best kitchen items?

[treeoflife3]

Where is the best place to buy cast iron pots and pans?
What is your favorite material/brand for spatulas and spoons etc?
What is your favorite food storage option - dry goods, leftovers, freezer.. all of em?

I'm on the market for all sorts of new things for my kitchen (to replace stuff that is at the end of life, to replace plastic etc) so I thought I'd get some good ideas and suggestions from people who might know a great deal more than me about all things kitchen

TIA

[LaughingHyena]

I love my silicone spatulas, t hey are soft enough to scrap out bowls when cake making but heat proof enough that I can also use them to stir soup and scrape out the pan. I would like to get a small one to scrape out jars, but I'm waiting for my plastic one to wear out. I have melted so many plastic ones that way.

I also have a silicone pastry brush, again being heat proof means I can use it to grease the pan when I'm making pan cakes and stuff. It also goes in the dishwasher and doesn't hold onto the oil like my bristle one did.

I like the pyrex range of glass containers with plastic lids, I use them to freeze meals ahead and when they are defrosted they can go in the oven i the same dish.

[ollyoxenfree]

I think LaughingHyena and I have the almost the same kitchen?

I use a variety of spoons depending on the task, but most are wooden or stainless steel. I keep separate wooden spoons for baking and savoury cooking. I have stainless steel ladles in 2 different sizes: an 8-oz. for serving soup and a much smaller one for sauces.

I like my silicon spatulas too. I have 2 - one regular sized one, and one that has a small head at one end for narrow jars etc., and a larger head at the other end for regular sized bowls. I also like my silicon pastry brush.

For food storage, I also use Pyrex or AnchorHocking glass bowls with plastic lids. I also re-use glass jars. I have been slowly eliminating plastic food storage, but I have a couple of Tupperware-type containers left.

I've had my eye on some pretty glass storage jars, with removable lids, like an old-fashioned apothecary jar, for flour, sugar, grains etc. Unfortunately, I have really limited cupboard and shelf space right now. So I'm keeping all my flours, sugars etc. in their original paper packaging, tucked away in a large picnic cooler that gets moved from kitchen to dining room to basement storage, depending on what's going on in the house. It's a total pain.

[mattemma04]

I got a 3 set of iron pans from harbor freight.Going to get some leaf lard to season them. I like wooden spoons.And I reuse glass jars/metal lid for storage of food.

[cristeen]

For cast iron, swap meets, goodwill and the like is the absolute best place to get them.

For spatulas, I love my chef'n silicone spatulas. I bought myself one of them (they're weird looking) and promptly got rid of all the old kind, these are so much more comfortable to use. I have about half a dozen in different sizes.

For spoons, bamboo. I think all of mine are Pampered Chef. Or stainless, which I just get when I find it at a decent price (a lot of stainless is ridiculously priced).

Dry goods and leftovers I use a lot of quart or half gallon mason jars with plastic lids. I also have a bunch of glass jars with bail tops in various sizes for dry goods.