I use a double boiler, but mine wore out so I had to buy a new one.  In my search for a new one, I  found they are not common in shops.

A double boiler is an essential kitchen tool for me. How about you?

FWIW...I do not have a microwave.  They are very popular, but the way the cook leaves much to be desired in my opinion.

I never cook.

I´ve never used it, I´m a regular pot type of a girl Never had enough patience for steamers either. Oh, and I use microwave just for warming up already cooked meals

Interesting....how do you cook? No steamer, no double boiler....what do you cook in? You say regular pot, what is a regular pot? What materials are your regular pots made out of?

The beauty of a double boiler is that things don´t burn or get scorched in them. The heat is even and things cook slowly and evenly. Of course, it is possible to boil all the water out of the bottom pot, which is a good way to ruin the pot.

Do you have any favorite kitchen cooking tools?  You know, things you have to have?

Well, when I cook something, I use regular pots like these:

and I cook veggies/rice/pasta in water so they don´t get burned. I know it´s not the best way as I lose a lot of vitamins but that´s the way it is...My pots are made of stainless steel and frying pans are teflon. I must say I use the oven pretty often as I´m not too fond of deep fried things so oven is where most of the meat ends up.

And I can´t imagine a kitchen without a whisk (the one looking like a balloon)

Not sure if you are a fan of online shopping, but since I am NOT a fan of shopping at stores, I do most of mine online......here are a bunch of double boilers on Amazon.....I buy from them A LOT and I have never had a problem.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Double+Boiler&x=11&y=19

Well that was certainly a nice diversion....they sure have a lot of double boilers!......but do you use them?

I like to support local economy, so I try to make my purchases from local merchants.  I am not adverse to online shopping if things I want or need are not available locally.  I dd find one in a local shop, but now I have to bring it back because it has a serious dent in the bottom part....sigh....should have opened it before leaving the shop.

Hmmm.....interesting.  You really should try a steamer. They say it´s one of the healthiest cooking methods.  As for your boiling veggies...don´t you use the water left over from cooking? It is great for making broths.

I never deep fry anything, but I do stir fry often.  Stir frying is sort of a combination of sauteing and steaming.  The fire is only on under the food for a minute or so.  The rest of cooking is done by steam.

FWIW.....my frying pans are cast iron...and one is stainless steel.  I avoid teflon as I have read it leaks into the food.  If one seasons cast iron properly, they are the perfect none stick cooking pans. I have the one stainless steel for foods that are acidic and not to be cooked in cast iron.

I have one stainless steel pressure cooker,  a combination steamer sauce pan..(sort of like a double boiler but one pan has holes in it)a few staineless steel pans and the rest cast iron.  My favorite is my cast iron Dutch Oven  (I have two, one small for grains like barley or rice, and a large one). Sometimes I steam someting then glaze it in a frying pan.

I hardly ever use the oven as it heats up the kitchen too much.  The Dutch Ovens  function like an oven.  I also have a nice tajine to cook in, but only use it a few times a month as the cooking time is long............but so tasty!

No insult to Trudy in calling them Dutch Ovens, but that is what they are called here.

 I actually don´t care for double boilers but I do have one.  I use a rice cooker for rice and don´t eat very much pasta (please don´t tell my Italian family...OK?), I just boil it in water if I do.  As for veggies, they are usually cooked in something else (I am the cassarole Queen...as my family loves to tease me about) or I grill or sautee them. 

Oatmeal?  ummm....I boil water and add it to the instant kind  Not much of an oatmeal lover I guess.

Aenigma´s nightmare is coming true!!  

 TC has become a recipe and (God forbid) language site???

Elisabeth, you should know by now that it´s your task as wife to make different and healthy dishes for your hubby!

Literally as I am reading this...I am eating a bowl of oatmeal.  Here is how I make mine during the week:

Lazy Way

1 Packet of Quacker 50% Less Sugar Cinnamon

Run water..I don´t measure to cover oatmeal

Put in microwave...making sure it doesn´t boil over

Top it off with flaxseed, nuts or sometimes blueberries

I also like organic and have cooked it on the stove many times in a regular pot.  It still tastes the same to me, so I opt for the microwave.  But I have never tried a double boiler before.

I would like to know what type of cookingware people use...I just bought a conventional oven & flat burner stove (electric) and my pots and pans are not heating up as I like.  I get consumer guides and have read reviews and I think Calphalon is suppose to be pretty good.  I don´t want the stainless steel but the hard anodized.  Le Crueset..something like that just opened an outlet near me, however I´m not sure what their cookware is good for.  I need domesticated, obviously.

,

Hmmm....grill veggies?  Spoken like a true Texan.  Pray tell, what veggies do you grill? As for me, I mostly steam or sautee them.  The only veggies I can think of that grill well are things like bell peppers, onions, nopal, potatos, tomatoes, corn, squash.......what am I missing? When I think of veggies my mind goes more to things like okra, string beans, asparagus, chard

Rice cookers are nice, they cook perfect (sorta) rice, and you can cook so much more in them.  However that said....I prefer my little cast iron Dutch Oven for that. The rice gets crispy on the bottom.

UUghhh I hate grilled veggies, those that can be eaten raw are to be eaten raw and others end up cooked in water, in a soup or a stew (Mr Daydreamer makes best stews ever!). I love casserole too, Lis.

In Poland I used to have a cooker with ceramic top and it was a nightmare. First of all, I´m a lousy cook and keeping an eye on the things not to boil over was a disaster, and I couldn´t get my frying pans to lay flat on the heating spot (they´d always tilt a bit so I had to keep the right balance with the food), even if the producer said they would! Now I have electric plates on my cooker and it´s way easier...

As for oatmeal, I can´t remember the last time I had it I tried a few times to make one for my son but he hated it (and I couldn´t eat it as it was with his special formula for children with cow´s milk allergy).

I know veggies from a steamer are healthier, I was meaning to buy one a while ago but somehow never did. besides, where would I keep it? Don´t you ever have the feeling that you keep buying kitchen appliances that you use only occassionally and you mainly use it to clutter the space? I´ve got food processor I use no more than twice a year or a juicer used not more than twice. Not to mention blender that is still unpacked...i hate it when I feel like I really need something and after I buy it, I never use it

AE, dear. How are you? Don´t grind your teeth so hard

Grilled tomatoes, peppers and aubergines are delicious , i mean mangal version

Teaschip,

Le Creusuet is very high end cookware.  I have used it, but prefer the old fashioned season yourself cast iron.  The reason is I´m hard on my cookware and I´ve found the Le Creusuet is easy to damage the enamel.  After you have broken the enamel, you might as well throw it away. 

Lodge currently makes great cast iron cookware. As for any type of aluminum, some of the questions concerning the dangers of aluminum toxicity keep me away from it.

I find cooking on an electric stove difficult. I like seeing the flames.

Porridge. (suitable for vegetarians)

1 small glass oatmeal (not rolled)

4 glasses water

leave to soak overnight

bring to boiling point and reduce heat

simmer for 3 minutes stirring all the time

salt and ground black pepper to your taste

pour and add a little milk

Afiyet Olsun!

A double-boiler? Cooking now seems to me even more complicated!

What´s more I have never seen this before. I have grown up with usual classical pots and just the usual pressure cooker. I think we can do what we want in a healthy way in a short time with these cookers.

Are these double-boilers a new phenomenen and popular in USA? Sorry I did not read all the messages.

My pots and pans list that I use the most!

1 double steamer (to steam my veggies)

1 extra large saucepan

1 large saucepan

1 medium saucepan

2 small saucepans (one for boiling milk)

Large frying pan

Small frying pan

Paella pan (nearly forgot that  

A pirex roasting/caserole dish with lid

Roasting tin (for the Turkey at Christmas)

Roasting dish for my roast potatoes

Lasagne dish (for uhmmmm my lasagne but also for roasting veggies)

and various other little dishes and pirex caseroles dishes

phewwwww now I have got that off my chest

 OH MY GOD!  ALLAH ALLAH!  HOLY PASTA MONSTER! 

The knitting thread was actually preferable to THIS!!!!!!

 _AE_ I don´t know how to knit, so I am going to continue my very very very interesting conversation with alameda!  Do you mind????

Teas - Le Creuset is AWESOME!  I love the ones that are cast iron in the middle and ceramic coated. 

DD - I will give you my cassarole recipes if you give me yours!!

alameda - I manage to grill just about everything that won´t fall thru the grill slats!  Asparagus is WONDERFUL on the grill!  So are eggplants, tomato, mushrooms (large portobellas or small ones put on skewers), zucchine, summer squash, sweet potato, poblanos, even plantains are sooooo good on the grill.

Hmmm....sounds great....tell me...what do you put on your grilled veggies? I probably would grill more if building the fire were not such a problem....then we have a lot of days here one isn´t allowed to have any open flames..."save the air days".  I have a small cast iron hibachi and a small clay chiminya that have yet to be used.

How do you light the charcoal? What do you use? Do you use any special woods?

Actually the use of a double boiler eliminates many problems associated with cooking, scorching in particular.  In my home, they are an essential cooking tool.  When cooking things like milk, kasha, steel cut oats, or oat meal or anything that is easily burnt, the double boiler provides even heat.

I guess it´s very much what you grew up with.  I think the double boiler is a French invention, seeing as it is also called a bain marie.

 I usually drizzle the veggies with a bit of olive oil and I make an herb blend that contains salt, pepper (red and black), dill, lemon rind, dried basil and a few other things..sprinkle it on and YUMMY!  We use a BBQ pit and a smoker (mostly for meat) and use predominately natural wood (mesquite, cedar or pine).  I sometimes use charcoal...but not often....not very fond of the taste. 

BBQ pit? Could you please describe exactly what that is? or what you mean by BBQ pit?  I´m familiar with a variety of pit cooking, most famous is the Pacific Island pit cooking where they actually dig a pit, fill it with coals....and a special rock is used to retain heat.  I once lived next to a Hawaiian family who used to do that. They had special lava stones for cooking.

One of the best meals I ever had was of lamb cooked over a pit. The lamb was on a pole held by wood forks above the fire/heat. It was constantly turned.  The whole thing looked very midieval, although it was lamb being roasted, not hog.

 It is a pit dug into the ground.  It is surrounded by large stones and then covered with a huge metal grate.  We also have a spit for roasting large pieces of meat (lamb, beef, venison).  It almost looks like a small water well. 

Wow....!!! that really sounds neat..........

Pit cooking

Now I am upset, no one is interested in my pots and pans list

Of course we are, we are just trying to imagine that collection Now, what colour are they? Are there any extraordinary things you cooked/simmered/stir-fried/fried/stewed/baked/deep-fried/boiled/steamed in them? How do you wash them? Or scrub them?

What an impressive list of pots and pans....and these are the ones you use the most?  Good girl, you steam thngs.  You seem to make a lot of sauce?  Paella? you make paella?....I LOVE paella!  I make it also, but unlike you, there is no special paella dish in my home.  I make mine with chcken, sucuk, rice, capers, saffron, garlic, pimientos......it is one of those dishes one can improvise a great deal with. 

I didn´t notice any frying pans in your list.  You seem to use a lot of saucepans and roasting pans....I guess you use the oven a lot?

Now you didn´t tell us what material the pans are made out of....

 Now you are taking the micky

Ummm.....this must be a regional idiom..............could you translate?

This thread, apart from sounding like a Women´s Institute blog, is a bit confusing for non-USA peeps!  For example.

• "Oatmeal" - - - is that porridge?
• And... if you ARE talking about porridge, why the big fuss?  It is one of the easiest things to cook in the world!  Actually Alameda you need to forget your prejudice and buy a microwave as it makes the best porridge and the fluffiest, lightest scrambled eggs!
• When you say "double boiler" do you mean stove or cooker?  A boiler for us is something that powers your central heating and has nothing to do with cooking!

So don´t DARE to complain about regional idioms

 I thought porridge was a thick soup..nice to know it´s actually oatmeal.   I agree eggs and oatmeal (porridge) is great in a microwave.  We do use the term "boiler"  for heating but more often refer to the term furnace.  I´m not sure what the difference between a stove and cooker.  I thought the stove was the cooker.. We have stoves on the top and the bottom is an oven.  But you can also buy a counter range and have a seperate oven.  When I think of cooker...it usually refers to a slow cooker.  Like a crock pot.  Do you have crock pots?

Most helpful...Thanks for letting us know. 

Here is my list of cookingware that I could not live without.

Crock Pot

Slow Roaster

8 Qt Stock Pot

Rice Cooker

Gas Grill

Microwave

Now, I just need some good quality pots and pans.

 Apparently, porridge is what is made from oatmeal.... and oatmeal is rolled oats.  Porridge can also be made from other cereals, but we Brits only know it being made from oats (oatmeal).

Alameda...........

 "Taking the mickey" is an alternative way of  saying "taking the p***" . "Taking the mickey/mick/michael" was an original ryhming slang from the Cockney part of London and was taken from the word "microtate "  to urinate. 

´micturate´ - sorry, once a medsec always a medsec!   - but it never occurred to me that was where we get ´take the mick´ from - you learn something new every day!!

 Oooops I better start reading what I have written!  I can´t believe how I spelt it even though I did know  - I was microwaving something whilst I was writing !!

Actually, I´m not complaining, I just want to know what the word means.  The generous Libralady and  the kind Lady in Red have filled me in now.  Thank you ladies

As for Oatmeal.....I am refering to a porridge made out of rolled oats, or any rolled grain...even rolled quinoa..........In this case for brevity, I used the term oatmeal, but it could also have been steel cut oats, kasha or any grain that cooks pretty fast. 

I much prefer the texture of it when cooked with a double boiler...that is a special set of pots where one fits in another that contains boiling water.  The process eliminates scortching the grains, or whatever else you have in the top pot.

Here is a photo of a double boiler

No no no no no no.....I hate microwaved food! I am trying to get away from it and I certainly do not want one in my home!

Yes, almost in every post