How much crap do you need in your kitchen?

Manufacturers of kitchen appliances and accessories love to sell people single use items. Why? Because you need more appliances or accessories to cook the basics. Think about the fondue pot, a staple single use item that appeared in almost every 1970s home. Was the fondue pot substantially different from a pot on the stove or a crock pot? Nope, but they sure sold a lot of cheap, crappy pots to melt cheese. Nevertheless, people bought them up. You go into your parents kitchen and dig around in the back of the kitchen cabinets and drawers and you are sure to find crap they bought and used once or twice. Specialty knives, quesadillo makers, ice cream makers, deep fryers, toaster ovens, dutch ovens, rice cookers, etc.

Sure, some people do use some of this equipment but I bet for every person who bought a waffle maker in the last five years and uses it there are one hundred people who haven't used it more than twice. There's nothing wrong with some of this equipment when you're really going to use it. I will attest to owning and using a rice cooker, a dutch oven and even a waffle maker. I use all of them fairly frequently. My parents owned a toaster oven up until maybe five years ago and used it a lot. However, I own an under-used blender (actually I think there are two blenders in the house).

Most people could get by with a thinner set of appliances and accessories that do the same job as some of these other expensive single or minimal use pieces of equipment. If you start out buying what you really need you can save some room for some fun stuff you use on rare occasions. So here's a few lists to get you on the right path. Of course, I assume you have plates, silverware and some basic glasses.

Must Haves

• A decent set of kitchen accessories including spatulas, stirring spoons, etc. There's no need to buy expensive or fancy accessories. Bamboo works excellent and will never scratch your cookware. Since bamboo usually is thicker you will also need a spatula with a thin blade to work some surfaces. A basic metal spatula will work but you may want to opt for a silicone-coated spatula that is heat-resistant and scratch-resistant. You should also buy a spatula, whisk, measuring spoons and cups. I'd also recommend a pair of silicone-coated tongs because sometimes it is very difficult to flip or remove foods with a spatula. Again, no need to get fancy or expensive. 
• A three piece set of mixing bowls. Sometimes you need to mix stuff.
• A basic set of metal cooking sheets for your oven. You just need the basics here. Two or three flat cookie sheets and a 2-3 inch deep cake pan. You don't need super-special easy cleaning stuff. If you have a problem cleaning just line with foil.
• A 9" glass casserole pan. These pyrex glass casserole pans work well for cooking everything from casseroles to side dishes to meats. They do cook differently than metal cooking pans so I think it's worth picking up one. I rarely come across recipes calling for the larger pans that can't work in a 9" pan unless you are cooking for a large family or many guests. 
• A reasonable set of pots and pans. You can buy a decent ten or eleven piece set for around $200 and as long as you take care of them and clean them well they will last a lifetime. If the set doesn't include a good set of skillets you should supplement with a basic set of skillets. If the set doesn't have it you should also buy a cheap steamer bowl.
• A decent set of knives. You don't need to get fancy but you should spend at least a little money on a set of steak knives and one really good chef's knife. The wood block-style knife sets are great if you can afford one but at a minimum you should not use super cheap knives, especially not plastic-handled knives. This is not being snobby, this is a matter of safety. A poorly constructed knife will dull quickly. A dull knife is more likely to cause an injury than a sharp knife because it will catch and pull on foods which is how you will lose control and cut yourself. A cheap knife can also come apart in your hand and that is a recipe for disaster. I've had it happen. Of course you also need a cutting board to go with your knives. I prefer plastic cut don't get into the debate over what material is best.

That's it. Seriously. In most households you can get away with cooking 90% of all the food you will ever prepare with these accessories. Of course you need a working stove and oven and you'll inevitably have a microwave.

Almost Must Haves You Probably Should Have

• Food processor. Yeah, the days of the blender are pretty much over. A blender is fine if you make a lot of mixed beverages but it does a poor job of blending foods outside of soup. Food processors, on the other hand, can do anything a blender can but chop and blend drier foods. I'd recommend investing the cash in a decent food processor in the 7-12 cup range. I'm a big fan of the Kitchenaid food processors because they have large mouths and come with great accessories that turn the food processor into a powered grater and food chopper. It also includes a dough mixer. You can get away with a cheaper food processor and still be happy with your purchase.
• Slow cooker. The days of the slow cooker were over some time in the 80s when that sort of casserole that made slow cookers famous went away. However, there are lots of slow cooker recipes coming out that produce healthy and/or very flavorful recipes. They are great for keeping dips, soups, chiles, etc. warm during meals and parties. Kitchen accessory manufacturers are trying to sell casserole pans/dutch ovens to capture this revival by selling you a $100 dutch oven to sit on your stove or go in your oven instead of a crock pot for half that price that is a safe option that includes a heat source. I don't know about you but I'd rather leave home or go to bed with a slow cooker running than my stove bubbling away with no automated shut off or emergency shut off.
• Either a hand mixer or stand mixer. The hand mixer is definitely the cheaper option but a stand mixer makes mixing doughs infinitely easier. I'm partial to my Kitchenaid stand mixer. Not only will it mix anything I beg of it but it has all kinds of cool accessories. Admittedly, sometimes I do need to break out a hand mixer because I need to mix a smaller volume of something than the stand mixer is designed to mix.

Still keeping a fairly light kitchen here. I think for most households you're cooking 99% of your food out of the above two lists. Personally I think a coffee maker is a required appliance but I realize not everybody is a coffee drinker or drinks coffee at home.

A Few Other Items Worth Considering

• Wok. You can cook more than just Asian food in a wok. A wok is really about cooking technique. It allows you to cook food very fast because the thin metal is designed to conduct a lot of heat and retain it in the bowl. Obviously it's great for Asian dishes but nothing stops you from using it to make non-Asian based stir frys, fry food in it, etc. You can usually find a small wok cheap and it works well on a standard kitchen stove. No need to run out and buy a wok burner.
• Rice cooker. This one is really a matter of convenience. You can definitely cook rice on the stove in a saucepan. However, I find rice cooked in a rice cooker cooks a little fluffier and 99.999999999% cooks to the right texture. Stove top is a little more tricky and you can easily end up with under or over cooked rice and it's almost impossible to avoid the stuck rice on the bottom of the pot unless you use an enormous amount of oil. Of course, if you don't cook a lot of rice this is pretty useless.
• Dutch oven/casserole dishes that is oven safe. Yes, I just beat up on these earlier and there's no reason to buy one along with a slow cooker if you are only using it stove top or you buy one that is not oven safe. Many, if not most, of the dutch oven/casserole dishes on the market right now are not oven safe. While I think you are ok without a dutch oven if you own a slow cooker, the dutch oven does a few things in the oven that you can't get out of a slow cooker. You can cook breads and pizzas in a dutch oven. You can cook foods much hotter in the oven than a slow cooker will allow. Like the rice cooker I don't think this is very necessary but it is convenient and my favorite way to make pizzas and breads. Since you can get them heated up to 500F it is almost as effective as a pizza stone and produces comparable crispy crust. The ability to put a lid over the food in the oven helps trap moisture and I think it does it in a better way than a cake pan with a foil tent. Plus, if you need to you can always use it as a back up stock pot on the stove. I have an aluminum dutch oven that is completely oven safe. Those are the cheapest oven safe dutch ovens you will find on the market and I think it does a reasonable job.
• Grill pan. Sometimes you don't have access to a grill or don't feel like dragging out and cleaning the grill but you want that grilled appearance and style of cooking. A grill pan looks like a skillet but with the grill lines. It won't give you a smokey grilled flavor but it will give you the charred look and flavor that is half the grill flavor. So it gets you half way there. You can work these pans on the stove with a little oil. They aren't too hard to find nor are they very expensive. Certainly cheaper than a George Foreman grill.
• Toaster. Hey, sometimes you need toast. Of course, you can toast bread old school in a pan on the stove but the toaster is foolproof. (But you should try pan-fried bread at least once to appreciate the difference.)

As I said, these items are all optional and depend on what kinds of food you anticipate cooking. If you don't do a lot of casserole or slow cooker-style foods then you probably don't need the slow cooker and you really don't need the dutch oven. If you eat a lot of Asian food, you'll probably appreciate the difference of a wok. 

Of course, depending on your cooking style and food preferences there can be several pans and pots I didn't mention. Maybe you are the person the who drinks a post-workout shake every day and relies on your blender. There's nothing wrong with that. These lists are designed to help out people starting to put together a kitchen and maybe make people think twice about buying a countertop ice cream maker and other things that sound fun but will end up in a garage sale or back of a cabinet in a couple years.