you have an empty kitchen and $250.

[topaz]

You have an empty kitchen and $250.  What cookware set do you get and why?

As reported in keyne's LJ, most of our cookware has still not turned up after a couple of weeks of unpacking.  There are still some boxes where some of it might be hidden, but their numbers are dwindling.  A cast-iron skillet and Dutch oven are versatile things but we are getting to the point where we are ready to buy a new cookware set.

Whatever we get needs to be easy to store, as our new kitchen is a lot shorter on storage space than the last one.  So options which stack well will get bonus points.

But forget all of htat.  You have an empty kitchen and $250.  What do you buy to cook with?

Comments

[ayse.livejournal.com]

Just cooktop cookware? With the caveat that $250 would not get you All-Clad, I would replicate what is in this set (http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/sku6461925/index.cfm?pkey=ccookware-sets&ckey=cookware-sets).

- a large (10-12") frying pan, preferably not non-stick (so you can brown things)
- a medium (3-4 qt) saucepan, for making smaller batches of pasta sauce and soup; we have one this size that has an insert you can lift out after the pasta is boiled, instant collander (I save pasta water for the garden).
- a larger stock pot (>= 6 qt) for cooking potatoes for mashed potatoes, for cooking large batches of pasta, and for making stock
- a nice wide saucepan (3-4 qt) for making jam, jelly, and for mysterious soup things that need more width (I'm not a soup maker). We use ours all the time, though if I were going to bare minimum I would consider not getting this size.

Pots that can go in the oven as well as on the stove are preferable.

I also require a small saucepan (1/2 qt) for melting butter and scalding milk, and a wok (we have two sizes, but a larger one works just fine as a single wok). Depends on what you cook.

If we were talking baking as well, I'd add a 9x9 and a 9x13 roasting pan (roasts, gratins, casseroles, and brownies), both preferably of glass, a pair of 9" aluminum cake pans with straight sides, a glass pie plate, two flat cookie sheets (any material; use parchment or silicone liners), and a muffin pan (any material, use paper liners). As a minimum.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, most or all of the bakeware survived! (And the wok, though it's mediocre and we may want to replace it soonish anyway.)

[ayse.livejournal.com]

Yay for surviving bakeware! I know this is opposite most people, but I have thousands and thousands of dollars of bakeware, much of it no longer easily replaceable. I could easily cope with losing all our cooktop cookware -- just go out and buy new stuff -- but losing my baking pans and so forth would be tragedy.

Frankly, I don't know how you're coping with not having all your kitchen stuff. Maybe it's the long time between having your own kitchen before and now that has mellowed you, but my inability to handle chaos in the kitchen means that I carefully pack and label the kitchen boxes and unpack those first of all.

By the by, I don't know how well most sets of cookware stack, unless you've specifically chosen a set to stack, in which case you're trading off other desirable features for that one. I do know that if you're able to hang cookware, getting stuff where the lids have loop-style handles that can thread through the handle of the pot makes it easier to store lids, and hanging the pots frees up a lot of cupboard space.

(I didn't read your post on your own LJ for obvious reasons.)