Best chopping tool/food prep gadget?

Haveyoutriedyoga

Haveyoutriedyoga

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Can you recommend any food chopping gadgets that make cooking easier? There are so many options and I don't want to trawl through them or get one that isn't useful.

Things that can be washed very easily (ideally in dishwasher).

I currently struggle to prepare fresh vegetables and cook a full meal so looking for shortcuts.

I buy some things prechopped and frozen. Please dont tell me to pre prepare things on a "good day"...although I'm sure the audience here won't do that, people without ME just seem to think that's the solution to all issues.
 
I'm afraid I have no direct experience to offer. But when I was unable to eat solids for an extended period after bowel surgery someone suggested I get a vitamix blender. Apparently you can chuck whole raw vegetables into them and a hot soup emerges (I doubt this is true of all models, and I've never seen one in action). They are very expensive. But I guess if you needed/decided to live off soup and did not have the energy to prepare it in a conventional way then it might be worth investigating.
 
Almost all my meals are one-pot dishes that I make in enormous batches and then freeze.

Some of my strategies:

  • I've never peeled things like carrots, parsnips, or potatoes, even before I got ill—I just top and tail them, and scrub the muck off with a veg brush. I do my chopping sitting on the sofa, with an old towel over the seat cushions to catch the inevitable escapees. The job gets done in stages with rests in between, whilst I'm watching TV or listening to the radio.

  • With onions I skin them, tip them into a big Nutri Ninja food processor, and whizz them as if I'm making a masala. It doesn't seem to make any difference to the taste, even if you're making something that calls for chopped onions. I sometimes also buy frozen chopped onions, which are reasonably cheap and taste just as nice.

  • I always use frozen garlic, as my arthritic fingers don't bend well enough to grip small things.

  • Ditto sweet potatoes and similar rock-hard veg—I'm not physically capable of cutting them, so I buy them frozen.

Hope vaguely useful!
 
I used to buy fresh cauliflower, fresh brussels sprouts and fresh green beans. I've had much less wastage, a lot less effort, and less washing up from buying frozen.

I have also recently started to buy frozen herbs and garlic. Again, much less wastage because they don't turn into compost or slime, and no chopping or preparation required.

I struggle with hard veg though e.g. turnip, swede, butternut squash. I haven't come up with a solution for that problem though. I don't know how easy they are to get frozen.
 
Trish said:
One option with hard veg could be to microwave it whole until it's soft enough to cut up. Leave it to cool, then cut up and use as intended but with shortened cooking time.
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Said it for me. I am about to do that again in a minute.

If you use a knife to cut I suggest something very sharp, maybe an ergonomic handle, and a wide blade. A chopper would work as well. This is because you can use the blade to scrape up and move chopped ingredients, including little bits. Use a knife sharpener often. If you struggle to use a knife safely then don't even try. I have cut myself a few times when in brain fog.

I dislike frozen veg for the most part, though some work OK. Harder veg give better results frozen.

Kitty said:
never peeled things like carrots, parsnips, or potatoes
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Yes. You can also scrape and wash them.

Trish said:
cook very simple meals with only 3 or 4 ingredients
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The simpler the better. Most of my cooking is a simplified version of various recipes, including alterations to how it is cooked. Make it easy. It might not taste as good but it tastes almost as good, and better than frozen dinners.

If in doubt sprinkle some tolerated spices. I also use jars of minced garlic and ginger.

Cook ingredients together if you can. If I am cooking rice and frozen veg I often cook them together with a little turmeric.
 
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Can bake/roast some whole veggies like potato/sweet potato/pumpkin/ etc in a convection oven. Just put them on a baking tray, maybe with a light drizzle of oil and some salt and favourite herbs/spices. Also can wrap them in foil, which reduces tray and oven cleaning.

Any leftovers can be put in the fridge for tomorrow.
 
I've tried various gadgets but found getting them out of the cupboard (don't have enough bench space to leave them out), scraping the food out then cleaning and putting everything away again was just as much effort as prepping by hand.

My workaround for most fresh veg is to just wash and put in the oven whole and slow roast at low temperature for a few hours. You can do shorter time at higher temps but I find the slow roast is tastiest. I do a big tray of that so have tons of leftovers to go in the fridge or freezer.

If I need some quickly (like if I forgot to turn the oven on), microwaving whole veg works, too. Not quite as tasty as the slow roast but ok and there's always the option of shop-bought sauce or dressing to jazz things up with.

For more delicate stuff like greens it's buy frozen and straight into the microwave.

Other than that, the best kitchen tool I have is my husband but I realise there are some practical issues with acquiring one of those, especially a top of the range model :laugh:
 
Like quite a few of you my current go to is buying longer lasting veg, chop it with meat and sprinkle some spices (usually zaatar) and fling it in the oven until done. I do struggle to get carbs in and am trying to figure that one out, because they take longer to bake and I usually leave it quite late to cook because I'm exhausted (still working full time from home).
 
I would have thought that an air fryer would struggle to produce baked potatoes, at least the type that I have/had (mines old and falling apart and has been replaced by a more conventional oil based fryer, as it's no longer made)
Amazon product ASIN B00KIO2LC8(selected coz it rotates at an angle and agitates the contents, to help with even cooking, of things that are chips)

I have no idea if the box type would work any better for baked potatoes but I would doubt it, air fryers have a limit on how thick the food they can cook is which I would think whole potatoes probably exceed. The exception to this may be meat with bones in as the bones probably help transfer the heat through the meat.

Air fryers are basically a grill with a fan, without agitation of what's being cooked they ain't great for stuff that is too thick for grilling to work.

At least that's my experience.

I also have a halogen oven;
Amazon product ASIN B00C20X8KUDespite the pictures I have never successfully used it for cooking joints - it got relegated to basically a grill, a job it did fantastically (better than my ovens grill), but ultimately not enough to justify it's counter space (as it was too big and heavy to keep moving in and out of cupboards or to top of fridge). But mac n cheese, it did wonderfully, roast chicken, it did not. Where a baked potato would fit in the scheme of it's abilities I don;t know, it'd probably handle them okay, but so much more trouble than using a normal microwave/oven combo.

It's lived in the loft for many years now.
 
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Both my wife and I now have hand problems these days and we have moved over to a 3 component system:

1. Very light small thin bladed, very sharp Victorinex veg knives. These cut almost anything without much effort when an ordinary knife is hard work.
2. An Any Sharp knife sharpener with a sucker stuck to the worktop which keeps the knives sharp with regular use. Easy to use without effort
3. A mezzaluna - again regularly sharpened on the Any Sharp. Just lightly dropping the mezzaluna rhythmically onto stuff will often get things you want really fine very quickly.

As Ravn says, anything more complicated is harder to clean. These just wipe easily.
 
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