New Home Additions // Kitchen
It’s a strange world that we have currently found ourselves in and with that we are all learning to adjust to the current norm. With the current shelter-in-place (SIP), many of our normal routines have been significantly altered. For me and T, that is primarily eating out for a *good* number of our meals.
One of my goals that I always say I want to work on year after year is cooking in more rather than going out. There are many reasons to do this, but here were my main two:
Healthier. You can control everything that’s going into your body.
It’s more budget friendly. The amount we spend on groceries for our weekly runs to cover both lunch + dinner is easily what we spent on 2-3 dinners a week beforehand.
Our credit card bills have definitely been a lot lower than they were pre-SIP and with that we thought it was time to add some new additions into our kitchen collection that we have been debating over for a while. With us cooking 2-3 times a day and being home all day, we figured now was a good a time as ever. Additionally, we had agreed that we would wait until we bought a house to invest in more things just because it would be easier to move (we could sell all the old things before we moved) and also there would be less worry about things breaking during the move. But with COVID and all the uncertainty, we’re unsure if we’ll be able to find/buy a house this year as we had originally planned and may need to stay in our apartment for a third year. Le sigh.
But since we ended up picking up some new things for our kitchen, I thought I’d share some of the new additions we recently purchased:
New flatware >> I was debating between gold and matte black but decided to consider T’s opinion and he requested black (which I expected). So we ordered this 20-piece set from CB2 and also ordered some steak knives to go with it as T has been perfecting his steak game over the last year or so.
New dinnerware >> With all the recipes we’ve been cooking, I definitely want to start documenting them and even sharing recipes. While we did buy a few plates/bowls when we first moved in together, I bought all white pieces as that was my *aesthetic* back in 2017. These days I just find them really simple and even boring, so I wanted to buy some new pieces to warm up our kitchenware and meals a bit more.
Bowls: I’ve been wanting some wider and low-flat type bowls for a while and when East Fork Pottery had their seconds sale at the beginning of SIP, I decided to support the small brand I’ve been admiring from afar and order these, along with a few other pieces. I picked up a set of the Everyday Bowls (in Eggshell), which to me are the perfect mix between a plate and a bowl. I can already foresee myself using this for everything + how cute (!!!) will it look in photos. I may have had ulterior motives when I got them, but can you blame me? 😇
Plates: I ended up buying some cute caramel colored plates that I think will match beautifully with the bowls I bought above from East Fork. I got some large dinner plates as well as these cute rectangular serving plates. We rarely use large plates but when we do, we just had these old stacking ones that I had bought in college which are very “meh” - and I’ve had them for ~ 10 years now so they’ve had their time to shine. The serving plates I thought would also be nice because sometimes we just make a large dish, throw it on a plate, and just grab two smaller plates/bowls to pull food into for ourselves. Also we’ve been trying to compete with one another on our plating styling and we thought rectangular plates would mix things up 😂.
New Mugs >> I have been telling T how much I wanted to switch up our cup game. Now I am a low-key mug obsessed junkie, and I love collecting mugs. I have completely seen how this is one of the most inefficient things to store in a kitchen so I’m trying to find a happy medium with the variety of cups I have.
HAY Design Amber Borosilicate Mugs >> Ok, to be fair I bought these back in December during the UO Black Friday sale. There was a glitch in the system and the entire site ended up being 50% off. WOW. I had been a fan of amber glass pieces for a long while and I was inspired to get these because I loved how they felt more warm than your typical clear glass material. I love how lightweight these are and they’re the perfect size for a cup of tea.
Also from East Fork Pottery, I picked up two of their Mugs (also in Eggshell) as part of their seconds sale. I’m not too fussy about perfection so I don’t mind if these have some slight imperfections. These are cute and I can already imagine my morning coffee getting a step cuter!
New Cups >> So before SIP even happened, I had ordered the new book from Boba Guys which gave drink recipes (to their ever-popular drinks). I only had some standard cups that we got from Target when we first moved in together, but they had been on my list to replace for over a year. With us being home and making cute drinks that I obviously wanted to document, I found myself wanting some new cups. I had been wanting some cute can-styled glasses and found these ones. I was surprisingly impressed with them and loved how thick and hefty they feel.
New Teapot >> T decided to cut out coffee from his lifestyle which meant he switched over to another drink of choice - tea. One brand that T really likes is Hasami Ceramics, and we actually have 2 cups from them. I thought it would be nice to round out our little Hasami family and ordered the teapot. Unfortunately the one I got in the mail is severely discolored, and the store confirmed that this is natural with the shade we got. We’re a bit iffy on this so we’re debating on exchanging it for a different color. Jury’ still out on this one tbh.
New Cookware // We actually have 95% of our cookware passed down from my parents. Some things were gifted to us also by my parents, and we bought just one little Le Creuset dutch oven 😇. I’ve actually been admiring a few brands on IG from afar that have some extremely cute cookware pieces. I ended up getting one that I’ve had my eye on!
A pan that I’ve been eyeing for months (maybe even a year?) is the Always Pan from Our Place. I don’t cook often and when I do, the pans we have suffice. (T does most of the cooking in our household lol.) I figured I’d weasel my way into convincing T to get this once we got a house as this would look cute out on display on the stove 😅. We were brainstorming the various recipes we could experiment with cooking for next week and T mentioned that he would like to attempt making XLB (xiao long bao - or soup dumplings)! XLB is one of my favorite things to eat so I was instantly game. But then I pointed out the quick obvious that we did not have a steamer. He made a face of agreement and I used that as my ‘aha’ moment to share this “cool pan that does it all”. He just gave me that “oh really? lol” look and when he saw the pan he was like okay that’s pretty cool. Let’s get it. And much to my surprise, they just brought out a new color (a sage - olive-y green) and I’m too excited about it!!
As T’s domain is the kitchen, he recently bought these mini cooking pans. He wanted these because he’s been experimenting a lot with his steaks and he wanted smaller trays to marinate meat on + to throw into our oven. The other day he actually plated our dinner on two of these and I joked about how I felt like I was eating at some hipster restaurant. And he slowly turned around and looked at me and said “I know - and I know you really want to take a photo of these.” Damn - called out. But I was all for it 😂
And that’s a wrap! What are some new items you’ve found yourself ordering for your home lately? Any particular items for your kitchen?
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