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Ontario, Canada
I am a wife, mother and grandma who enjoys the many aspects of homemaking. A variety of interests and hobbies combined with travel keep me active. They reflect the importance of family, friends, home and good food.
Cook ingredients that you are used to cooking by other techniques, such as fish, chicken, or hamburgers. In other words be comfortable with the ingredients you are using.
--Bobby Flay

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  • [March 19, 2020] - Effective Mar 17, this blog will no longer accept advertising. The reason is very simple. If I like a product, I will promote it without compensation. If I don't like a product, I will have no problem saying so.
  • [March 17, 2020] - A return to blogging! Stay tuned for new tips, resources and all things food related.
  • [February 1, 2016] - An interesting report on why you should always choose organic tea verses non-organic: Toxic Tea (pdf format)
  • Sticky Post - Warning: 4ever Recap reusable canning lids. The reports are growing daily of these lids losing their seal during storage. Some have lost their entire season's worth of canning to these seal failures! [Update: 4ever Recap appears to be out of business.]

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Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Stove & Fridge

My Fridge & Stove

Well, I have to admit this was not quite part of the plan for this blog but I opened my email this morning to two requests as to the appliances I use in my kitchen and another one asking what major appliances I recommended. So this entry is cooking related to address these questions. And before you ask, yes my kitchen is pink! The appliances are all white but not matching brands because I choose appliances based on performance not brand. My kitchen accents are stainless steel and chrome but it has a very country feel. The cabinets are dark walnut something I would like to change perhaps by painting but after living through that once, the idea is just floating right now. The kitchen flooring is scheduled to be replaced just after our holidays in January. I'm sure my husband chose this time since I will be a little more mellow because I do not do change well, especially in my kitchen!

My stove is a Jenn-Air Electric Downdraft Slide-In Range model JES9860AC purchased in 2005. Previous to that I had an Admiral black-glass front range, non-self clean purchased in 1989 that was a real workhorse. The Jenn-Air has a lot of bells and whistles like convenience settings, three oven racks, self-cleaning and downdraft system. I bought two conventional coil cartridges (sold separately) and grill cartridge (sold separately) so basically we bought the shell of a stove then customized. I can mix and match as needed. The grill cartridge is shown in the picture along with a custom made cutting board thanks to one of my kids. I like the look of the stove with the grill cartridge in but during canning season I really need those four burners! If you look closely you will see that one burner is raised by almost an inch. This is a special canning/big pot element originally bought for canning but because I use larger pots on a regular basis I decided to just leave it on the cartridge. The only thing I don't like is there is no storage drawer due to the downdraft system. What I really like is all parts and I mean all parts are easily available for replacement which means if I wanted to go stainless steel it would mean only buying the outer compartments and switching. I think that is a pretty nice option. While this stove might look fancy, it was bought specifically as a workhorse because that is what I demand of kitchen appliances. Performance is always the primary goal!

My fridge is a Whirpool ED2FHGXS Energy Star® rated, white on white side-by-side purchased 2006 about six weeks ago. This refrigerator was a forced purchase since our old side-by-side decided to spew out cold air and not from the door seals. It was a demanding purchase because with the design of my kitchen, the refrigerator would only fit one spot AND my husband was adament he wanted side-by-side with ice in the door. I found one fridge at IKEA on sale that met our requirements but was stainless steel not white. Armed with that information I went online and found two models up from that one but in white. I called our local furniture and appliance dealer, gave them the model and told them to order it so this fridge was bought sight unseen. So far it is performing very nicely!

As far as recommending appliances goes, I really can't for the reason that what works for me might not be a good solution for you. I can recommend small appliances but not major ones. I think one of the most important things we look for in any major appliance is performance followed by energy efficiency. I think my current preference as far as design goes is white on white, sleek with good lines and easy to clean.

So now you've had a glimpse into my kitchen. Perhaps I will add more pictures in the future when I'm not adding pictures of food.


2 food lovers commented:

Squirrel and Hedgehog said...

I'd like to 'second' your recommendation for your JennAir stove. I have a JennAir cooktop with the cartridges (grill and ceramic elements) and the downdraft and we estimate it was put in around 1985 and it's still going strong. We call the downdraft the 'supercooler' since it can cool down childrens food very quickly if placed on top. I've also become quite accustomed to using only the 2 elements as long as I have my steamer handy. Thanks for the great blog!! Fellow Cdn in Zone5A.

Garden Gnome said...

Hi Fellow Canadian and thank-you for commenting on my blog! I'm not so sure I'm recommending a Jenn-Air stove but more like this is the stove I have and it functions well for us. There are a lot of times that 4 burners are not enough so really need to be able to have that function. I like that I can mix and match too so the stove is tailored to my needs each and everytime I use it. I've never used the downdraft for the purpose you described but it does sound interesting. I will keep that tip in mind.
Garden Gnome