No matter if you cook every day, three times a day, or just a bit on the weekends, modern kitchen appliances can make your job much easier.
Below we take a look at two common kitchen appliances that can make your cooking chores a breeze.
Food Processors
Food processors usually come with several blades to handle most of your chopping tasks, so you should not need to buy extra ones. You can use a good food processor for grating your cheeses, chopping up herbs, slicing your veggies and for even making dough for bread.
The most common blades that come with a food processor are a sharp blade used for pureeing and chopping, metal disks for slicing, metal disks for shredding, and also a dough blade made of plastic for mixing and kneading your dough.
If you are thinking about purchasing a new food processors, consider the kind of foods and the quantities that you will be working with. If you want to knead a lot of dough or crush a lot of ice, we recommend that you get a food processor with a stronger motor.
Modern food processors are easy to use and do not have a lot of buttons. Commonly you will find on the control panel an 'On' button and a 'Pulse' button. The 'On' button will keep the processor running until you switch it off. 'Pulse' runs only when you hold the button. We recommend that you use the pulse feature if you want to get even chopping action of lighter food products, such as garlic or herbs. This works because it lets those food items fall onto your blade. Pulse also works well for foods that tend to liquefy. These include celery and onions.
Your food processor should be very easy to clean. To clean your blades and disks, you should wash them very thoroughly with your hands. We do not put ours through the dishwasher because it can dull their edges. If you are chopping up cheese or other sticky foods, try to spray the blade with cooking spray before you use it.
Pressure Cooker
Many people don't want to use pressure cookers. They are leery of pressure cookers because they have heard of bad mishaps with them. Burns, exploding pot lids and so on. For the most part, those stories are from years ago. Modern pressure cookers have a number of safety features that make them safe to use.
A pressure cooker is an airtight pot with a locking lid. It has a valve system that will regulate the pressure inside the pot. Steam builds up quickly inside and will cook the food at high temperature. Pressure cookers are useful because you can cook in minutes what would normally take hours. A good example is dried beans. This means you can get a meal on the table fast.
A modern pressure cooker is a safe device. Modern models have a lid that must lock in place before pressure can increase. This prevents the lid from popping off as pressure builds. Also, there is a rubber gasket that will expand that keeps you from taking the lid off before the pressure has been reduced to a safe level. Also, the device will have a safety valve that will cut the pressure automatically if there is any malfunction, or if you forget to cut the heat once the highest pressure is achieved.
The modern kitchen truly is a much easier place to cook than it was even 50 years ago. We hope that you can use some of these helpful tips on food processors and pressure cookers to make your cooking go more smoothly.
Written by Lawrence Reaves for HamiltonBeach.com. Visit the leader in kitchen appliances site to learn more about purchasing appliances for your kitchen such as coffee makers and slow cookers.
Written by Lawrence Reaves for . Visit the leader in kitchen appliances site to learn more about purchasing appliances for your kitchen such as coffee makers and slow cookers.
