46. A sous vide cooker that can help you cook like a pro

Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker Pro, available at Amazon, $298.92

"Sous vide" cooking may sound like a complicated technique you're better off not attempting unless you've attended Le Cordon Bleu, but it happens to be a relatively low-maintenance method that yields delicious results, especially with the help of the Anova Precision Cooker Pro. All you need is the sous vide device, a pot (or some sort of water-bearing vessel), and a large Ziploc bag to get cooking. You place the sous vide in a pot of water, then pop in a Ziploc bag holding some chicken, steak, or veggies (you can make all sorts of things with this technique), and set the device to cook your dish low and slow. Because there's no flame involved, you can turn this on and let it be for hours — running out of the house to do errands is no problem.

The learning curve is low. The first time I tried it, I put some chicken in a bag, threw in some seasoning, put the bag in the water, turned on the sous vide. I left it alone for about an hour and a half, and in the end was greeted with some of my best culinary work: juicy, tender pieces of white meat. I truly felt like I had hacked the system. If you too are looking to make delicious meals with ease, this is well worth the splurge. —Remi Rosmarin, reporter

Read our review: This $399 sous vide helps amateur cooks like me make restaurant-quality meals with little effort — here's why it's worth the expense