Basic cooking tools

Saucepans are essential for all sorts of jobs in the kitchen, from boiling vegetables, to heating ingredients on the stove.

If you only have a microwave, swap out for heat proof, microwave safe  bowls or dishes.

A frypan is essential for frying all kinds of foods from eggs to ingredients. Try to get a non-stick one.

Make sure you get a couple of non-stick safe tools to use with it, such as an egg flip. Never use metal tools in a non-stick pan.

You can find mixing bowls in stainless steel, plastic, glass, or ceramic. I prefer stainless steel and plastic because they are lighter and won't break when dropped.

If you will ever be serving in a bowl you might like to have a glass or ceramic one for that.

I like to have a 18-20cm cake tin, and a muffin tin, for making cakes, but they are also handy for other dishes too.

If you only have a microwave, buy silicone ones.

A heat proof casserole dish is essential for making a whole heap of dishes in the oven or microwave.

Make sure that you have a trivet to place the dish on when it comes out of the oven, and never place cold food/liquids into a hot dish or it may shatter.

Always use measuring cups rather than your coffee mugs to make sure ingredients are measured properly to work together.

All recipe measurements are flat unless stated otherwise. Fill the cup then scrape off the top with a knife.

As with the cups, measuring spoons are essential for accurately measuring small amounts of ingredients.

Great for measuring larger amounts of liquids.

These come in glass or plastic. I prefer glass as I can use it to cook things like sauces or melting chocolate in the microwave.

For recipes that have measurements in grams rather than cups, you will need a scale to make sure the measurements are correct.

A trivet is a thing that you place a hot pot on to protect your counter top, as well as your pot. I prefer wood.

If you don't have a trivet you can use a thick, folded tea town instead.

Wooden spoons are used to stir both cold and hot things. They are safe to use in non stick cookware.

Whisks or beaters stir things much better and easier than using a spoon or fork.

A sieve or colander can be used to make sure there are no lumps in dry ingredients, such as flour, or draining wet ingredients, such as spaghetti.

Sieves have finer mesh than colanders. Sieves are usually used for dry ingredients and colanders for wet, but they are fairly interchangable.

Use for taking hot dishes out of the oven. You can use a thick, folded tea town instead.

You will need at least three kitchen knives.

• A small vegetable knife
• A medium chopping knife
• A toothed carving knife.

Try to buy the best quality that you can.

I use my grater all the time for grating cheese, onion, and carrot mostly.