wants to spend $100 on a thermometer?

Taylor Cooking Thermometer

It may seem silly to have two thermometers, but it is really helpful to have one thermometer to quickly probe a dish and another one designed to monitor a dish over time. This thermometer lets you stick the probe in a roast and then place the dish in the oven. You can set an alarm to notify you when dish has reached the correct temperature. This ensures you get the correct temperature without having to constantly open the oven to check, which helps keep the oven temperature stable.

Kyocera 9 Inch Ceramic Steel Sharpener

Even the best knives get dull with use and a dull knife is a dangerous thing. This ceramic steel helps sharpen and straighten the knife’s blade. It doesn’t replace a good sharpening, but it helps extend the amount of time you can go in between sharpenings.

OXO 1 1/2 Quart Pop Container

This is the perfect way to store a pound of coffee. It has a vacuum seal which keeps the coffee fresh and it is still easy to open and close. If you don’t keep coffee in an airtight container, it will quickly lose its flavor. If you are going to pay $10 for a pound of coffee, you should invest a little in keeping it fresh.

Breville Conical Burr Grinder

Blade coffee grinders work fine. Burr grinders work even better. The blade grinders chop the beans up instead of really grinding them. It is tough to get a consistent grind with them. Some pieces will end up being large chunks while other piece will be dust. Burr grinders, however, give you a consistent grind every time. A good grind equals good cup of coffee. A great cup of coffee can be a never ending quest, but a decent burr grinder is a sensible purchase.

Bodum 8 Cup French Press

A French press is an easy way to get a great cup of coffee. A good cup coffee depends on extracting all of the good flavors from the beans without getting a lot of the bad flavor. The press has a metal screen instead of a paper, so more of the oils from the beans stay in the coffee giving you even more flavor. Since it is so simple, it gives you a lot of control over the coffee you are brewing. With a French press you control the temperature of the water going in and the brewing time. Pour in some almost boiling water, wait four minutes and you got a good cuppa.

Emile Henry Provencal Mugs

A favorite coffee cup is a personal thing. These cups are our favorite. They hold enough coffee to let you make it through a couple sections of the paper before having to refill. The mugs are heavy enough to keep the coffee warm, without being too heavy to pickup with one hand.

Lamsonsharp Turner 3″ x 5″

If you bought that cast iron pan above that I recommended, you have to get this turner. I have always called these spatulas, but I guess the correct term is turner. Anyhow, the blade of the turner is flexible with a bit of spring, letting you get under an egg or pancake and flip it with the flick of the wrist. It is just the right size to get under a fried egg or hamburger, but not so big that it is awkward to maneuver inside a skillet.

OXO Flexible Turner

Sometimes you need to use a non-stick pan, but it is always fun to use a turner. This turner is almost as fun as the real thing and the blade has just the right amount of flex. It helps to get a little oil or butter on it before flipping to help get under things.

OXO Pastry Scraper

This is an all-around helpful gadget to have in the kitchen. It is a true multitasker. You can use it to scrape dried dough off the counter, but its usefulness doesn’t stop there. Use it to transfer chop herbs from the board into a bowl. Cut through through dough to divide it; it is non-stop fun.

Pot Scraper

The $2 pot scraper is the easiest and quickest way to degunk a pan. Burnt on little bits pry right off. It works great on cast iron pans where you want to avoid soap and is also safe on non-stick pans.

Silpat Non-Stick Silicone Baking Mat

Bake without the fear of stuck on cookies. This mat will save your pans, but still allow your food to become nicely browned. Sprinkle some shredded Parmesan cheese and bake to make nice little crisps. The cheese releases easily, making for a quick little treat.

Lemon Squeezer

I find squeezing limes or lemons with a regular juicer a pain. You have to pick all the seeds out to make sure they don’t escape into the juice. With a juicer like this, just half the lemon, place one half in the holder and squeeze away. The lemon squeezer also works fine on limes too. It will extract just about as much juice as reaming a lemon and is a ton easier to use and cleanup.

Vegetable Peeler

This is not one of those fancy ceramic, variable angle peelers, and it just works great. We have had ours for 4 years and it is still going strong. It has a little scoop for removing the eyes from potatoes and is very comfortable to use.

Nalgene 2 oz Jar

This little 2 oz jar is perfect for bring a small salad dressing to work or mustard for those slices of pork tender loin that you are reheating. The jars are very leak proof, so you can shake up your salad dressing without worrying about it spraying out and coating your desk.

Pastry Mat

This mat lets you roll out pizza dough or shape a bread loaf, without having to use as much flour. Less flour means that the dough will maintain its correct moisture levels. It is easy to clean up because you can just bring the whole mat over to the sink and wash everything off.

French Rolling Pin

A French style rolling pin is just a wooden cylinder with tapered ends. It is really easy to control and makes it easy to roll out dough to a consistent thickness. If you don’t have a rolling pin yet, the French style is great. It can’t hurt to play around with one in a cooking store before you buy though, just to make sure you like it before you commit.

Glass Mixing Bowls

You can never have too many mixing bowls. A set like this has a nice variety a of large bowls which are good for beating eggs or mixing dough and small bowls which are perfect for holding spice mixtures. There is also the Rachel Ray cooking trick of keeping a glass bowl on the counter to use a “trash” bowl. As much as a I hate Rachel Ray, this is still a great tip and yet another good use for these bowls.