We have used our best dishes for years as our every day fair. If it was to be good enough for company, why not use it for treasured family?! DH buys interesting items once a year. This year he blew 20 bucks on a grater/ slicer. It was easy to laugh together when he asked me to put it in the donation box. We have learned that we don't have to live forever with our mistakes.

My DH makes bread and pizza dough

My husband had to have a food dehydrator. As I secretly predicted, it was used once. That was some pretty expensive beef jerky! No interest on my part to use that honkin' big circular waste of space. I store it on my bread machine! Lol! sandy

I view cooking the same way I view quilting -- it is an art form. I love having a hug pot of soup or sauce simmering on the stove for hours. I collect vintage cooking utensils -- some of them are amazing. My current favorite is a Foley Fork for mixing and mashing.

Comments on "good" dishes make me nod my head in agreement. I just can't figure out why.....

When you buy a less expensive set of everyday dishes - so you can protect your "good" dishes - you can never break the everydayers. Drop 'em on the floor, warp 'em in the microwave, etc. But take out ONE "good" dish and BAM. Your SIL manages to drop it and it's history. Happened to me 3 times. Hence those who keep their "good" dishes in the attic......

I bought an ice cream maker about five years ago when I was in Florida. Carefully brought it home as carry on luggage.......have used it once, I think. Haven't sent it to the thrift store yet......probably should try and sell it on Kijiji (like Craigslist)

I took all of those "foldable" cutting boards and transferred them to the craft room. They are terrible for food, I spilled too many veggies off of those things to keep them. They work alright as templates though.

I have a waffle iron that I've used maybe twice that I've been hanging onto for a couple decades. It's a nice iron; it was a wedding present from a friend who is now deceased and it's the only thing I still have from her. Silly to be sentimental about a waffle iron, but I am!

Other than that, we are pretty good in the kitchen about getting rid of non-functional things promptly. I like cooking and baking, especially in the colder part of the year, so I actually use things like my bread maker fairly regularly. I don't use my spring-form pan as often as I should, I think I need to come up with some new desserts to make in it. How's that for motivation? LOL

Gosh, I have a lot of things that I don't use. We are going to move sometime around the new year so time to purge. I guess. If the house thing goes through we will have a basement for the first time. I might keep everything. Or not.

Re: the bread machine. I would love one, but, I have just about no self control with fresh bread and I think eventually the family would have to take the walls out to get me out of the house. Watch for it on your favorite tabloid TV station - "1000 lb. quilter removed from home. Bread machine to blame".

We got rid of our bread machine for the same reasons stitchnripper doesn't want one. When the kids moved in we got rid of a lot of useless stuff quesadilla maker, waffle iron, steamer, extra cookware and utensils. If it didn't have a good reason for staying, it was history. Now that we've recently moved, I'm glad we purged. But, we purged even move when we moved too. Feels great having all that space in the cabinets and drawers.

I use my bread machine to mix and knead double batches of dough. I take it out and let it rise in a bowl. After first rise I shape and freeze. All I have to do is thaw and let rise again and bake. I can have six loaves of bread and rolls in the freezer in an afternoon.