What food prep gadget do I need to make my life easier?

[coodawoodashooda]

Any recommendations? I'm thinking some kind of food ninja type thing.

A Ninja Foodi!! You'll never look back. Does everything and faster so you'll save money on energy. Steams, grills, pressure cooker, air fryer, sautes, slow cooks, makes a coffee in the morning ...(okay, so not the last one!)

For me a rice cooker. More of a unitasker than what other people will suggest, but it does its one job perfectly. Other than washing rice and pressing go there's nothing to think about: no soaking, messing around with timings and the machine has some clever logic in it so it can compensate for the wrong amount of water. And if the timings are wrong for the rest of the meal, it has a keep warm function.

Slow cooker, I got a cheap one for about £20 and it’s fantastic. I’d also say a stand mixer if you do baking - I don’t have one yet but want one as I use my hand mixer a lot and think a stand would be easier.

I can cook from scratch but always have chopped onions, frozen garlic, ginger and herbs in the freezer. The best and cheapest are in the freezer section of asian supermarkets. It makes me more likely to cook because I hate the prep. I also always have some frozen veg mixes in the freezer- easy to make a stir fry etc with noodles and left over chicken or frozen prawns. Also- if you do cook a chicken, shredded left overs that are frozen can be added to wraps, pasta, sturdy etc.

When I can be bothered to cook for example, curry from scratch, I make a huge lot of curry paste and freeze. On these occasions I use a blender! No need for an expensive food processor, I have one now and we keep loosing all the parts. A mini one we had lasted years and was about £15. Also get an air fryer- life changing.

Something useful I do - I have a freezer bag I stick all my veg peelings in, freeze inbetween, and when it gets full I boil it up with some herbs and make stock for stews, soups etc.

Ahhh.... I've got that one sorted I married a chef

Stick blender. Great for soup or lumpy gravy

Haha I divorced someone who thought they were a chef.

Yes I hate the prep too. I've also bought 3 cheap food mixer blender type things in the last few years and they are all useless

Ha.... believe me there are times when i come close to that (although he actually is, rather than thinks he is!)

A Ninja Foodi! I’ve got the 9 in 1 and it’s amazing! I made a proper steak chilli the other day and it took 25 mins…it would have taken hours in the oven.

I don't know if this is a gadget as such but I love my slow cooker. We live in a very cold country and there's nothing like getting in after a long day at work where it's dark and snowing and the house is full of the smells of dinner. I pre-prep foods so all I need to do in the morning is chuck everything in the slow cooker with stock/water/tinned tomatoes and turn it on.
In terms of gadget-y gadgets we have a Kenwood multi-pro that does everything you can want - it has a jug for soups and smoothies (and cocktails) and the bowl for chopping, grating, slicing, blending, mixing, etc.

Garlic twist.

How long are you out for in a day?

I have an Instant Pot and an airfryer. I use both daily and almost never turn on the oven. It's faster and much more energy efficient as well as producing awesome food.

@coodawoodashooda that is a shame. I think the workhorse mini chopper was an aldi special buy. Good non-branded german engineering. We currently have a charity shop air fryer bought for £3 which originally a middle of lidl gem. Still going strong! We chuck lots of things in so totally recommend. I am not so sure about slow cookers, we have a good one but it is now in the cupboard to get out for certain dishes. It just slow cooks- great to leave dishes that need that but you still need to do the prep and sautee at heat for flavour at the beginning.

Magimix food processor. Have noticed we waste much, much less.

Onions, chopped the bagful, freeze.
Cheese, use what's needed, grate the rest, freeze.
Ends of the bread, magimix, freeze for meatballs, stuffing, topping etc.
Veg left in bottom of fridge on shoppingday , chop in magimix, then boil, back in magimix to blend for soup

Really good knife and a knife sharpener.

Slow cooker overnight stock is the business - bones from your roast (or just get them from the butchers and roast them in a hot oven for half an hour). In the pot with a halved onion (skin left on) and any carrot/celery peelings you have, cover with water and leave on low overnight.

This ☝️.
We've had it 2 weeks and use it everyday. Pressure cooker/ steamer/ slow cooker/ airfry/ roasts and grills. DH loves that it cooks rice in 2 mind.

Only use the oven for pizza now.

ive had an instant pot duo crisp for two weeks and its the mutts nuts it pressure cookc steams sautes slow cooks roasts bakes grills and air frys not the cheapest but I'm in love with it

I'm on mat leave at the moment so it's different but pre-baby it was generally 8:30-17:30 depending on after school activities. We have a timer that turns the plug on if it needs less time than that but we eat mainly vegetarian food and I don't know that I'd want to leave meat at room temperature till the cooker comes on.