Most Useful Kitchen Tools

After an entire season of holiday baking, I feel inclined to clue you in on some of the most useful kitchen tools I've acquired from my wedding registry and elsewhere. Here goes...

• Calphalon One Non-Stick Cookware: I have used dozens of different brands and types of cookware - and this stuff is by far the best! It's expensive...but well worth the money. Aaron and I got a 10-piece set and it's all guaranteed under a lifetime warranty. We originally bought the Calphalon stainless steel set and HATED it (because everything stuck to it and the pans became discolored)...so we exchanged it for the non-stick cookware and now we'll never use anything else.
  
• Calphalon Contemporary 17-Piece Knife Block Set: Great knives are essential. The 17-piece set we have comes with 8 steak knives, 7 specialty knives, kitchen shears, and a sharpener. It's nice to not have to saw at meat or vegetables with dull knives anymore.
  
• CorningWare and Pyrex: You can never have too much of this stuff! Each set comes with a variety of sizes of dishes & lids and can be used for many different purposes: casseroles, mixing bowls, condiment dishes, baking dishes, storage for leftovers...and the list goes on and on.
  
• Excellent Everyday Dinnerware: Aaron and I registered for Everyday White dinnerware from Bed Bath & Beyond. Each piece is porcelain, heavy, and durable. White is great because I can have a variety of accent plates for different occasions and seasons. White is so classic!
  
• Cookie Scoops: With all of the baking magazines I've been reading lately, I was bound to run across some new kitchen tools to make life easier. Cookie scoops are just like ice cream scoops - except smaller. One you've mixed up the cookie batter, use the scoop to shape the batter and drop it onto the cookie sheet. Scooping the cookies ensures that they will be the same size and bake evenly. There are 2 sizes to choose from: small (2 teaspoons of dough) and medium (1.5 tablespoons of dough). I use the medium scoop for cookies and the small scoop for truffles.
  
• Parchment Paper: I wish I would have discovered it years ago. My cookie sheets always get ruined by non-stick baking spray (it leaves behind a sticky residue that is impossible to remove). All you have to do is place the parchment paper on a cookie sheet, put cookie dough on the parchment paper, and bake as usual. The same sheet of parchment paper can be used for the entire batch of cookies! Clean-up is as simple as throwing the sheet of paper away and putting the cookie sheet back into the cabinet. WARNING: Parchment paper and wax paper are NOT the same product. When I was 12 years old, I decided I'd put wax paper onto a cookie sheet to make clean-up quicker. Bad idea. In less than 3 minutes, the entire kitchen was full of smoke and the wax paper had melted to the baking sheet. And my cookies were ruined. Oops.
  

I hope my list of most useful kitchen tools helps you! I'd love to hear what your most useful kitchen tools are :)