If you're fighting the battle of the bulge, or simply looking to stay on track with your New Year's Resolutions, you need to get at least a little familiar with the kitchen.

Let's face it — you can't be permanently successful if you're relying on fast food, bringing in take out, or going out to eat regularly.

And while you can surely cook with the bare minimum, we'll admit it, we like "stuff" – useful kitchen "stuff."

Here are some basic kitchen gadgets we love and use regularly.
We surely could expand on this list, but we’ll start small.

Step 1: A Great Knife

You really can’t cook if you don’t have a decent set of knives … you don’t have to splurge on one of those $2000 sets that are sold at Williams Sonoma, but a basic Chef’s knife is a good start.

Here’s the Shun Chef's Knife we have and love.

Step 2: Garlic Press

Garlic is one of those 13 foods you should eat regularly that we talked about all the time… and while you can chop it, slice it, or mince it, a lot of times we prefer to use a garlic press.

Here’s a hint: you don’t have to peel the garlic before using it.

Put it in the press, with the “skin” and just press – voila, no mess, and fresh garlic.

Step 3: Microplane

This is great for grating cheese, zesting fruit rinds, or even shredding whole nutmeg, coconut, or garlic.

Let's face it — fresh tastes better, so grating foods gives meals a bigger "yum" factor.

Very handy, useful tool – particularly for getting fresh cheese, like Parmesan cheese, on your dishes to boost flavor without adding tons of calories.

Step 4: Magic Bullet

OK, so you surely don’t NEED one of these, but they are handy.

Yup, it’s an infomercial product – but one that works really well.

It’s convenient for making smoothies, guacamole, or any other blended item — particularly because the container has a screw on lid you can then store in the fridge.

And now Johnette makes Bailee's’s food in there too – steam fresh veggies, blend in the Magic Bullet, fresh food for Bailee.