One of my first posts for EADL detailed the Recession Kitchen, listing my favorite double-duty kitchen tools that give the most bang for the buck. Not every gadget can be so well-rounded, though. Some tools do just one task, but do it fabulously. While perhaps not on your first round of gadget shopping, these items easily make Round II. Here are my favorite unashamedly single-purpose kitchen gadgets:

Citrus Juicer

Sure, it takes up more space than you might like in the drawer. But quickly juicing citrus is an infinitely less annoying task when using one of these cheery implements. After all, who wants to spend five minutes picking lemon seeds out of that “quick” vinaigrette you’re trying to throw together?

Garlic Press

Thanks to Sur La Table’s fantastic Knife Skills class, I can mince garlic with the best of them. But does that mean I want to? I reach for my garlic press all the time, and have never once felt like less of a home cook for doing so. Bonus: less stinky, too!

Salad Spinner

It’s quite possible that outside of your stand mixer, no kitchen implement takes up more space than the salad spinner. As unglamorous and cumbersome as this round plastic contraption may be, the amount of time savings associated with it are absolutely glamorous. After all, painstakingly drying lettuce leaves is not my idea of a good time.

Rice Cooker

I consider myself a fairly good home cook, but you know what foils me every time? Probably the simplest dish out there: RICE! My sister grew tired of hearing me complain about my awful rice and finally gave me a rice cooker for Christmas one year. Why in the world have I not always owned one of these things? Absolutely worth its shelf space: perfect rice every time, without any of the stress and paranoia.

Rotary Cheese Grater

I love my handheld grater/zester (it was one of my Recession Kitchen picks, after all), but we go through a lot of freshly grated Parmigiana in my kitchen, and nothing beats the ease or speed of the rotary grater for your biggest cheese grating jobs. Any tool that can turn a block of hard cheese into a huge mound of cloud-like ribbons in minutes flat is my kinda tool. Plus, we had a slight finger grating incident with the handheld. Not pretty, trust me.

So tell me… what makes the cut for the best single-purpose items in your kitchen?