So you’ve decided to make pizza at home. But you quickly discover there’s no substitute for a crust baked on brick or stone. No problem: You get a pizza stone! But then you find out that sliding a 12″ pizza from a peel onto a 14″ stone or wooden board is possible, but just not so easy. After multiple messes, overshoots and fold-overs, you retire the stone. :(

Now, suppose you had a peel with a built-in conveyor belt? The Super Peel is, as difficult as it is to picture, exactly that: A baking peel with a conveyor belt that lifts the delicate, sticky dough from a surface and transfers it onto a board for easy transport. This tool definitely prevents needless baking and pizza disasters.

Place the corner of the pizza onto the peel. Then, slowly retract the peel while pushing the board forward and—voilà!—the sticky dough simply slides on. To put it back on any surface or stone, simply lower the board until it touches and reverse the process.

Don’t get it? I didn’t either at first, but this short clip is worth thousands of words.

The Polder timer/thermometer features a 43-inch cord running from the thermometer to the probe, which allows you to take active readings without opening the oven. I really like being able to adjust the cook time or reset the finish temperature on the fly. Plus, there’s a magnet on the back, so you can attach the thermometer to the side of the oven.

The Polder also allows you to preset a desired high/low temperature simultaneously. When either temperature is reached, the unit’s beeping alarm sounds. It’s helpful for remembering to check on liquids and meats. My 8-year-old son has even used ours to check the temperature outside: You can insert the metal probe underneath your window, and it’s quite accurate.

The timer, which counts up or down, is very handy for a range of other household uses, such as, “You have three minutes to pick up your room before I come in with a trash bag that’s headed for Goodwill!” Best of all, the thermometer is amazingly durable. We’ve had ours for at least four years and have dropped it many times.

Lastly, it can be set to display in Celsius or Fahrenheit, which proved to be a huge help when we spent some time living in Ireland. I had my American recipe books and was able to use the Polder thermometer to convert temperatures for a Celsius-based oven.

We avoid clutter in our kitchen, so all towels, pot holders and oven mitts live in a drawer next to the stove. Accessible, but nowhere near as handy as this apron that literally puts two padded mitts at your side, right where you need ‘em, whenever you need ‘em. So simple, so elegant. The slits lessen your below-the-belt coverage, of course, but the convenience is a worthy trade.

As a former cook in four restaurants, I’ve found these simple tongs to be an indispensable utensil day in and day out. Stirring, cooking and tossing pasta, flipping steaks, and grabbing anything hot including pans. They become an extension of your hands. I continue to use them in my own kitchen. I often see a lot of inferior, cheap and just plain useless tongs included with BBQ sets. They are usually too long or poorly designed to be effective. Get these: Williams-Sonoma Stainless-Steel Locking Tongs, or a pair of OXO Stainless-Steel Locking Tongs.

I learned how indispensable a decent pair of tongs can be around the campfire while working as a river and ocean kayak guide. We cooked as much of the meals as possible on a grill over the fire to conserve fuel on multi-day trips. I still cook this way whenever possible and use these OXO Stainless Steel Locking Tongs to not only move food around on the grill, but also to move hot coals or briquettes! These tongs lock closed for easy storage and have a “hook hole” for hanging up. The non-slip rubber grip has held up for years in the dishwasher. Available in 9-inch, 12-inch, and 16-inch models. For obvious reasons, I would suggest the 16-inch ones for outdoor cooking. Buy one of these for that unfortunate soul still using—gasp!—a fork at the barbecue.

Or:

I’ve been using this 9-tray dehydrator once or twice a week for the last three years to make dried fruit, veggies, jerky, dog treats, and dried bread crumbs. Other uses include re-crisping crackers, cookies, and chips, and thoroughly drying wet photographs and flowers.

Overall, this is truly the most flexible dehydrator I’ve found. The thermostat is adjustable (85–145°F), so you can customize your dehydrating. The removable trays allow you to experiment with sizes, quantities and varieties of foods sorted by temperature range. If you group shorter-term items by tray, you just remove those trays first, then keep the remaining items/trays inside a bit longer.

Other units heat unevenly from the bottom, require you to manually rotate trays, and—in the case of cheaper units—don’t let you control the temperature. Along with a thermostat, the Excalibur has a fan that distributes heat more evenly; it also features a timer, so it will automatically turn off at a desired time whether you’re around or not.

All of the dehydrators I’ve used generate noise (I now use my Ronco and Home Essentials models exclusively for making dog treats). Since the Excalibur isn’t quiet, I keep it in our craft room. It’s very easy to clean. I enjoy not throwing out spoiled food. We always have healthy snack alternatives for us and our grandkids—and they enjoy contributing to the process as much as they eating the rewards. Ever since we moved to a property with grapevines, they’ve helped us make copious amounts of raisins.

Tips:

The Nesco Food Dehydrator is a simple, affordable, and well-built tool for drying foods quickly and thoroughly. Though not an every-day-use item for most people, it becomes absolutely essential when it is needed.

I recently went on a weekend trip hunting for morels and returned with far more than I could eat. Luckily, this dehydrator made short work of the excess. The stackable trays easily fit 60 whole small morels and many of the larger ones which I’d cut in half. Altogether, I fit about three pounds of mushrooms in five trays.

Like the previously reviewed Excalibur Food Dehydrator, the Nesco model has a temperature control, fan, and heating unit. The Nesco’s heating unit is built into the top (cheaper models heat bottom-up) that sits atop the stack of trays and blows air through a central column allowing for better distribution and airflow throughout.

I used a temperature of 110°F when drying morels, and left them to dry over night for about 8 hours. Since any moisture can lead to a ruined batch, I made sure to let them dry out for a little longer than necessary. They were perfectly dried the next morning, and ready for storage in an airtight container.

While I have mainly used this model for mushrooms, the large trays and variable temperature dial (95–160°F) allows for a wide range of dried foods to be made. This particular model is also expandable to 12 trays if you need to dry a truly astonishing amount of food.

The Nesco, when compared with the Excalibur, has the benefit of being nearly $125 dollars cheaper combined with a smaller (though expandable) footprint, a relatively-quiet fan, and similarly adjustable temperature.

The Excalibur vs. the Nesco

I have experience with both the Excalibur and the more recently-reviewed Nesco, a smaller and less expensive dehydrator. The Excalibur is a superior product if you are a heavy user and tend to be drying large batches of produce at once. It has quite a bit more capacity due to the design (no center hole and square racks make a big difference). The horizontal airflow system does dry large batches more uniformly. Although you can add racks to the Nesco, it dries less efficiently, and once you add in the cost of extra racks you are approaching the same price as the Excalibur.

Having said that, the price on the Nesco has really dropped and the top-down heater/blower is a nice upgrade over the older bottom-fan models. Heck, you could almost get three of them for the same price as an Excalibur, although that would take up a lot of storage space and use more energy to power 3 units.

I love love boiled eggs. After several batches of edible, but less-than-perfect eggs, I was reminded of a nifty gadget my mom used to keep around. This little chunk of lucite reacts to heat the way eggs do, allowing you to cook a perfect hard-, medium- or soft-boiled egg.

It works great, whether you subscribe to the “boil then add the eggs” method or if you prefer adding the eggs, then bringing the water to a boil.

In 2008, Williams-Sonoma released a line of exclusive All-Clad flared roasters. They are expensive, but well worth it if you use your oven a lot. The unique design makes for very even cooking, especially if you don’t have a convection oven. The lower sides give good heat exposure, so you get excellent browning on the underside of roasts. The aluminum core provides outstanding heat distribution.

Last year, I cooked a 27-pound Thanksgiving turkey in the extra large roaster, and I’ve since used this pan for all kinds of dishes. Since it’s basically a very large saute pan, it works great on the stove as well. I’ve used it to cook a huge portion of mac & cheese (mixing the roux/bechamel right into the pan on the stove). I also use it regularly for large batches of braised lamb shanks and short ribs. The roaster’s low and wide design encourages a lot of reduction of the braising liquid, which yields a more flavorful sauce.

Warning: The extra large size is unwieldy. Before buying, make sure it can fit in your oven and sink. Although the curved design makes it very easy to clean with a brush, this size barely squeezes into my sink. Though it’s a bit of a beast to handle, it’s nevertheless indispensable if you need the capacity.

If the large version also seems a bit much, there’s now an even smaller and cheaper version for roasting chickens. This has quickly become my standard everyday pan for most things. It also comes with a suspension arm for cooking a chicken elevated.

I’ve experimented a bit with the suspension arm. In my oven, which is not a convection oven, breast-side-up is a disaster. Not enough heat reaches the bottom, and the white meat gets overcooked while the thighs stay very undercooked. However, breast-side-down gives outstanding results. Time after time, I’ve gotten evenly-cooked, very tender and juicy meat with crispy skin. And here’s the best part...without adding oil or basting; just salt and pepper or a dry rub. Out of the box, the suspension arm was a little testy: If it’s jostled too much, the whole chicken will fall into the pan and it’s a bit of work to get it put back up. I was able to fix this by bending the prongs with a pair of pliers. Once adjusted, it yields good results.

Regardless of which size is right for you, these are great roasting pans. The images are pretty deceptive with respect to the size differences and just how big they actually are. It’s worth a trip to the store to see which size is best for you.

For years professional have baked their goods on inert silicone-impregnated mats. These simple, inexpensive, oven-proof, non-stick sheets slide into baking trays and are now quite common in households like ours. Instead of consuming rolls of aluminum foil or parchment paper, you just lay everything out on these reusable durable mats, and bake. The nicely-browned goods slide off with no effort and no added grease. There’s less burn on the bottom, too. Multiple mats can feed one expensive baking tray for serious cookie production. Clean-up is a simple rinse. As an added bonus, they make great kneading boards. The mats also roll up for easy storage. We’ve used several of the five brands available. So far, they all seem similar. Silpat was the original, but SiliconeZone is the least expensive I’ve seen.

The Solaire Anywhere Portable Infrared Grill is a full-sized, no-compromises top-quality grill wrapped up in a super-portable package. It even comes with its own carrying bag, and—a very nice touch—has flip locks that hold the lid closed when stowed. This grill is small in size, but not cooking power; it puts out 14,000 BTUs, nearly twice what is typical for portable grills. The secret is that instead of conventional burners, it uses a ceramic infrared grid that heats in seconds (full-blast in less than three minutes), cooks in a flash, and cools down in about 15 minutes with no coals to dispose of. It uses 1-lb. propane bottles or a 20-lb. tank with optional adaptor. It can also be converted for use with natural gas.

The grill’s surface area may seem small (155-sq. inches), but food cooks so fast, it will handle a meal for four without any trouble. The unit is super easy to clean: The burner self-cleans if you let it run on high for a few minutes after everything is off the grill—anything on the burner simply vaporizes. Both the grilling grate and burner easily lift out, allowing for easy wipe-down of the steel housing. Best of all, the Solaire is elegantly designed and ruggedly built for a lifetime of use. The basic unit is made from commercial-grade 304 stainless steel; there’s also a marine-grade version in 316 stainless.

Although I never take my grill anywhere beyond our patio, I wanted a high-performance grill that I could set up in an instant and hide away in a closet, as I hate the look of those big grills that take up deck space. Mine is 21″×12″× 3″, including the carrying handles, and weighs 20 lbs. with the carry bag. The Solaire fits the bill perfectly for me, but it is really designed for RV-ers, car-campers, tailgaters and boaters. It also has some nice accessories: Car-campers will like the collapsible tripod base, while boaters should check out the gimbaled deck rail clamp.

The only hitch is cost: At $285–$400 the Solaire is more expensive than other previously-reviewed portable grills. But as our parents told us, sometimes spending a bit extra on quality saves money (and grief) in the long term. Cost kept me from buying the Solaire three years ago. Instead, I purchased another brand name portable for $150. It was great at first, but hard to clean and started failing in the second season. I repaired it and donated it to a charity; and then bought the Solaire.

This toaster is the same price and size of a basic toaster (about 8″×7″×15″), but it does much more. It can poach one egg or boil up to four. It also boasts a tray for simultaneously warming meat or veggie sausage. The real selling point is just how convenient it is. I place a few tablespoons of water in the heating tray, spritz the poaching tray with non-stick spray, add water (a measuring cup is included), crack an egg, pop in the toast, and return in about 5 minutes when everything’s ready for quick assembly and consumption.

Clean-up is a breeze: Wiping out the trays only takes a minute, and there’s even a tray for crumbs. I never want to own another toaster.

The Big Green Egg is an awesome-looking ceramic smoker with amazing heat retention. Modeled after the ceramic kamado pots used in Japan, the “BGE” has been around since the 70s, but has developed a rabid fan base in recent years (They call themselves “eggheads”). It’s easy to see why people love them. The BGE gets to temperature in 10 minutes, allows a bag of charcoal to last for 6 months, and can cook from 150-700°F. Thus, it enables proper smoking and grilling, where the flavor gets right into the meat.

The top and bottom halves feature a felt seal that’s virtually airtight; the only holes are a variable intake vent at the bottom front and a variable exhaust. With the combination of these vents you can vary and maintain the temperature to around 25 degrees of accuracy within that 150-700°F range. This keeps all the smoke and heat inside, while also limiting the amount of fuel burned. Like an oven, the ceramic doesn’t develop hot spots, so the cooking is completely even and food stays moist and juicy (We’ve had awesome pulled pork, ribs and steaks).

With the right accessory, you can also use the BGE as a clay oven for cooking pizza, tandoori and even pies. We have the XL BGE, which is massive enough for smoking 15 chickens at once! The smaller BGEs are cheaper, of course, though not cheap. Still, you can basically do everything on a BGE that you can on a regular grill. Our old bbq and BGE sit side-by-side on our back patio; these days, we only use the BGE.

Note: A reader pointed out that the Big Green Egg Company has an odd policy regarding “internet retailers.” The manufacturer does NOT honor the warranty if you purchase online instead of ordering from an offline retailer. —SL