Cooking nutritious, whole-food meals from scratch is a cornerstone of a healthy homestead lifestyle. Yet, one of the common hurdles is finding the time to prepare these meals amidst the busy day-to-day life. Thankfully, with the right tools in your kitchen arsenal, you can significantly cut down on prep and cooking time without compromising on the quality and nutritional value of your food. Let's explore the must-have kitchen tools that can make cooking from scratch both a joy and a breeze, ensuring you're well-equipped to whip up nutrient-dense meals efficiently. Let’s get growing!

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Tops Tools to Save Time In the Kitchen

Salad Spinner

Why It's Essential: Quickly wash and dry leafy greens to ensure your salads are clean and water-free, enhancing the taste and shelf life of your greens. This tool will cut time in the wash process not only salad greens but all sorts of veggies and fruits from your garden. Water can harbor bacteria so the dry you can store your produce in the fridge the longer it will last for you and your family to enjoy. Also when preserving your produce you want them to be dry and clean before you freeze them or can them.

Future Review Points: I'll look into ease of use, capacity, and durability.

Cast Iron Skillet

Why It's Essential: Durable and versatile, a cast iron skillet provides even heating and can go from stovetop to oven. Ideal for searing, baking, roasting, and more. These pans are ideal but you will need to maintain the seasoning of the pan so that they remain nonstick. You need to wash them differently. They can’t go in the dishwasher and using soap will deteriorate the seasoning layer. I love the enamel covered cast iron pans too but they are too heavy for the dishwasher so they all will need to be washed by hand. A side tip for using cast iron is not to use seed oils because they leave residue behind the strips away from your seasoning. If you have to seed oil because you don’t have good access to lard or tallow then use Avocado Oil. 

Future Review Points: Seasoning maintenance and weight will be discussed.

Instant Read Thermometer

Why It's Essential: Ensure your meats and poultry reach a safe internal temperature without overcooking. Perfect for achieving precise temperatures for nutrient preservation. When cooking from scratch, knowing the meat that your cooking is done and not raw or uncooked is essential to your mindset when you're first starting out. There will be no guessing and worrying which will result in a better experience for all involved. 

Future Review Points: Speed, accuracy, and ease of use will be key aspects of my review.

Quality Chef’s Knife

Why It's Essential: A sharp, well-balanced chef’s knife can significantly reduce your prep time and improve precision and safety. When you are in the kitchen cutting up loads of produce for canning, preserving, or just your favorite meal, having a sharp knife and one that fits your hand will make the process more enjoyable and safer. When a knife is too big for your hand it can slip resulting in injury and pain. And as the saying goes a dull knife results in more cut fingers then a shape knife. I think it has to do with the pressure you have to increase when using a dull knife which can result in carless slips of the knife. I guess a tool that you should purchase with a good set of knives is a knife sharpener, there are many electric types but my favorite is a good steel sharpener. 

Future Review Points: I'll examine the best knives for durability, handle comfort, and maintenance.

Pressure Cooker

Why It's Essential: A pressure cooker can drastically reduce cooking times for legumes, grains, meats, and stews while preserving the nutrients and flavors. Pressure cookers are mostly made for canning non acid foods, but now they have become even more versatile with smaller counter top versions that can do more than just pressure cook. My favorite one from presto, I can saute, keep warm, make yogurt, rice, and just so many things. I think I use my pressure cooker 3 times a week. In fact I used it twice this week when I ran out of time to put the meals I planned to slow cook in my slow cooker. Now I could have just not made those meals those days but instead I put my recipes into my pressure cooker and cooked the same meal in ¾ of the time. Pressure cooking uses pressure and high heat to cook things quickly and even result in the same tenderness you could get from cooking a pot roast all day long. That is why this tool is so essential to saving time in the kitchen. A pressure cooker is going to help with making broths especially bone broths because the high heat and pressure will help those bones split and the broth will fill with all those good nutrients without hours and hours of simmering on the stove. 

Future Review Points: Look for models with multiple settings (e.g., sauté, steam, yogurt) for added versatility. I would explore the best pressure cookers on the market, considering factors like size, safety features, and ease of cleaning. And when looking for size, think about the size of recipes you would need to feed your whole family. 

Slow Cooker

Why It's Essential: Perfect for busy days, a slow cooker allows you to prepare meals in the morning and come home to a fully cooked dinner. It's excellent for soups, roasts, and casseroles. The versatility of a slower cooker is endless. But the main takeaway is that this little tool could be working while you are working. You can just start a meal when you have time to prepare it and it will cook while you are busy doing other things and then when you are ready to eat the meal is ready too. I love using mine for overnight breakfast meals. On the homestead, breakfast can be a busy time especially if we have a long todo list that needs done before it gets hot. 

Future Review Points: Energy efficiency, timer functions, and removable, dishwasher-safe inserts are key features to consider.

High-Speed Blender

Why It's Essential: From smoothies packed with greens and fruits to homemade nut butters and flours, a high-speed blender makes it easy to incorporate a variety of nutrient-dense foods into your diet. 

Future Review Points: I'll compare power, durability, and ease of cleaning among top models.

Food Processor

Why It's Essential: For chopping veggies, grinding seeds and nuts, and making doughs or spreads, a food processor saves time and effort. This is my most used tool in the kitchen, I use it to cut butter into the flour for my biscuits and pie crust. I use it to mix up quick bread recipes like banana bread and pumpkin bread. It is even useful in the canning season with cutting up veggies and fruits, pureeing tomatoes for tomato sauces, and chopping nuts. Essentially if you are needing to choose between a food processor and a stand up mixer or blender. I would go with a food processor. It is going to be more useful than the other two.

Future Review Points: Capacity, power, and attachment options will be considered in my upcoming reviews.

Bread Machine

Why It's Essential: For anyone looking to bake their own bread without the time commitment of traditional kneading and proofing methods, a bread machine is a game-changer. It can mix, knead, rise, and bake bread with minimal intervention, making it possible to enjoy fresh, nutrient-dense bread with ease. I use a bread machine a little differently as I don’t ever bake my bread inside of one. I only use the dough setting, but I use it for pizza crust, roll recipes, breads, and so much more. This machine saves me so much time especially when I use it to knead a double recipe and make twice as much bread as the machine itself can handle.

Future Review Points: In future posts, I'll delve into the capacity, programmable settings, and versatility of various models. Whether you're interested in gluten-free bread, whole wheat loaves, or even jam and yogurt, I'll help you find a bread machine that meets your needs.

With these nine essential kitchen tools, including the versatile bread machine, you're well-equipped to tackle a wide range of cooking tasks, from speedy weeknight dinners to leisurely weekend baking projects. Each tool not only simplifies the cooking process but also encourages a healthier, more sustainable approach to eating. Keep an eye out for my detailed reviews of these products, where I'll share insights to help you make informed decisions that align with your homesteading and cooking goals.

On to You

Embrace the simplicity and joy of cooking from scratch with the right tools at your fingertips. Follow along for more tips, recipes, and product reviews designed to enhance your homesteading lifestyle. Let's make wholesome, homemade meals a cornerstone of our daily lives, one delicious bite at a time.

The best place to start would be to dive into the Purposeful Kitchen stage of the Purposeful Growing Journey where I share more time saving tips, recipes, methods for planning beyond your harvest, and more.

Keep moving forward and remember it starts with the first step.

1) Jump over to the Purposeful Growing Journey- where you find even more to help you expand your skills in providing the best food for your family. 

2) Listen to the Pray, Just Plant Podcast- come and listen as we dive into every stage of the growing journey and find the steps you need to take to build the best homestead for you and your family.

3) Join the Purposeful Growing Membership waiting list, where I hope to coach and encourage growers, homesteaders, and more on how to provide the best food for their families. To build a homestead, grow more abundantly, and create a lifestyle you will love.

I am so excited for you to grab one of these tools to save time while you cook amazing from scratch meals for your family.

Don’t let the world hold you back,

Pray, Just Plant!