These 2.5 oz. polished stainless steel cups make everyday meals look fancier than they really are. They’re just the right size for most condiments, causing you to waste less than you would if you had put them directly on the plate.

I use these for homemade garlic aioli for mushroom Swiss burgers and tiger sauce for French dips. They look very elegant nestled in between a sandwich and a pile of fries.

Staging salads with the dressing on the side of the plate in one of these cups is a great way to get the salad course out of the way before guests arrive without the lettuce getting soggy. This 12-pack leaves you with enough cups to go with the entree.

These are also ideal for setting up your mise en place when getting ready to cook. I measure out the different spices directly into one of these cups when a dish calls for a lengthy list of ingredients and then put the containers back in the spice cabinet to minimize the number of things in my workspace.

Glass ramekins look nice, but they take up a lot more space to store and break if they’re dropped. These cups stack inside of one another and therefore take up very little room in a drawer.

The stainless steel is of average quality, but good enough. You can run these through the dishwasher, however I recommend rinsing them out thoroughly or soaking them beforehand, as the cups get narrower toward the bottom, making it harder for the dishwasher’s jets to reach.

My wife and I received this rice cooker for a wedding present more than 13 years ago. To give you some idea about its utility and reliability, I just used it to make some rice for my stir fry lunch just as I’ve done about once per week since we’ve had it. We purchased an InstantPot last year and use it regularly, however I still chose to keep our Cuisinart rice cooker because I feel it does a better job with rice. I rarely buy single-function kitchen gadgets and earning cabinet/counter space in the minimalist Fencil kitchen is a feat in and of itself, so this is saying a lot.

The two most important factors for making perfect rice are a proper water-to-rice ratio and cooking time. If you add too much or too little water, your rice is going to be gummy or gritty respectively. The Cuisinart rice cooker has dialed in how long it takes to make the rice and will do the rest thanks to a spring-operated pressure switch that the insert rests on. If you want consistently good rice, this is your ticket.

A medium batch of rice takes about 10 minutes to finish, at which point the rice cooker switches into “warm” mode. It does a good job of keeping the rice warm without further cooking so that you have time to finish cooking the main entree without having to microwave the rice.

This is unrelated to the product itself, but I’m surprised by how many people don’t know about the importance of thoroughly rinsing the dry rice in a colander beforehand, regardless of what they’re using to cook it. Rinsing the rice gets rid of the fine white dust that results from the grains rubbing against one another during transit that can make your finished rice taste starchy and have a sticky mouthfeel.

Some of the user reviews on Amazon state that this rice cooker boils over, sending scalding hot, starchy water onto their countertops and causing a mess. The people who are saying this are overfilling the unit. It’s meant to make four cups, and yes, it will send excess liquid out the vent in the lid and onto the countertop as it heats up if you try to make more than that. Cuisinart makes an 8 and a 10-cup rice maker if you need additional capacity.

I don’t have to worry about quality when considering a purchase for our kitchen when it has the Cuisinart label on it. If you take care of it, this rice cooker will serve you faithfully for many years. I only use a rubber spatula to scrape the rice out of the non-stick insert and hand wash it. I haven’t had any problems with the coating coming off.

Like our Cuisinart coffee maker, coffee grinder (which I reviewed here), and food processor, this rice cooker has an attractive brushed stainless steel finish that has held up remarkably over the years. We don’t keep it on the counter, but it wouldn’t look unsightly if we did. I appreciate how Cuisinart has stuck to a timeless, unifying design across their product lines and hasn’t tried to revamp everything every few years. I wish more companies would do the same.

In summary, a good rice cooker is an indispensable small appliance for someone who cooks a lot and needs an easy way to make batches of rice as much as it is for someone who wants to prepare their own meals but hasn’t mastered the art of making perfect rice on the stovetop (which is not an easy feat). This unit has saved me so much time on Sunday afternoons when making my lunches for the coming work week. Rice is the backbone of many of my weekly meal preps because it’s simple, inexpensive, versatile, and easy to scale up if I want to make extra portions.

The difference between drinking pre-ground coffee and grinding whole beans right before you brew is like the difference between eating the pre-popped variety from the grocery store and the kind you get at the concession stand at the theater. Coffee beans, like peppercorns, release their concentrated oils (and in turn, their character) when they are ground. For optimal aroma and flavor, you want this to occur in your kitchen moments before you use them, not months ago in a processing facility thousands of miles away.

I read dozens of reviews of different coffee grinders in a range of price points before I decided on this one. More than a few mentioned inconsistent grind size and the need to agitate the unit slightly in order to coax the beans down into the grind chamber in order to not leave some of the beans unground in the hopper. The Cuisinart has neither of these problems. It had an adequately-sized removable hopper, produces uniform grounds, and grinds all the beans, every time.

The large wheel on the front of the unit makes it easy to adjust the grind size to one of 18 settings, even while it’s running. Experiment and find what works for your preferences and the variety of bean you’re grinding. You don’t want to over or under-extract the bean’s flavor and ruin your coffee. Under-extracted lacks its full flavor and an over-extracted one is overpowering and unpleasant to drink.

I appreciate the fact that Cuisinart is intentional in how they unify the appearance of their appliances. We keep this grinder right next to our Cuisinart coffee maker, as they complement one another well. The stainless steel makes for a timeless yet classic look, although you will have to stay on top of keeping it wiped down for fingerprints and dust.

This grinder, like all burr or blade grinders, is quite loud. There is no getting around this unless you buy a manual (hand-cranked) grinder. You’ll get used to the noise the more you use it. Don’t let it keep you from enjoying coffee the way it was meant to be.

The FryDaddy is perfect for someone who lives alone or with their spouse. I don’t eat much deep-fried food, but I like having this appliance in my kitchen repertoire for the options that it opens up when I’m planning a meal. This appliance earned a spot in my kitchen for its versatility – I can make restaurant quality homemade onion rings, sweet potato fries, crab rangoons, chicken wings, clam strips, churros, and mozzarella cheese sticks all with the same piece of equipment.

The FryDaddy is a very simple yet well-built appliance. We’ve had ours for over 10 years and, with no moving parts, we expect to have it for many more. The plastic strainer that came with it met its untimely demise in our dishwasher when it fell down and melted on the heating coil, but I’ve been using a metal slotted spoon ever since and actually prefer it.

The unit has some weight to it, so you’re less likely to knock it over. The power cord attaches to the base of the fryer with a magnetic connection, which is designed to quickly break free to prevent the fryer from toppling over if someone bumps the cord. Federal regulations severely limit the allowable length of power cords on appliances like deep fryers and slow cookers, so you will need to plan to use this within a foot of a counter electrical outlet. I always use mine in the driveway, so I just run a standard extension cord out to it.

Larger deep fryers with baskets that you use to drop the food are nice when you are cooking for more than a couple of people, but they take up an obscene amount of storage space. You also need to factor in the added expense of additional oil to refill the larger fryers.

Apart from taking up less room in your kitchen cabinets, another benefit of a small deep fryer like the FryDaddy is how fast it heats up to operating temperature. If I start my gas grill and plug in my FryDaddy at the same time, the oil will be up to temperature (375* for just about everything) by the time my burgers are done on the grill. I can drop in some onion rings or fries for a quick side while my burgers rest for the couple of minutes that my food is in the fryer.

Assuming that you haven’t overfilled the oil and you’re careful not to throw in food with excess ice crystals, electric deep fryers are perfectly safe to use indoors. However, I always use mine outside because it will make every room of your house smell like whatever you cooked for a day or two after. Regularly frying food indoors also causes a light film of oil that builds up incrementally on the ceiling, walls, cabinets, and appliances.

I prefer the taste of peanut oil for frying, but vegetable or canola oil are also suitable. Strain out any remaining food particles once you’re done cooking. This will help prevent the oil from taking on unwanted flavors during storage. Keep an eye on the color of the oil and replace it when it gets too dark or starts to taste off. You will need to change the oil more often if you regularly fry fish and seafood.

Don’t waste your time on plastic or cheap chrome-plated steel chip clips with weak springs that lose their tension over time. Your food will go stale quicker and you’ll pay more in the long run replacing cheaper clips when they break or wear out. At just under a dollar per clip, you can’t beat these heavy duty stainless still units.

These clips actually hold the bag closed tighter than the plastic ones that are twice as wide. Why waste all that room when they’re stored in a drawer when you can buy a clip that is stronger, more durable, and is only half the size?

I like how much clamping force these have. Excess trapped air (and the moisture in contains) in packaging is the main culprit when food goes stale. I can tightly seal the semi-rigid plastic packaging on a *check size* bag of coffee beans with one of these, which I couldn’t do with even the largest of the plastic chip clips. A tight seal is important for anything going into the freezer to minimize the chance of freezer burn.

With a one-inch capacity (this refers to the distance between the clamps when you open them), these clips are perfect for chips, bread, cereal, coffee, cookies, and much more.

I ordered a set of these clips (they come 12 to a box) in November 2017. They still work as well as the day I got them, so I recently ordered an additional box.