I may have mentioned that our new apartment has a dishwasher! We also have about three times the counter space, four times the cabinets, a double sink, and a full-sized oven for the first time in our marriage. And though I've always cooked a lot, since I am home all the time now, I'm making a lot more things from scratch. All of these factors have converged to form the perfect storm for my small kitchen appliance use. I've always loved my food processor, mixer, and blender, but never before have they gotten such heavy duty use.

Last week, I used the food processor three times: to chop veggies for the week's salads, to make graham cracker crumbs for a cheesecake crust, and to chop cranberries for vanilla cranberry coffee cake. The blender is used almost every day for smoothies for breakfast. The mixer is used for every single baked item- pizza dough, coffee cake, cheesecake, bread, whatever.

In the old kitchen, it seemed like using these appliances was often more hassle than it was worth. Each one took up at least half the counter and meant more dishes to wash (by hand). I only used the appliance if the task was impossible (or near impossible) to complete by hand. Now, it's no big deal to get out the blender, and I've gotten much lazier in my cooking (even though I cook more)!

Tonight, we're having butternut squash soup... brought to you courtesy of the blender.