Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Kitchen Tip Tuesdays

This week for Kitchen Tips, Tammy has asked that we ask a kitchen related question or problem. So I am going to bring my after the holidays dilemma up to the top. Once Christmas was over I found that I had gotten two new "kitchen servants" to add to my kitchen. I got an electric knife and a food slicer. After I got both of them, my dh started questioning as to whether they would both be of use to me or if I need to think about returning one to get something else that might be of more use to me.




VS
So my question is this: .....is having an electric knife and food slicer something of a duplicate in the "kitchen servants" department??? If you have an electric knife would you think about having a food slicer or is the electric knife good enough?? Or would having the food slicer be good enough??? OR would both be of benefit in the kitchen?? Okay so that is more than one question but it is really perplexing to me. So what do you think??
You want to help others with their kitchen dilemmas/problems, head over to Tammy's Recipes for more!

7 comments:

Beth said...

This is a dilemma. I guess I would look at it as Alton Brown on the TV show Good Eats would see it. He (and I) are opposed to unitaskers, items that really can only do 1 thing. The slicer is large and bulky, so storage would be an issue for me. Plus I think it is only useful for slicing large pieces of firm meat (ham, turkey breast, etc) or cheeses. The electric knife is smaller for storeage and can be utilized for just about anything from breads, meats, cheeses, veggies, etc, making it more of a multitasker. My opinion would be to keep the electric knife. However, I have neither item, so maybe my opinion is not helpful.

Anonymous said...

I don't really know which I would keep, and honestly, I first thought the larger item because it looks more substantial, but then I read the above comment and was swayed by what that commenter said. I'm no help at all!

I also wanted to say thank you for stopping by my blog and offering your suggestion for organizing my kitchen drawers and cabinets!

Amanda said...

I personally would keep the slicer. I have always thought those nifty little devises at the delis were so cool! The electric knife is nice, but NOTHING compared to that slicer!!

Anonymous said...

We don't have a slicer, but I'm a grand daughter of a butcher. (well my grandfather passed away 18 yrs ago tho lol). So both are good to have.

The electric knife can be used for many things. Like carving a chicken or turkey. A slicer is nice for buying luncheon meats in bulk.

A slicer, can be used w/a grinder piece so you can make your own sausage and ground your own meat.

Slicer can be stored in the garage, in a pantry, or on a shelf in a closet.

Dianna said...

Whoa! A big butcher knife is good enough for me, but we don't do a lot of meat. How much do you really think you'll use these both? That's what I'd ask myself.

Jasmine's Journey said...

Keep both. They should be very useful and the electic knife how much fun is that to stand there and slice up 5 pounds of cheese into lunch slices?

I am thinking I would like that more to carve a turkey or a roast.

Anonymous said...

I think the choice really depends on which one YOU would use most! :)

We don't have an electric slicer, but we do have a small "salad shooter" which has a slicing attachment, which I can use for small things... the only time we've ever thought we'd like an electric slicer like the one in your picture was when we were slicing up our homemade pepperoni.

I do have an electric knife, and it is wonderful for slicing homemade bread. (The bread shouldn't be too warm though, or it will tear up too much. I use a regular serrated knife for hot bread.) I don't use it for much besides bread (it does well for turkey, but we don't eat that very often!). My mom makes about 5 loaves of bread a week, and so she uses her electric knife a LOT. I don't use mine very much, honestly (half the time when I make bread, we're eating it hot out of the oven!) and wouldn't miss iT too terribly.

And the other factor is storage space... I wouldn't want to try to squeeze an electric slicer into my kitchen! :)