Kaido
Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
- Feb 14, 2004
- 49,898
- 6,226
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You're killing me @Kaido. I've wanted a good panini press for awhile, but the whole dropping a grand plus a month going back to school stretches the resources a bit. You already got me to buy instant pots (2) and an anova. What more do you want from me man?
Hah, well I've built up my inventory over time. I got my first Instant Pot 2 years ago, my second last year, and my third (a 14-quart GoWise) this year, so I spread it out over time. I actually recommend doing it that way to give you time to learn each machine & really spend some time with it to see how it works, how to care for it, and what all you can do with it. Like with the panini press, I got into no-knead bread maybe a year ago or so (having previously only really done bread machine bread) & found out how easy it is to make artisan bread at home (peasant loaves, ciabatta, baguettes, etc., not to mention pizza dough, breadsticks, pretzels, and so on), so now my workflow can go no-knead bread + Anova'd chicken breast + a panini press to put them together to make a killer sandwich.
The nice thing is that the equipment cost is pretty much a one-time fee if you buy decent quality equipment, and then you have lower costs by making your food at home, especially if you buy in bulk (Sam's/Costco/BJ's/Amazon/restaurant stores) or 'super' bulk, storage-style (wheat berries for grinding, half a cow annually from a local farm, annual CSA's, etc.). The Kitchn had a "Make or Buy" article on sandwich bread & worked out the cost of a homemade no-knead loaf to be 66 cents; in contrast, my local Whole Foods charges $4.99 for a similar boule:
http://www.thekitchn.com/make-or-buy-bread-150218
So basically I can make bread at home every day for a week for the price of one pre-made loaf from the store, with minimal time & effort investment (a minute to stir the ingredients on day 1, another minute to punch down the loaf & ball it up on day 2, then stick it in the oven to bake for 30 minutes, then take off the lid & bake for 15 minutes, then let it cool & slice...probably 5 minutes of actual work time total). Likewise, a single fresh boneless, skinless chicken breast works out to about $2 each where I live (which is cheaper than a Big Mac!); pulling up the Olive Garden menu in Mass, their chicken alfredo dish is a whopping $16.49. Let's say that's 2 chicken breasts, that's four bucks, plus a dollar for a big box of noodles, plus maybe $3 for a bottle of alfredo sauce if you don't want to make it yourself...$8 for a nice big DIY meal in the Instant Pot, 50% cost savings, just dump the food in the pot & cook haha.
A lot of cooking boils down to habits as well. One of my goals for this year is to make bread every single day, whether it's banana bread or bread machine bread or a no-knead loaf or whatever. I've been working out the timing on each recipe so I can keep the workflow going with minimal effort...again for no-knead bread, only takes a minute to prep & can be done right before work & boom, your bread is ready to sit for 18 hours to do the first rise with hardly any work involved...but it is a new habit to adopt & integrate into your daily routine, so it's kind of something you have to actively go after & want to add into your life, even though it's very, very easy. Aside from appliance purchases, I've seen a nice budget drop on food as I've started cooking way more stuff at home vs. eating out, which is great, plus I have full control over the ingredients (no paragraphs of stuff I can't pronounce on the label), can tweak it to my personal taste preferences & dietary goals (IIFYM & so on), etc.
But hey, if you have the bucks to buy it all at once, go for it, that would be awesome