Most food in our house is prepared right in our kitchen. There is not much that we buy ready made. We cook from scratch. To be able to do this without being in the kitchen all the time, I have little kitchen helpers.
One can easily get carried away with all the kitchen appliances that are available. There is a special product for almost everything. Here are my top 5 appliances I would not want to miss in my homestead kitchen; they make cooking from scratch easy.
1 Food processor
The food processor we have is an old Brown Food Processor. It was a very thoughtful wedding gift. For 25 years and counting we have used this processor regularly, and it really has proven itself to be a long lasting appliance.
There are so many uses for a food processor in a homestead kitchen: preserving, canning, and cooking. It helps me to make potato pancakes batter in seconds. A real must have in the kitchen.
2 Grain Mill
If there is bread in the house, there is food in the house! Bread and pastry are yummy, comforting, and easy to make. To be able to make wholesome bread that is not just yummy and comforting, but also healthy and nutritious, we needed a grain mill.
We went for the Fidibus 21 Grain Mill over 10 years ago and have loved it ever since. Check out why we like our Wolfgang Fidibus 21 Grain Mill.
The mill is a beautiful eye catcher in our kitchen and often a conversation starter. We use it for so many yummy recipes from our daily bread to Yummy Whole Grain Kaiserschmarrn.
3 Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer
Another huge helper in our kitchen is the Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. It was our first bigger purchase in Canada. The 9 years of use show some marks though. It is a great appliance, but it’s not German engineering (sorry my dear American friends). Still, I think I would go for it again, whenever this one completely dies.
The Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer makes the best pizza dough as well as dough for special cookies. It is used often and much appreciated.
4 Vitamix Blender
Our first Blender was from our local H&H store. That little blender did a fairly good job but could not stand the amount of work it had to do in our house. The blender broke before we even had it for a whole year. We knew that replacing it with the same kind of blender would not do the job. We needed something stronger and with a lot longer warranty.
We decided to go for a Vitamix Blender because:
- it blends, chops, makes hot soups, ice cream, and more
- it has a seven year warranty (very important)
- it is easy to clean and to handle
The blender is always in use in our kitchen. Even though I had mainly smoothies in mind when purchasing it, the Vitamix has proven itself to be able to do so much more. The blender is a real helper for canning as well. It chops tomatoes, herbs, and even peppers in no time.
5 Instant Pot
The Instant Pot is the newest item in our kitchen. We went for it because it is a 7-in-1 Multi-Functional Cooker: Pressure Cooker, Slow Cooker, Rice Cooker, Saute/Browning, Yogurt Maker, Steamer & Warmer.
Plus the pot was on sale ;).
Our old slow cooker mostly serves as a fermenting pot, so to replace it with a new one that has a removable stainless steel pot is great. We don’t use a microwave, so to have a pot that can warm up food too was appealing. Also a yogurt maker is an interesting feature, why not if it does not need extra space in the kitchen.
I’m making friends with this 7-in-1 Multi-Functional Cooker very quickly. Make sure to follow my new Instant pot recipes Pinterest board.
These are my top 5, what is your favourite appliance in your kitchen? Please share with us in a comment.
We invite you to subscribe to Northern Homestead and follow us on Facebook or Pinterest for the latest updates.
We have the instant pot, and we really have enjoyed it. Learning to cook boston butt was a lot of fun. Ive read a lot of negative posts on cooking sites about cooking meat in a pressure cooker. Following the directions, our first try turned out fine. Following a few tweaks, it turned out perfectly. I think many people with a bad experience didn’t take the time to figure it out.
That is good to know, thank you for sharing. We like meat slow cooked, but it sure is good to have the option to pressure cook, too. I like it that the Instant pot can do all of it and more. But, like you say it is a learning curve.
Hi Anna,
We are looking at purchasing a grain mill/flaker combo and I see you have the same make. We were trying to decide between the one that does 3.5 oz. per minute and the larger one that does 7 oz. per minute. Do you ever wish you had one that worked faster? (I know, slow down and enjoy life!) Also, do you get your spelt and kamut from Grainworks? I have been looking at ordering from them.
Our daughter recently got an Instant Pot and she is loving it. It really helps her with meal preparation since she works from home, has two young children, and does most of her cooking from scratch. While talking to her on FaceTime this morning, I saw she had cooked rice in it for breakfast.
I also make good use of my Vitamix and food processor. The other appliance I use almost every day is my seed grinder (better known as a coffee grinder but we use it to grind flax seed mostly.) One appliance I would be hard pressed to be without is an electric meat grinder which we use to grind our soaked wheat when we make sprouted wheat bread. For years I used a hand crank one but as I got older it was harder to do by hand. My husband realized that if he wanted to eat sprouted wheat bread, the grinding process would have to be made easier!
By the way, we live just over 30 minutes from you and I have been wanting to come down and tour your garden.
Maybe next year.
I enjoy how practical your blog is and look forward to meeting you sometime.
Pam
I would love to meet you Pam and thank you for your kind words. To answer your question, no I never thought that I wanted a faster grinder. I always grind fresh, so it is about a kilogram at a time for most of my recipes. And that really just takes a few minutes. We too wanted to have both, a grinder and a flaker. We got them separately. It has proven to be a good decision, this way our daughter could have the flaker with her in collage. http://breadtopia.com is a good place to look for this appliances.
I get grains from Grassland, will forward you a product list in an email.
I have just started watching your videos and following you on twitter (anattempt). I am from Winnipeg and I’m very interested in homesteading. It’s so nice to see other Canadian’s thinking alike. We seem rare compared to the mass amount of American preppers.
Would you be will to correspond with me? I would like some guidance as my fiancé and I search for land and a home for my four kids and ourselves. I have all the appliances except the grain grinder (which I have wanted for years) and the 7 in one pot.
Thanks for your great videos! We got 20 cm plus of snow last night and it is the winter wonderland you showed in your video here. I love our rugged prairies as you do.
Thanks so much,
Dana
Hi Dona, we love to hear from other Canadian homesteaders. Remember, homesteading is not defined by where someone lives, such as the city or the country, but by the lifestyle choices they make. I followed you back on twitter. If we can be of any help, we would be glad to do so.
Enjoying your blog, even though we live in rural Eastern Ontario (Zone 5). We have had our Vitamix since 1991 and except for replacing a container when it cracked and seized, it has been running the same as new. I am curious to know how you use the Vitamix for canning … maybe a future blog post? The Instant Pot makes fantastic yogurt, and it always comes out consistent in quality and thickness. We use 4l of whole milk to make a big batch that we store in an extra InstantPot container with one of the silicone lids (we also use a second seal, so that no flavours from cooking foods get transferred to the yogurt). It is much cheaper than purchasing yogurt from the store.
Thank you for sharing, Stu. We do have many canning recipes and in several of them, I use the Vitamix. Here, for example, the Tomato Salsa.
I would have thought the fridge would be first, then a range or wall oven and cooktop. I guess we take them for granted.
I have to admit that I did not think about those appliances since they are in most kitchens anyways. But I sure would not want to miss them.