The kitchen is one of the busiest places at home. This is especially true for a working homestead kitchen. Aside from making your everyday meals, I’m sure you also do some baking, canning, preserving, and what have you. The kitchen is probably where you make your DIY soap, too. Am I right?
Anyone who loves spending time in the kitchen dreams of owning tools and equipment that’ll make their lives a whole lot easier. With how busy the homestead can get, no one will blame you. To help you out, here are some homestead kitchen essentials that you can’t simply live without.
Knife Set
I can’t imagine a kitchen without a knife. How can you cut or slice if you don’t have one? Even if you’re out in the wild, you need a knife to prepare your food. Knives are, simply put, homestead kitchen essentials.
The Home Hero Stainless Steel Knife Set lives up to its name. It has everything you need for your slicing, cutting and peeling needs. The set includes 13 professional knives, particularly chef’s knife, bread, carving, paring, cheese, pizza, utility knife, and six steak knives. Also in the set are a knife sharpener, peeler, and kitchen shears. It also comes with an acrylic stand and a booklet detailing how to care, sharpen, and store the knives.
The Norpro Universal Kitchen Knife is another tool you’d be glad to have in your homestead kitchen. If you prefer not to use too many knives, you can opt for this universal knife. The Norpro kitchen knife can be used for slicing different ingredients such as vegetables, fruits and frozen meat. You can even use it on crusty breads.
The Norpro Universal Kitchen Knife is made of stainless molybdenum vanadium steel. The full tang knife has an 8-inch blade with ergonomic handle and double bolsters for fine balance. It’s designed to keep your knuckle away from the cutting surface.
Cast Iron Skillet
Nothing says homestead kitchen than a cast iron skillet. Visit as many homestead as you can and I’m pretty sure they all have at least one kind of cast iron pan. Once you own one, you won’t have much of a need for other pans. That is if you know how to take care of a cast iron pan.
Lodge is perhaps the most popular name when it comes to cast iron. They have been around since 1896 and that fact alone should tell they take their cast iron products seriously. Their 10.25-Inch Cast Iron Skillet is pre-seasoned with natural vegetable oil. It also comes with assist handle for better control.
Cast Iron Dutch Oven
Another Lodge classic, the 6 quart Enameled Dutch Oven should also be in your wish list. Homestead kitchen essentials such as this one are certainly good investments. Cast iron lasts a long, long time and you’ll never need another pot once you get one.
The Lodge Dutch Oven is made of cast iron and glass combined by high temperatures to create porcelain enamel. Use this homestead kitchen essential for marinating and refrigerating your ingredients before cooking and then serving your dish. It’s also great for frying, roasting, broiling, and baking in an oven.
Food Dehydrator
Dehydration or drying has been around for 5,000 years. In fact, it is one of the oldest forms of food preservation. During the time of the Roman civilization and ancient Egypt, people dried and stored herbs, vegetables, fruits, spices, and meat. North American Indians also sundried meat while the ancient Chinese did the same with eggs.
Amazingly, the same concept is still used today. Aside from smoking and drying under the sun, food is dehydrated with the help of technology. The modern food dehydrator can preserve an impressive amount of food in as little time as possible. If the traditional methods take days, the food dehydrator needs less than a day.
The NESCO FD-75A Snackmaster Pro Food Dehydrator, for example, comes with five 13.5-inch (diameter) trays, which is a lot of surface area to work on. It can even be expanded to twelve drying trays. As for the duration of the drying process, the Snackmaster Pro is done in just hours thanks to its 600 watts of drying power. Of course, the time will depend on what kind of food you’re dehydrating.
The Snackmaster Pro boasts of its very own Converga-Flow drying system. This technology forces the sir down the exterior pressurized chamber and not though the trays. This allows for a faster and more even drying. This homestead kitchen essential also comes with an adjustable thermostat, a top mounted fan, and an opaque Vita-Save exterior.
Pressure Canner
Aside from drying food, you can also can them. Canning allows you to preserve food so you can enjoy it later on. This is perfect if you have excess harvest or if you want to stockpile food for emergencies, which is a wise thing to do.
Canning preserves the nutrients in the food. It’s also environment friendly since you’re growing your own food. This negates the carbon footprint from all the processes necessary to bring food from commercial farms to grocery stores to the dining table. Since you know what you’re putting in your cans, you don’t get any of the nasty stuff some companies might be putting in their canned products.
The Norpro 18 Quart Porcelain Enamel Canning Pot is ideal for your canning adventure. The tight fitting lid and flat bottom ensures you do your water bath canning properly. The Norpro canning rack, which is sold separately, fits perfectly in the pot so you may want to take a look at this one, too. The canning pot also comes in a nice blue enamel finis. Aside from water bath canning, you can also use the pot for cooking.
Meat Grinder
Who doesn’t like sausages? It’s one of those comfort foods that you can enjoy any time of the day. It’s the star of your Irish breakfast. Enjoy it with mashed potato for lunch. Dump it in a hotdog bun for your snack. Make sausage pasta for dinner.
If you can’t get enough of sausages, might as well them yourselves. Add a meat grinder to your list of homestead kitchen essentials. Once you have one, you can experiment on different sausage flavors. Of course, you can do lots of things with your ground meat.
The Norpro 150 Heavy Duty Cast Iron Meat Grinder and Sausage Maker is equipped with two grinding discs, a precision ground cutting knife, and a large hopper. It also comes with stuffing funnels for making sausages. The wide clamp opening helps secure the meat grinder to tables or counter tops. Aside from meat, the grinder can also be used for grains, nuts, fruits, vegetables, and cheese.
Kitchen Mixer
There’s a lot of mixing going on in a homestead kitchen. If you’re creaky joints will give you a hard time, it’s a good idea to invest on a kitchen mixer. It’s necessary if you do a lot of whisking, beating and stirring. The KitchenAid Professional 5 Plus Series Stand Mixer does all that and more.
The Professional 5 Plus is made of metal with steel internals. It boasts of a 450 watt motor and direct drive transmission. Its polished stainless steel wide-mouth bowl with a 5 quart capacity means you can work on a large batch of batter and dough every time out. Each set includes the power knead spiral dough hook, flat beater, and stainless steel wire whip. Plus, there’s the multipurpose attachment hub with hinged hub cover.
Immersion Blender
Even if you have a stand mixer, you’ll find an immersion blender pretty useful. Such homestead kitchen must-haves are faster and easier to use than a kitchen mixer and certainly way better than a whisk. The portable hand blender is used for whisking, beating, emulsifying, and pureeing by placing it directly in the pot. Use it to make tomato sauce, whipped cream, and smoothies. It also makes soap making a lot easier though you have to get one for food.
The Mueller Austria Ultra-Stick Immersion Multi-Purpose Hand Blender sports a chic brushed 304 stainless steel design. It depends on a 500 watt 9-speed full copper motor to do the blending jobs. The portable mixer sports an ergonomic yet comfortable grip to keep it from slipping from your hands. The BPA-Free Ultra-Stick immersion blender comes with a whisk and milk frother.
Etekcity Food Scale
Not everyone will probably agree that a kitchen scale is necessary. You rarely need to measure anything when you’re working in the kitchen. Sometimes, estimates work. But remember, we’re talking about homestead kitchen essentials here.
A kitchen scale like the Etekcity Food Scale is useful in many homesteading projects. In baking and soap making, you need to be precise with your ingredients. If you’re selling meat especially the ground version, a food scale will certainly help.
The Etekcity Food Scale can weigh up to 11 pounds or 5 kilograms. The digital scale is made of food grade 304 stainless steel, which is pretty easy to clean. It comes with the Tare function which gives you the weight of the content excluding the weight of the container holding the content. The scale also features a clear easy-to-read backlit display and low battery indication.
Measuring Spoons and Cups
It pays to always be sure how much of a particular ingredient you’re putting in your dish. Heck, even the best chefs and cooks use measuring sets. The most delicate taste buds will know if you put too much salt or something. That’s why measuring spoons and cups are homestead kitchen essentials.
The Serious Cook’s Twelve Piece Measuring Set includes six measuring cups and six spoons. To be more specific, the measures include 1/4 cup, 1/3 cup, 1/2 cup, 2/3 cup, 3/4 cup, and one cup sizes. You also get 1/8 teaspoon, 1/4 teaspoon, 1/2 teaspoon, 1 teaspoon, 1/2 tablespoon, and 1 tablespoon.
The dishwasher safe set are made of sturdy plastic. Each piece comes with a large grip-ease handle for easier control. They also have easy-to-read embossed letters.
Apron
A messy kitchen is a good sign. That means you love making with food. It also tells a lot about how serious you are with the homestead life. Of course, you still need to clean up after a day of cooking, baking or canning.
It’ll be a lot easier to clean yourself up if you have an apron on. Check out this collection of fairy-themed aprons from RedBubble. The missus and kids will love their cute and magical designs.
As for Mr. Tough Guy, you’ll look great wearing the Pirate Peter The Pirate Fairy™ Apron. The apron is made of 100% polyester with sublimation print. The design features a young scrawny pirate clutching a cutlass on one hand and a knife on the other. Seems like he’s ready for some slicing and dicing.
The pirate-themed apron features a durable neck band and black ties that’s long enough to wrap around your dad bod and tie in front. The machine washable kitchen must-have will help you stay clean while getting busy in the kitchen, garden, or in your art studio.
There are plenty of homestead kitchen essentials that we couldn’t put on this short list. That doesn’t mean they’re less important, though. If you think we left out something really useful, please feel free to tell us on the comment section. Follow Gentleman Pirate Club, as well, and learn more about homesteading and how you can fully enjoy a self-sustainable life.
