I frequently knead my dough on a sil pat....no need to oil a silicone mat.....it won't stick. And I have a dough-scraper....divider thingy I use to cut dough.
I use an egg slicer to slice mushrooms and fresh strawberries....but some are just too large to fit in the egg cutter....those I cut by hand.

I oil because my dough sticks if I don't. It was recommended by an expert and it works. This is a stiff dough kneaded with a hook in the mixer. The alternative would be to use flour, but since the dough has oil in it, and is going into oiled bags, the oil makes sense and doesn't alter the dough. It's just a tiny bit. If you're kneading dough, a sprinkle of flour would do the trick instead. Both would be mudpies!

I have a bowl scraper and used to divide my dough with it, but for this purpose, the lettuce knife worked a lot better! I thought it might be awful and only did it on a whim. It was great. Fun!

I've never tried a strawberry in an egg slicer. I'll have to do that sometime. Thanks!

I've got the serrated plastic knife for lettuce but I hardly ever use it for lettuce. I use it a lot though - for nudging stainless steel bowls off the top of the kitchen cabinet. I'm too short even when I'm standing on a stool and that knife doesn't scratch the bowls.

---Try oiling your hands while handling dough, not the Silpat. Place a little oil in a small dish and refresh the oil on your hands, as-needed, while kneading the dough ON the Silpat (I always knead dough on a Silpat in order to prevent the need for bench flour - and it makes for easy clean-up, as mentioned above). The dough may initially seem to stick, but not for long if you handle the dough with oiled hands and use a plastic dough scraper, if needed. You can even save the oil (all, or a portion of it) that is supposed to go into the recipe for kneading to apply to your hands, to prevent adding too much oil AND avoid the need for copious amounts of bench flour.

---King Arthur (and others) instruct you to spray the counter with pan spray before kneading so the dough doesn't stick, rather than adding bench flour. FYI: Too much raw flour (often from using too much bench flour) on/in dough can make it taste bitter, so avoid it when at all possible. Raw flour on the surface of bread dough can also burn, and even catch fire in the oven.

---You can also place dough into a large zip-lock FREEZER bag (freezer bag because the plastic is thicker and won't burst as easily under the pressure), press out the air before closing it, and knead the dough while in the bag. This is an especially great tool when working with sticky rye bread dough. Rye is characteristically sticky, and people often add more flour than is necessary and end up with a stiff dough, not realizing it just IS a naturally sticky dough.

---You can also wet your hands with water to handle dough to prevent it from sticking to them, especially a slack dough where you want to keep it well-hydrated. Keep a bowl of water handy for the task.

---I portion the dough with a plastic bowl scraper (that I used to remove the dough from the bowl) or a stiff plastic spatula I've had for years - may have been a Tupperware "gift" - that is like an elongated bowl scraper with a cutting edge on the end of one side. Only use a plastic utensil for cutting on a Silpat. If you cut it with a steel-edged knife and slice into the mat, the cut will destroy the Silpat.

---The Silpat is nearly the perfect width for pressing the dough out for making cinnamon rolls (almost 12-inches). Once you have the dough log rolled on the Silpat (NO bench flour needed), use dental floss for cutting the dough for cinnamon rolls - not a steel-edged knife. How to: Manipulate the dough into a 12-inch log. Using a 12-inch ruler as a guide, mark the dough into 1-inch slices (snip it with a pair of kitchen sheers or a sharp serrated edge knife). Draw the length of floss under the dough log; draw it up on the top at the first 1-inch snip/cut, and cross the ends of the floss and pull them away from each other while cutting through the dough.

---I use the plastic lettuce knife for cutting bar cookies and brownies - that is until I got a plastic knife that is designed for the job, and is much smaller. Prior to that I would use a plastic (disposable) knife.

-Grainlady

Interesting thread. Hard to think of anything too out of the ordinary off the top of my head , but I have both plastic & metal dough scrapers & often use my plastic dough scraper to scrape out pans. Both can be pretty good for cutting & serving solid things like cake or denser casseroles out of the pan as well.

I also use my vegetable peeler to make carrot curls for salads & shave cheese when I don't feel like dirtying a grater.

& I often just knead bread doughs right in the bowl - except for the last time, when shaping the dough for the final rise & baking.

I use long tongs with silicon tips for grasping items on top shelves in my upper cabinets (mostly spices, but also small cans) so that I do not have to get my step stool out. I do NOT use them for cooking, as I prefer the metal tipped tongs for that.

I've not had a problem with sticky bread dough and use a bench scraper if it does get a bit stuck. I guess my doughs are oilier than yours. Pie dough is a different story, but I still use a bench scraper for that.

I frequently use scissors for chopping herbs (especially chives) instead of a knife, but I think this is a common practice. I keep flour in a shaker (that was made for powdered sugar) for flouring boards (but I think they make flour shakers also), and I use a mister to add small amounts of water to a dough instead of sprinkling it on.

Huuuum, when I tried to use the silicone mat that I bought from ALDI, my dough stuck like a ___ ___ ! I was then told by people at the cooking forum they need to be oiled. So now I'm confused, to oil or not to oil. I can only tell you what MY experience was when I tried to knead dough on it, a disaster. I will oil it when I use it for kneading.

One thing that I used just a couple days ago was a french fry cutter to cut potatoes to boil for mashed potatoes. It was simple and quick. I'm blank on other off the wall uses for gadgets. I'm sure I'll think of something else.