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Thermador’s Newest Cooktop Technology

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Thermador has released its newest cooktops making it almost unnecessary for us to monitor our cooking.  The infrared sensor technology which they have named Sensor Dome, is available in electric cooktops.

In the electric models,  the retractable sensor dial utilizes an infrared beam to continuously measure heat from the cookware.  Sensor Dome automatically cycles the burner on and off to maintain the precise temperature needed while preventing boil over. The result is time-savings combined with superior cooking performance, without the guesswork or the need to constantly adjust the temperature.

In addition, Sensor Dome works in conjunction with the exclusive new CookSmart® program, which is currently available on Thermador’s advanced Masterpiece wall ovens.  Designed again to save consumers time and effort, CookSmart offers nine pre-programmed temperature modes to perfectly prepare a variety of common recipes, including pasta, potatoes and vegetables, as well as assist with deep frying.

It also operates a keep warm function on all elements, child lock for unintended cooktop use and fast preheat that quickly reaches the high temperature needed and then cycles down to the preset level. In addition, the series offers the 36” cooktop (with one sensor) with a center element that is 13” in size at 4,000 watts, making it the largest and most powerful electric cooktop in the industry.  For those consumers who still prefer the intuitive turn of the dial, Thermador’s electric cooktops are also available with mechanical knob controls.

This cooktop is part of Thermador’s Masterpiece and Masterpiece Deluxe Series and is available in both 30″ and 36″ sizes.  They retail for around $1,300 -$2,000 depending on the style and options you select.

Admit it – You Love Your Microwave

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Microwaves are one of the great conveniences of life. They heat up our coffee and lunch at work, make popcorn for snacks and heat up leftovers for a quick dinner.  While most of us admit to using the microwave for these tasks, there are fewer who find they truly cook meals using them.

“Everyone says that all they use it for is defrosting, reheating and making popcorn,” Johanna Burkhard says at a recent Microwave Myth Debunking session put on by Panasonic at Toronto’s Calphalon Culinary Centre, “but when I tell them to write down everything they’ve put into it over a week, they surprise themselves.”

Burkhard should know. She wrote the book on it. Or rather, one of the books on microwave cooking, hers being 125 Best Microwave Oven Recipes. Other best-sellers include The Well-Filled Microwave Cookbook and Microwave Gourmet by Barbara Kafka, regarded as the bible on the subject.

Your may find that you mostly melt chocolate or steam some broccoli in your microwave but Burkhard shows that you can whip up several fast and nutritious dishes, including perfectly cooked asparagus with Gorgonzola and pine nuts, Mediterranean chicken, and an especially tasty one-dish meal of spicy ginger salmon with steamed vegetables.

Go ahead, try it:

JOHANNA BURKHARD’S SPICY GINGER SALMON WITH STEAMED VEGETABLES – 3 tbsp (45mL) orange juice – 4 tsp (20mL) soy sauce – 1 tbsp (15mL) rice vinegar – 1 tbsp (15mL) packed brown sugar – 1 tsp (5mL) cornstarch – 2 tsp (10mL) minced fresh ginger – 1 small clove garlic, minced – ½ tsp (2mL) chili paste or to taste – 2 centre-cut salmon fillets (5 ozs/150g each), skin removed – 1 cup (250mL) thinly sliced mushrooms – 2 cups (500mL) shredded Swiss chard or spinach – ½ red bell pepper, cut into 2″ (5cm) thin strips – 1 green onion, finely sliced

1. In a glass measure, blend orange juice, soy sauce, vinegar, brown sugar and cornstarch until smooth. Add ginger, garlic and chili paste. Microwave on high for 1 to 1½ minutes, stirring once, until sauce comes to a full boil and thickens. Sauce will be quite thick. 2. Place salmon in an 8″ (2L) glass baking dish, pour prepared sauce overtop, cover with microwave-safe plastic wrap and turn back one corner to vent. Microwave on medium (50% power) for 3½ to 5 minutes or until fish is just opaque.

3. Layer with mushrooms, Swiss chard, red pepper and green onion. Cover and cook at medium for 3 to 4 minutes or until Swiss chard is just wilted and pepper is tender-crisp.  (I suggest serving this with rice.) Makes 2 servings.

Hate Ironing? Hate Wrinkles? Try Steam.

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Steam is the latest thing in the laundry room.  You can get steam enhanced washers and dryers and although they’ve been around for years, clothes steamers are making a presence lately.  In the past they were most often seen at cleaners or tailors.  You could drop off your suit for pressing and steaming, picking it up in a day or two.

Today, steamers come in a variety of styles and the cost makes them practical to have around the house.  One that has caught my eye is Rowenta’s Ultra Steam Steambrush.  It has a compact electric pump that delivers continuous steam that can be adjusted to different fabrics.  It also has dual heating elements to accommodate voltage of 120 or 230 volts without a problem.

The brush on the Steambrush is removeable and the unit comes with a removable lint pad. It weighs about 1.5 pounds and comes with a travel bag for taking it where ever you go.

The Steambrush retails for around $35.

GE Profile Induction Range

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Induction cooking is continuing its rise in popularity and the manufacturers are responding.  If you’ve been hearing about induction cooking, but haven’t a clue how it works, you can read about it here, where we explain all the details for you.  Including an explanation of why only half that chocolate bar in the picture is melting .

GE is offering their answer to  consumer interest by debuting a freestanding induction range in their Profile series.  GE plans to offer the induction cooking technology exclusively in the Profile Series.

The range comes with a 3700-watt output element and will be available in a variety of colors, finishes and sizes.  This range will be available in Spring 2009.

Helpful Refrigerator Tips

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Here are a few quick ideas to help keep your fridge cool and your family healthy:

Refrigerate hot foods as soon as possible and within two hours after cooking.  You can put hot foods in the refrigerator – they cool faster there – just put them in small, shallow containers for faster cooling.

Keep the refrigerator at 40F degrees or lower.  If you’re not sure of te temperature, you can buy and inexpensive refrigerator thermometer and adjust the temperature if necessary.

Date leftovers so they can be used within a safe time.  Most foods are usually safe if eaten within three to five days of being refrigerated.  Foods from restaurants should generally be eaten sooner.

Don’t overload the refrigerator. You need space between the containers for the cold air to circulate.  This not only keeps the food uniformly cold, but helps the unit run efficiently.

Bissell’s Pet Photo Contest 2009

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Do you have the cutest pet in the world?  Come on, you know you think so.  Or maybe not.  Maybe you know that the zany uniqueness of your family pet is what stands out.  Either way, Bissell, the carpet cleaner specialist is offering you a chance to show your pet to the world.

One winner will be selected each week, with a grand prize winner being chosen to receive one of the following Bissell products: Pet Hair Eraser, SpotBot Pet, Lift Off, Revolution Pet, Pro Heat 2X Revolution Pet.  Plus a $10,000 Donation to the Pet Cause of winner’s choice.  Additionally, your pet’s photo will be placed on a future Bissell package.

To read all the details and submit your pet’s photo you can click here.  Come back and let us know if you win!

Whirlpool’s Eco Kitchen Line

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According to the US government, kitchen appliances use the bulk of our household energy consumption. In addressing the need to save energy, Whirlpool has introduced their Eco Line.  The line is designed to be as much as 290 percent more efficient than previous models and includes a Resource Saver refrigerator, Resource Saver dishwasher and Energy Save range.

With energy use equivalent to powering a 60-watt light bulb, the Resource Saver refrigerator exceeds Energy Star standards by 10 percent. To help stretch the dollar even further and better preserve food, the refrigerator’s 6th Sense technology automatically adjusts cooling to bring existing food to the desired temperature in half the time. A Fast Cool button immediately drops the refrigerator and/or freezer temperatures to accommodate new food additions, such as hot leftovers.

The dishwasher uses one-third less water and energy than dishwashers manufactured seven years ago. The savings is the result of greater water pressure to break up more food more efficiently. Synchronized spray arms clean dishes on the upper rack first, followed by the lower rack, resulting in enhanced cleaning performance.

Also in the Eco Kitchen line are two ranges equipped with an Energy Save mode. The feature conserves electricity when the oven is not is use. Similar to a computer’s sleep mode, it dims extra features such as the digital clock and control display.

The dishwasher retails for about $800, the range $700 and the refrigerator, which will be available in March, for about $2,000.

Freeze Your Buns with the New Frigidaire Gallery Freezer

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It can be hard to write a product review of a freezer in the middle of winter. The last thing you want to think about is keeping things cold. Fortunately, our editorial offices are in Beverly Hills, California where we’ve been blessed with 70 degree weather since December. So it might be winter, but ice cream is still on the menu. We’ve been fortunate to have the new Frigidaire freezer model GLFH21F8H in house for testing for the past couple of months.

Frigidaire Gallery Freezer The freezer we tested is a clean white upright model with just under 21 cubic feet of interior space. It is wrapped in a simple white enameled, textured steel with a sleek, low profile handle. The freezer sports a digital display with a control panel on the door front. In these days of cheap slapdash construction and assembly, it’s nice to see a product with solid fit and finish. It has no rough edges, nice square joins at the corners, a door that hangs well and moves smoothly on its hinges. The workmanship hints at decent quality control in manufacturing. While you could certainly put it in your garage, it would look fine in your kitchen.

Inside the freezer, you have clear visibility and access to the stored contents. The interior is well lit, with clear glass shelves that neither frost nor fog up. The storage system includes two fixed height, full size glass shelves and one adjustable glass shelf. You also get three full size pull out baskets and low profile slideout “Pizza Shelf” hanging beneath the top glass shelf. The storage system gives you a lot of variety for flexible storage. The pizza shelf is a great little addition. We generally use the top couple of inches in any shelf space to slide in pizzas, pies etc. and let them perch precariously on the tops of whatever is sitting on the shelf. In the Frigidaire Gallery Freezer, they’ve grabbed that extra air space and hung a nice flat slideout bonus shelf.

One of our favorite touches with the Frigidaire Gallery Freezer is the collection of movable spacers. These small vertical plastic dividers snap onto the back of the glass shelves and provide support and defined space. They allow neat stacking, and in our test freezer serve to keep bags of frozen fruit and vegetables from toppling onto each other. The flexible space control is carried over into the wire bins as well. Each bin comes with a twist in adjustable internal divider. Anchored by the drawer’s wire framing it can stand up to the pressure of a full load in a packed drawer.

The freezer door has five adjustable height bins in two columns on the top half of the door. Each bin is about 10 inches wide by 5 inches deep and can easily hold two half gallons of Ice Cream (French Vanilla or Fudge Tracks are highly recommended by this editor.) The bottom of the door is a full width wire bin that rocks out. We’ve been using it to store 5 pound bags of flour we’ll be using in an upcoming review of mixers and bread machines. The middle of the door has a second full length bin, and one of the Gallery’s signature features: a distinct full width closed shelf set aside as a soft freeze zone – ideal for ice cream. Our only complaint is that its scaled for pints, and when we want ice cream we can polish it off in half gallon doses.

While we found the storage system of the Frigidaire to be well conceived and implemented, one issue to keep in mind is that space efficiency is lost when you replace shelves with drawers. Each drawer needs clearance on all sides to allow easy motion, and that margin space is effectively removed from use as storage. In the case of the bottom drawer, the seven inch clearance just isn’t enough to make a satisfactory bread drawer, and we had less effective capacity than in another 20 cubic foot freezer.

An interesting feature set of the Frigidaire Gallery Freezer (GLFH21F8H) as tested, is the digital display panel on the door front. The display gives a digital readout of the current temperature and allows you to exactly set how you want the freezer to cool. The feature we found most impressive though were the alarms and warnings available on the front panel. On one rainy day, when we lost power repeatedly at our offices, I wasn’t particularly surprised when I checked the freezer to see the lost power indicator verifying that the freezer had lost power at least once that day. I was pleased to see that the high temperature indicator made it clear that the freezer never warmed up to a range that might cause the food to spoil. If the freezer had warmed during a lengthy outage, I would have been warned by the display that I had an issue. Living in a family of forgetful, and slightly negligent kids and dads, the idea of an alarm that will alert you when the door is left open also appeals to me.

As part of our test, we also made it a point to call anonymously into Frigidaire’s consumer support hotline. We found their tech support team knowledgable, friendly, helpful and generous. They were quick to respond and quick to offer solutions to whatever we asked about. Overall, we’ve found the Frigidaire Gallery Freezer to be a solid, well conceived appliance and would be pleased to recommend it to our readers.

Here are the detailed product specifications of the Frigidaire Freezer Model GLFH21F8H:

GLFH21F8H Features

* Frost Free
* 20.5 Cu. Ft. Capacity
* Enhanced Directional Airflow Port
* Enhanced Interior Lighting
* Lock with Pop-Out Key
* Power On Light
* Precision Set Digital Control
* Smooth Arc Door with Color-Coordinated Steel Handle and Hidden Hinge
* 2 Adjustable Leg Levelers
* Sabbath Mode Setting to Disable interior lights and temperature cycling

Storage

* 1 Full-Width Adjustable Glass Shelf
* 1 Tilt-out Wire Door Bin
* 2 Adjustable Shelf Bookend Organizers
* 2 Full-Width Fixed Glass Shelves
* 5 Adjustable Door Bins
* Retractable Pizza Shelf
* Soft Freeze Zone with Integrated Full-width Gallon Door Bin
* 1 Lift-out Lower Level Basket
* 2 Mid-Level Baskets with Dividers

Dimensions

Width: 32″

Height: 70 5/8″

Depth: 28 5/8″

Depth (door open 90 degrees): 59 3/8″

Depth (including handle): 31 1/8″

Carton: 35″ x 74″ x 33 1/2″

Shelf Area: 21.76

Approx. Shipping Weight (Lbs.): 258

Model Numbers:

Black GLFH21F8HB
White GLFH21F8HW

Here is a link to the product manuals for the model we tested. Frigidaire Freezer Model GLFH21F8H

Buy it here:

Frigidaire GLFH21F8H

glfh21f8hw-parts-manual

Haier’s Compact Dryer

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Last month we wrote here at appliance.net about Haier’s portable, compact washing machine.  For those of you who trek regularly to a laundromat, and have a small space to store one, check out that story.  If you’ve already made up your mind that a compact washer is just what you need, Haier has the dryer to go with it.

This compact electric dryer has a 2.6 cubic foot interior and can be mounted to any wall.  Just be sure you have an electrical outlet nearby.  It has three temperature settings, delicate, heavy and normal along with an air-dry option.

The portable washer and dryer are not stackable, but the washer can be placed beneath the wall mounted dryer to create a similar spacesaving configuration.

This dryer retails for about $270.

Appliances Don’t Last a Lifetime, Neither Does the Warranty

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It used to be, back in our parents and grandparents time, that a large appliance was a once in a lifetime purchase.  The white, round cornered refrigerator in your great-Aunt’s kitchen was the one she got for Christmas the first year she was married and it was the only one she ever needed.

Boy have times, and appliances changed.  Today, you might get nine years out of your dishwasher and microwave, ten from your washer, and if you’re lucky thirteen out of your dryer and refrigerator.  We’ve detailed the average lifespan in this article if you’d like find out about a specific appliance.

The other issue today is the reduced warranties that the manufacturers are now providing.  Gone are the extended warranties on components.  Now one year is all that is being given.  Not only that, but the service from these manufacturers has declined as well.

Hometownlife.com reports that a reader called to report that her 12-year-old dishwasher ran all night. Her husband turned it on when they went to bed around 10 p.m., and when she walked into the kitchen at 7 a.m., it was still running. She opened the door and the blast of heat was like opening an oven door. She called the manufacturer who sent out a service technician who couldn’t tell her why the dishwasher didn’t shut off. The manufacturer then told her they couldn’t do a thing for her because it was well out of warranty and besides that, they told her the average life span of the dishwasher was six years. They offered her $50 towards the purchase of a new dishwasher provided it was their brand.

Although the dishwasher was not new, one should expect that it would at the least run safely and that the response from the manufacturer would be more helpful.

Here’s a second situation:

“I am having a problem with my Jenn Air oven. It is a double oven. It is also a convection oven. It was manufactured in 1996. The past two nights the bottom oven has been turning on by itself. This morning the bottom oven broiler was on. I called Jenn Air and a service tech is coming out. Jenn Air will pay for the diagnosis but says that the oven is no longer under warranty.”

A person’s home is their haven; they should feel safe there.  Do we have to lie awake at night wondering whether the oven is going to turn itself on and set the house afire?  An appliance should enhance and simplify your life, not add to your list of worries and stresses.