Today, with so many specialty gadgets and small appliances crammed into kitchen drawers and taking up valuable counter space, what’s really necessary?

The most versatile appliance in my kitchen is my immersion blender. Also called burr mixers, these power tools range in size from about 3-ft long multi-horsepower models used in professional kitchens to hand-held versions for home use.

There are dozens of brands and many have attachments for whipping egg whites, chopping nuts, mincing fresh herbs, emulsifying vinaigrettes, etc. What they all have in common is portability, ease of handling and cleaning, and the ability to reach to the bottom of a pot of simmering ingredients.

Food processors, blenders, and stand mixers are specialty machines which can do many things, but only in their respective containers. The simplest immersion blender is a plug-in model about a foot long, with stainless steel blades and a blade guard. Many cost less than $20 and should last for years.

Besides my range/oven, my coffee maker, and my microwave, the “stick blender” is the most frequently used appliance in my kitchen. I use it several times a week to puree soups, blend smoothies and make sauces – both dessert sauces and healthier gravies.

A huge benefit to using this tool is nutritional as in “eat your veggies.” This method of making soup will allow you to introduce new vegetables and increase fiber content. In my opinion, the only necessary straining one must do is to remove the seeds from raspberry puree.  Most other straining is just cosmetic.

Many vegetables don’t even need to be peeled. Even fresh or cooked tomatoes need not be strained, given how thoroughly this appliance purees. In most cases you are eating the whole thing.

SOUPS

In making soups, the three main components are flavorings/aromatics, main ingredient, and liquid. I almost always start with a bit of onion (scallion, shallot) sweated in a small amount of oil or butter until soft. Flavorings/aromatics such as minced carrot, garlic, celery, bell pepper, should be sweated along with the onion product.

The main ingredient is added to the pot next and the list of possibilities is nearly endless: sliced mushrooms for mushroom soup (try a small amount of tarragon to flavor), sliced carrots and a little fresh ginger, cubed butternut or acorn squash (curry powder is nice here, along with some diced apple), cauliflower, broccoli florets.

You may add bay leaf, cinnamon stick, whole cloves, star anise, etc., at this stage. Stir the main ingredient over heat to begin cooking, then add liquid, bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer until tender. Use water, broth, vegetable stock, add some wine, orange juice, whatever.

Some main ingredients like winter squashes and carrots benefit from being roasted at 450 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until caramelized before adding them to the pot. When the main ingredient is soft enough to puree, remove the bay leaf or whole spices and use the immersion blender in the pot to process the soup to a smooth consistency. Taste for salt, adjust seasonings, blend in cream, soy milk, or yogurt for a cream soup and serve hot (or chill and serve cold).

Speaking of cold soups, do try fresh gazpacho and hold back some of the minced vegetables for texture and garnish; breadcrumbs can be used as a thickener. The beauty of most of these puree soups is that they are thickened by their own attributes, no roux or cornstarch is needed.

Note: do not use potato as your main ingredient for this soup method or you will end up with glue. Another note: with a little practice you can make your own baby food with this appliance and have total control over the ingredients.

Acorn Squash Soup

1 pound peeled, cubed acorn squash
½ small onion, roughly cut up
1 teaspoon olive oil
3 cups chicken stock
½ cup cream
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

-Toss cut vegetables with oil and roast until golden brown, stirring once or twice.
-Simmer roasted vegetables in  most of the stock until tender.
-Puree in the pot using immersion blender, adjust consistency
with remaining stock, if needed.
-Season to taste, add optional cream, strain, if desired, and serve.

Smoothies

Before your bananas become too ripe, toss them into the freezer. They will become black but only on the outside.

For a basic smoothie run hot water over a frozen banana until you can remove the peel and strings. Cut it into 5 or 6 chunks and put them into a 3 or 4 cup beaker. Add a cup or so of plain yogurt and a cup of orange juice. Process with the immersion blender and serve. Makes 2 smoothies.

Variations: add berries, honey, protein powder, wheat germ. Use soy milk, stir in granola after processing, etc.

Sauces & Gravies

Thaw some frozen raspberries and puree with the immersion blender, sweeten to taste and strain. Serve a pool of sauce under any dessert you choose or paint a design on the plate using a squirt bottle. Apricots make good fruit sauce, too.

You’ve made a roast and want to serve gravy. Roast a couple of cut carrots and a cut onion along with the meat. Remove the roast to a plate, rid the fat from the roasting pan, add some stock and scrape over heat to dissolve the browned flavor from the roasting pan. Pour this liquid and the roasted aromatics into a small pot and puree. The vegetables will thicken the sauce. Taste for seasoning and serve.

Summary

The immersion blender, this simple tool, lets you lower the fat content in many recipes, skip the roux or cornstarch to thicken soups and gravies, use fewer pots and pans, and make some of the fastest and best-tasting soups imaginable with increased nutritional value.

You'll want to read the instructions that come with the immersion blender to learn how to employ an up-and-down motion while tilting the pot for complete processing without splashing, and to learn how easy it is to clean.

There are many online demonstrations available to get you started. Homemade mayonnaise and fresh pesto are recipes you’ll want to consider, too.

Do you have a favorite use for your immersion blender?  Let us know how yours spins you into good recipes and delicious foods.

Chef Tom started cooking when he was twelve years old and hasn't stopped since. After 25 years of teaching himself about cooking, he entered and graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. Among his favorite culinary subjects are evaluating and simplifying recipes, cooking meals for one, and making something good to eat from what’s on hand.

Reads like a National Enquirer headline, doesn’t it? There’s a character in Steven King’s Duma Key who calls rotisserie chickens 'astronaut chickens' because they’re sold in see-through capsules like space suit helmets.

An astronaut/rotisserie chicken grabbed on your way home will help put dinner on the table fast and be the basis for meals the next couple of days.

We’re a family of two, and one of these provides delicious variety for three meals each, thus the headline.

At least once a week one of us picks up a cooked rotisserie chicken at Food Lion on the way home from work. Most grocery stores have them, and at about $6.00 each they’re affordable.

There are a variety of flavors available, but I only buy the “plain” ones in order to have control over the flavor of the soup I usually make from them. After 15 minutes in the car surrounded by the aroma of roasted chicken, by the time I hit the kitchen I’m ready to tear into that bird like Tom Jones in the movie. Usually, though, I just eat one of the wings over the sink while planning dinner, trying to restrain myself from peeling off and eating all the skin from the breast – a secret vice.

Yes, this is processed poultry, but only in the sense that most of the cooked chicken you buy will have been “pumped” with a type of salt solution. Even so, four ounces only contains about 300 mg of sodium And yes, it sure is convenient, and the calorie count per serving averages just 150, with no carbohydrates and around a third of your daily protein needs.

A word about food safety here: chill the chicken right away. Remove the lid (chill it, too) and refrigerate the chicken, replacing the lid after an hour or so. But first, to make slicing the breast meat easier, I remove the wishbone (collarbone) as soon as I get home.

With impeccably clean hands, reach into the vent from the neck (wing) end and work the wishbone free, then chill the bird. By the way, with a small sharp knife this surgery can be done on a raw turkey before cooking it. Make two small incisions on either side of the neck cavity. Reach in and twist out the wishbone. This will make the breast easier to slice or remove.

Here’s how the chicken disappears at our house:

The first night there is usually warm or cold sliced breast with a salad, maybe some rice, too.

The second day, white meat sandwiches or chicken salad and some fruit leaves the carcass and drumsticks, usually some thigh meat, too. For the sake of fresh flavor, I start the soup that second night, chill it overnight, then finish and consume it the third day.

To start the soup, break up the carcass with your hands and put it and the leftover meat in a 3-4 quart pot. Add about three pints of water, bring to a boil, then simmer 90 minutes. Toss in a bit of onion at the start if you happen to have some; half a carrot, a stalk of celery, a bay leaf, and a few whole peppercorns simmering with the chicken will enhance the flavor but are not required.

When the 90 minutes are up allow the pot to cool off-heat a half-hour or so then refrigerate it overnight.

Third-day soup is fast and easy with the prepped soup base from the night before. Warm the pot on the stove enough to melt the jelled stock and pour the contents through a large strainer into another pot. Empty the contents of the strainer onto a baking pan and separate the meat from the bones. Taste the stock for seasoning, augment the flavor with a bouillon cube or canned stock, if needed, and add the picked-over meat.

It’s ready as is or you can add vegetables/pasta/rice/canned tomatoes/etc. and cook until the additions are done. Serves at least two and there’s often enough to take to work the next day.

I’ll leave you with two more ideas for your astronaut chicken, both of which can be made from one chicken’s leftovers days two and three:

CHICKEN PATTIES

2 cups chopped, cooked chicken
1 cup dry breadcrumbs
2 beaten eggs
1/3 cup sautéed minced onion (or microwave for 45 seconds)
¼ teaspoon dried thyme
Salt & pepper to taste

Mix ingredients, form into 4 patties, pan fry in olive oil (or bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes)

Serves two

EGG DROP SOUP

2 cups stock from night two prepped soup base
1 beaten egg

Heat stock to boiling
Remove from heat and with a whisk or fork gently stir in the beaten egg
May season with drops of soy sauce, sesame oil, some minced scallion
Add a bit of chopped cooked chicken, if desired

Serves two

Chef Tom started cooking when he was twelve years old and hasn't stopped since. After 25 years of teaching himself about cooking he entered and graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. Among his favorite culinary subjects are evaluating and simplifying recipes, cooking meals for one, and making something good to eat from what’s on hand.

Chef Tom

Hello, readers, I’m Chef Tom.

What I want to do in this column is talk about cooking at home — the kind of cooking we do every day because we have people to feed.

I happen to like making meals of all kinds, but simple fare is what I enjoy making the most. Let’s face it, there is little time to get a meal on the table after work, and forget grocery shopping every day or going to the curb market or farm stand to see what’s fresh and affordable.

I do like variety, but I’m not beyond eating the same meal a couple of days in a row. There are ways to plan ahead, though, and to use the same ingredients or leftovers that second day and make an entirely different dinner with little added effort.

My goal, in part, is to give you tips and tricks to help you manage the task of meal preparation and maybe get some enjoyment out of it. I’ll admit I don’t often use recipes, per se. Most of the cooking I do is based on what I have on hand, or what my wife — or I — might happen to pick up at the store on our way home.

At times inspiration strikes, or one of us gets a yen for a particular favorite, a great sale is advertised, or something seasonal becomes available, and off I go with a shopping list in hand.

One test every semester at culinary school was an exercise called the “mystery basket.” A limited amount of time was given to prepare a complete meal, usually for four, from a surprise array of ingredients. Some staples were available in the test kitchen, and taste, presentation, ingenuity and efficiency were the main grading points the chef-instructor looked for.

When you’re not under the gun trying to make a good grade, it’s actually kind of fun. For me, at least, it’s a good limiter for the imaginative palate.

Again, cooking a meal from what’s at hand is what most of us do most of the time. I call it pantry cooking, and if you have a few basics on hand at all times, there’s pretty good variety in what you can make with a few “mystery” ingredients.

Pantry Must-Have's

“Basics” is a subjective term here and depends on your likes and dislikes, but there are some things, in my opinion, that are “must-haves.”  Peek inside my cupboard and fridge and here's what you'll find:

• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Bay leaves (fresh; I have a bush growing year round)
• Beans, canned black
• Broth, canned chicken
• Butter
• Capers
• Cheese — sharp cheddar and Parmesan
• Chocolate — semisweet squares
• Cinnamon (sticks and ground)
• Cloves, whole
• Coffee, ground
• Cooking spray
• Cornmeal
• Cornstarch
• Cumin, ground
• Curry powder
• Eggs
• Flour — all purpose
• Garbanzos
• Garlic, fresh
• Honey
• Ketchup
• Lentils, dry
• Maple syrup
• Mayonnaise
• Milk (canned, evaporated, and condensed)
• Molasses
• Mustard, Dijon
• Nutmeg, whole
• Oil, olive
• Onions, yellow
• Pasta, dry
• Peanut butter
• Peppercorns, black
• Peppers, roasted in oil
• Pickle relish, dill
• Potatoes, fresh
• Rice — long grain, basmati, and Arborio
• Rosemary (fresh; I have a bush growing year-round)
• Saffron
• Salt
• Soy sauce
• Splenda
• Sugar — white and brown
• Tarragon — dried
• Thyme — dried leaves
• Tomatoes — canned crushed, puree, diced in juice, and dried
• Tuna — canned in oil
• Vanilla extract
• Vinegar (cider and balsamic)
• Worcestershire sauce
• Yeast (dry)
• Yogurt — plain

Those are my food basics. In a future column, we'll address good pots and pans and some utensils and equipment we all need to facilitate meal preparation.

For my first recipe, I though I'd offer a simple--and delicious--three-ingredient Macaroni & Cheese dish.  Check it out here.

Lastly, I want hear from you.  Your comments, questions and suggestions are appreciated (use the reply box below).

— Chef Tom

Chef Tom started cooking when he was twelve years old and hasn't stopped since. After 25 years of teaching himself about cooking, he entered and graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. Among his favorite culinary subjects are evaluating and simplifying recipes, cooking meals for one, and making something good to eat from what’s on hand.

Three-Ingredient Mac & Cheese

Ingredients:

• (1) 8-oz box elbow macaroni
• (1) Pint half & half or milk
• (1) 10-oz package Kraft Sharp Cheddar cheese

Equipment:

• Food processor or blender
• Saucepan and pot
• 9” square baking dish
• Mixing bowl

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350° (F)
• Grease baking dish
• Cook macaroni per box directions; drain and put in bowl
• Cut cheese into ½ “ cubes and place in processor or blender
• Bring milk product to a boil, stirring to prevent scorching
• Pour hot milk product over cheese cubes and wait 3 minutes

!!! IF YOU USE A BLENDER BE SURE TO PLACE A TOWEL OVER THE LID AND HOLD DOWN TIGHTLY BEFORE CONTINUING. THE EXPANDING HOT AIR FROM PROCESSING CAN BLOW THE LID OFF AND HOT CONTENTS CAN CAUSE BURNS!!!

• Process or blend the cheese and milk to a smooth sauce and
  stir it into the cooked macaroni
• Taste for seasonings (S&P, dash Worcester, dash Texas Pete)
• Pour mixture into prepared dish and bake about 25 minutes

Variations: top with buttered crumbs before baking; experiment with different cheeses; use low-fat milk or high-fat cream; whole-wheat pasta; add cubed ham before baking; try different pasta shapes; add some sour cream, smoked salmon and dill; after baking, cut into servings and freeze; get creative.