These are a few of my favorite things...in the kitchen.

What are your favorite small kitchen appliances? There's a tool for every imaginable task (want some kitty toast, anyone?), but living in a relatively small condo with a finite amount of space (and very little kitchen storage), I've come to learn which appliances are a necessity and what appliances I can live without. Your needs will vary greatly depending on your lifestyle and how much space you have, but at the moment, this is what I've got in my kitchen.

photo courtesy of Flickr: JoeInSouthernCA

My Cuisinart 11 Cup Food Processor - my most used kitchen appliance by far. This thing is amazing - you can make pie dough, shred cheese, puree soup (in batches - I learned this the hard way), even make a cake and the frosting. It doesn't take up too much space (although it is quite heavy), and the bowl and all of the attachments are dishwasher safe, which makes clean-up quick and easy.

A Kitchenaid Artisan 5 Quart Stand Mixer (mine's white). If you bake a lot, this is a great tool to have in your kitchen. It is quite large and heavy, but it's great for mixing dough (there's even a dough hook attachment), creaming butter, whipping cream or egg whites, etc. There are also a zillion attachments you can purchase for this maker - a meat grinder, pasta roller, ice cream maker (which I have - it's awesome), even a grain mill. And it comes in such beautiful colors - so even though this does take up quite a bit of counter top real estate, you can get one in virtually any color you can think of. Well, not tie dye. Or leopard print. But lime green!

An old-school stand toaster; I have a Cuisinart CPT-160 Metal Classic 2-Slice Toaster. We've had this toaster for almost 5 years, and it gets used at least once a day, if not more. We're a very toasty household, what can I say. That's a lot of toasting! There's nothing particularly spectacular about this model, but if you're just toasting bread, bagels, English muffins, etc., it gets the job done.

I'm not sure if this counts as an appliance, and you may think I'm nuts for having it at all, but the Original Super-Fast Thermapen is ah-may-zing. Before you gasp in disbelief - "$100 for a thermometer?!!" - let me tell you, it's worth every penny. We had a digital thermometer with an alarm, the kind that stays in the meat and has a thin wire attaching the silver thermometer part to the digital read-out piece, but it was never as accurate as we'd hoped. The Thermapen (which is apparently no longer available, the New Splash-Proof Super-Fast Thermapen is the new model) works INSTANTLY. As in, when you open it up, it reads the air temperature around you. It is incredibly accurate, incredibly fast (well, super-fast, according to Thermoworks), and incredibly convenient. Ours was a gift, but I would gladly pay $100 for this thermometer, it's that good. Even Alton Brown loves and uses a Thermapen!

And, well, that's it. Those are the only kitchen appliances we own - and as someone who cooks and bakes a lot, I can honestly say that they cover all of our bases. What do you have in your kitchen?