Registering is overwhelming at times.

There are a lot of variables you are dealing with, if you are renting you may not want to work too hard to decorate a place that you will not live longer than a year or so. For this reason the Texan and I chose to focus on registering for kitchen items instead of the rest of the house.

We love to cook and being able to pick the tools  we were getting as gifts was incredibly exciting. I have been slightly surprised at the ones that been some of my favorites. This list is not about the basics; flatware, pots, etc. It’s the things that we registered for kinda on a whim and found them to be in regulars in our rotations.

1. Stovetop Panini Grill This thing is awesome. I mostly use it for lunch time. I’ve never actually made a panini on it, instead put a little olive oil on it and grill a wrap. It’s easy to clean and makes a typical lunch more exciting. We also use it to grill chicken for dinner. If you were cooking for a crowd it would be too small and take too long but for two people it’s awesome; when you are done with one chicken just put in on a plate in a 200 degree oven to keep it warm while the other cooks.
2. Mini-Crockpot I don’t even remember if we registered for this… but we love it. It’s great for fondue, if you want to dip strawberries or pretzels because you don’t have to keep re-microwaving the chocalate, and for making/keeping warm this crowd pleasing cheese dip *note you probably have to split the dip to make it in the mini. I’ve even made two servings of mashed potatoes in it before.
3. Rice Cooker They have crockpot/rice cooker combos now but we didn’t ask for one just because we didn’t have any experience with them. I almost did not register for this because we don’t eat a lot of rice but I am so glad we did. When we do eat rice it’s so nice to throw it in there and it has a warm setting when it’s done so it takes away the stress everything getting done at the same time. This cooker also cooks quinoa perfectly and I have been told is great for steaming broccoli and other vegetables but I haven’t tried that yet.
4. Pretty Food Storage Containers These have come in handy. I got cute labels from Target and keep my flour, sugar, oatmeal, coffee, and other staples in them. They look nice enough to be kept on our open shelves and I always know when I am running low on something.
5. A BILLION CUTTING BOARDS! I have at least 8 cutting boards (possibly more in the dishwasher but I am not going to check) and there have still been nights when we use them all. No idea how but it has happened. So when you are walking around with the registry gun (what is that thing actually called?) just hit all the cutting boards you see.

Ah, so that’s my list. This was hard to narrow down, did I miss anything?

*This post does contain affiliate links but these are all products I own and use regularly.