New appliances!
If you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw me geeking out over our new cooktop and oven all weekend. It was very momentous! We like to cook, and our old setup was just painful to use. (Here’s a picture of the old electric hob and crappy Blanco oven from when we moved in.) Two of the hotplates didn’t work anymore, and then oven never got to the right temperature. You’ll recall that we ordered the new stuff about two weeks ago, and on Friday the warehouse called to arrange delivery. Saturday morning we started by turning off the power and disconnecting the old cooktop and oven. The Snook and I were able to remove them ourselves and take them outside. (City of Sydney will pick them up for free tomorrow morning.) Needless to say, the cabinet opening was pretty damn icky. We gave that a good washing while waiting for the delivery. And then they finally arrived! It was very exciting. Jonathan (aka dancingman) came over to help with the installation. (He’s an electrician.) Luckily we only had to make one sidetrip to the hardware store to pick up extra bits. Jonathan put in a circuit breaker for us, added a plug to the oven, and wired up the cooktop. Then it was just up to the Snook to enlarge the benchtop opening a bit so the cooker would fit in. After a very long day, we finally had it all in place!
So far we’re loving it. The oven reaches temperature in less than 10 minutes and it’s got loads more space than our old one. We’ve also played around with the dividing shelf (which allows you to set two separate temperatures). We also have a rotisserie thingo which will apparently rotate and cook a joint of meat in there?! Pretty amazing. The cooktop has also lived up to expectations. It boils a pot of water in about 3 minutes! The only problem was that we discovered that our cheapo saucepans that we’d hoped would work on the induction actually don’t. So that left us with only two pans – a big stainless steel frying pan and our Le Creuset cast iron dutch oven – that would actually work on it. We ended up going to Victoria’s Basement on Sunday to buy a set of Scanpan Fusion 5 stainless steel pots which work great. So far we’ve made a steak dinner, banana bread, roast veggies, toad-in-the-hole, and apple-berry crumble with our new setup. It was well worth the wait!
9 responses
Hmmm… Appliance envy.
Our stovetop is ok, although it really doesn’t do low heats at all, and the oven is ok too, both are ok enough that we can’t justify replacing them. But the envy persists.
Wait til the benchtops get put in. 🙂
OK, now I’m “officially” envious. Don’t even get me started on our cooktop & oven. At least it’s gas, but it’s still ancient and a pita. And the disgusting burnt orange laminate counters from 1982. And the termite-destroyed cabinets. I wish we had budget to rip out our kitchen and replace it when we moved in. Sigh. 🙁
Have you tried the two separate ovens thing? I’m v tempted by this oven – we might even go for the same thing (though it’ll be called Hotpoint over here!)
All looks wonderful, and the food…
I actually used it last night! I wanted to cook a chicken thing which wanted to be at 180, but also some oven chips which wanted to be at 210. Worked really well, judging by how well food turned out. The only problem we’re having with it so far is getting the timer to work. The manual indicates that we should have a mode that just rings the buzzer, but we can’t get it to work. When the timer goes off, it shuts off the oven. Fine in some circumstances, but not in others. Need to call and find out if the manual is wrong or I’m reading it incorrectly.
How wonderful. We’re still enjoying our ‘new’ oven after 18 months. Happy cooking!
Sounds great, Kris.
Did you get the normal, catalytic or Pyrolytic oven walls (My instinct is to go for normal).
Let me know what gives re the buzzer – agree you def want something that’ll do that. At least if that’s the only thing wrong a freestanding just buzzer would work to replace it!
It’s Pyrolytic. That was the only option to get the dual-zones. (Do you have more choices in the UK??) Still, the pyrolytic sounded really cool. The salesman told us how he’d put in apple in there and it basically reduced it to ash. 🙂
We found out about the timer. It’s the one thing we’re not 100% happy about. Basically, if the oven ISN’T running, you can set a timer that will just buzz, like if you’re cooking something on the stove. But once the oven is actually running, then setting a timer will cause the oven to turn off when it’s finished. That’s just how it’s designed. As you say, we’ll just get a separate buzzer. It’d just be nice to set a reminder to check the thing in the oven without actually having it shut off!
We made pizza in it last night. Really good!
Awesome! Have you tried using a wok on it? Does it retain the heat required for, say a stir fry?