I was debating heavily with myself for the last days whether I should buy an electric rice cooker or not. Small electric kitchen appliances seem to be obvious candidates for spending money and cluttering your home at the same time, without getting any value back. I think there even was a "King of Queens" episode about that.
While I'm typing this, I'm waiting for a delicious cup of Jasmine rice to be cooked. The cooker won, because

• I'm still waiting for my complete kitchen equipment to arrive, I grew tired of eating nothing but sandwiches at home, and I wouldn't be getting something duplicate.
• I like rice, it's inexpensive and nutritious, but I wasn't eating it at home because I couldn't get consistent results on the stove.
• I really like the convenience of "set up and forget". Cooking it on the stove, I constantly had to watch the time.
• It cost less than $15.

Which appliances couldn't you live without, and what is catching dust in your attic?
I find my electric kettle indispensible. It's much faster and much more efficient than a regular kettle.
The worst would probably be my electric cheese grater...

I heart my hand blender. It has mixing and chopping attachments. It's great for smoothies, soups, sauces, jams, baby food, milkshakes, chopped veggies, etc.

The only two I own are an electric kettle and a rice cooker. The rice cooker is gold, it makes dinner easier, I often leave it on overnight then have the leftovers for breakfast, and it's so much healthier than noodles for a snack! I don't think I've ever had a 'real' kettle, although I've probably used one.
A housemate who just moved out had a sandwich toaster, that was fun and made me more likely to eat a nice sandwich than just plain bread or ramen noodles. She also had a slow cooker, which was insanely useful - spend 10 or 15 minutes chopping vegies in the morning, come home to dinner. I think the cooker is now on the list of 'things I'd buy if I had money', whereas the sandwich maker still seems like an extra.

An electric kettle. No British home is without one, how else would everyone get enough tea.

I own a chocolate fountain that I've never used. It was a gift.

Electric kettles make sense in England because the voltage is higher and thus water heats fast in an electric kettle. In the US I haven't noticed a huge difference between the time it takes to boil water in an electric kettle and the time it takes in a standard kettle placed on an electric stove.

The only electric appliances I use are an immersion blender and a food processor...oh yes, plus the toaster and microwave/convection oven. And I do have an electric knife-sharpener; I have no trouble maintaining my chisels and other hand tools with a stone, but for some reason I've never been able to sharpen my good kitchen knives correctly so I gave up and went electric, it's foolproof! The immersion blender is a wonder: it makes perfect emulsions for salad dressing, and is much more convenient than a regular blender when making soups -- you just stick the blender in the pot instead of trying to pour hot soup into the blender without burning yourself or spilling hot soup all over the place when you fill the blender too high.

Non-electric gadgets that I use regularly include a mandoline (for superfine-slicing veggies such as potatoes), a Foley hand-cranked food mill (for making applesauce the easy way...just wash the apples and cut into quarters, no need to peel or remove the seeds, the food mill does all that at the end), an olive pitter (saves an enormous amount of time when making olivada), and a French press coffee maker. We have a good electric drip machine but it never makes coffee that tastes as good to us as the French press.

I had friends who used to collect rare and esoteric kitchen gadgets and use them as a party game: they would bring one out and ask everyone what they thought it was for. We were frequently stumped.

My wife and I have a toaster-overn, slow-cooker (crockpot), George Foreman Grill (2 actually), and a bread machine. We use them all fairly often, but stow them in the pantry when not in use so we don't notice the clutter (except the toaster-oven which always remains on the counter top).

Bread machines are awesome, by the way. The benefits of the crockpot were already mentioned, and the bread machine is the same way - take 5 mintues to measure ingredients, press start, and you have fresh bread 4 hours later. You can even make speacilty breads and deserts in it. It's awesome!

I actually like the process of making bread the old-fashioned way. It doesn't take all that much time although you have to be around to attend to the various steps, which I suppose is a barrier for most people (I work at home so it's easy enough for me). I love the physical work involved in kneading, the magic of watching the dough rise, the ritual steps of the rise, the punch-down, the second rise, etc.

I also love making homemade pizza -- you can start making the dough at 5pm and have the most excellent pizza you've ever eaten by 7:30 or so. I use a pizza stone in the oven, the crust comes out perfectly (also works great for French bread)

We're sort of kitchen appliance addicts. But we really do use most of them regularly. We've got 3 slow cookers (the two small ones we mostly use when we've got people over for fondue, dips or mulled wine/cider), a blender/food processor (will probably be replaced soon, as it's not a very good one), kitchen-aid stand mixer, Vaccuum sealer (we'd use this much more if we had a chest freezer), rice cooker (we actually spent $100 on this, but it was worth every penny), bread maker (with that and the slow cooker, a bit of work in the morning means coming home to a fantastic meal and a great smelling apartment!), toaster (actually used rarely), fryer (practically useless, will be going soon), farberware indoor grill (needs a new power cord), hand mixer. I think that's it.

The stick blender and rice cooker probably get used the most, and the fryer definiately gets used the least.

Brad, we make our own bread by hand sometimes also, but using the bread machine is still a convenient and rewarding experience (much better than store bought bread!).

Pizza stones are great for pizza, bread, cookies, etc. We don't actually have one at the moment... But, Christmas is coming up and I bet my wife would love one! My wife loves to bake, so that would actually be a gift she would enjoy. Thanks for the idea!

Alton Brown suggests using a paving stone from the hardware store instead of a pizza stone. Specifics about what type are probably on his site, but they're cheaper.

Nice tip. My wife loves his show.

I can just see it now:
Me: "Merry Chistmas, honey."
Her: "What is it?"
Me: "A paving stone. Don't you like it?"
Her: "What do I do with it?"
Me: "You cook with it!"



Maybe I'll just buy her a paving stone this weekend and get her something else for Christmas!

I do appreciate the tip - you probably just saved me $20.

Are they food safe? I'd be worried about lead.

I share Anne's concern.

Also with pizza stones I like the thick ones better. Those thin ceramic ones feel fragile to me and when I use them the crust never comes out as well as on my regular pizza stone, which is nearly a half-inch thick. I bought it 18 years ago and expect to use it for the rest of my life. You have to dust the stone (and the pizza peel) with cornmeal to keep the pizza from sticking...it takes a bit of practice to slide the pizza off the peel and onto the stone without spilling toppings but you get the hang of it after awhile.

All this talk of pizza has got me hungry for it -- I'm going to make a pizza for supper tonight!

Don't buy a glazed stone, and it will probably be OK.

I checked Alton Brown's site about a reference, but I couldn't find anything. I seem to remember him referring to using a paving stone in an episode once.

forum thread about lead and pottery/cooking stones.

You don't want a glazed one for a pizza stone anyway. Actually, check your library for Alton Brown's "Gear for your kitchen" it's great and has lots of advice about spending your kitchen money wisely.