Sometimes it’s hard to come up with gift ideas.  If the person you’re shopping for loves to cook, here are some simple suggestions.  These are items I love to have in my kitchen.  You can give them for the holidays, for a housewarming, a wedding shower or even a birthday.  There’s a range of items here – from low priced stuff to more expensive, like a food processor.

1. I’ll start with the food processor, since it’s the new love of my life!  It took me a long time to get myself into the habit of using it.  Now that I do, I can’t imagine cooking without it.  In a world where we’re all pressed for time, this gadget cuts down on your manual labor by leaps and bounds! I use it for chopping, grating, smashing, blending and mixing.  Of course it also replaces the mortar and pestle when making pesto (our family favorite!). 

I’ve gotten so tired of lugging this thing out of the cabinet all the time that I’ve decided to leave it on my countertop to use even more often!

 
The new love of my life! (Sorry honey!)

2. A Ginsu Knife – these are really inexpensive and make chopping much easier.

Ginsu Knives are great for chopping vegetables 
& they usually cost under $10

3.   An Immersion Blender – these are light and easy to use.  You can mash things with them, mix, whip and puree food.  It’s easier to take out for light jobs than a full-sized hand blender with its attachments.

4.  A Scale with Metrics and Pounds – when you have this type of scale, a whole slew of recipes open up for you… recipes that go by weight instead of other measurements.  I recommend getting one with a bowl on top to put the food in while measuring.  My bowl, shown below, comes off the base and doubles as a large measuring cup. 

5.  The Flavor Bible is a really interesting book for creative cooks.  It’s specifically interesting to people who want to create their own dishes… to figure out what goes well with what.

6. There are some simple inexpensive gadgets that can be given as stocking stuffers…  A good grater for shredding, a hand grater (you can grate parmesan with it, ginger, orange and lemon peels for zest, etc.)…  a really good peeler (like Oxo brand) makes peeling much easier…  a garlic press for crushing garlic . 

7.  An Oil Mister – This gadget helps you to use less oil in your recipes – perfect for the health conscious cook!

8. Consider giving a basket or box of high quality fresh spices from a spice store. Every foodie loves their spices! Who can resist the smell of fresh vanilla beans, chipotle or the taste of specialty sea salts added to a dish?  Here are a couple of spice stores I’ve used in the past (both ship):

The Spice House
Penzey’s Spices

Feel free to let us know what you love to use in your kitchen in the comments below.

Happy gift giving!

Mama Lisa

Note: Photo of the spices at top is from The Spice House.