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Archive for the 'Appliances' Category
A lot of you probably have a dishwasher - if you do, you might take it for granted; I know that I did all of my life, up until the day I moved into a rental house without one.
A lot of you probably don’t have a dishwasher, and you probably hate washing dishes - one of those quintessential things that most people hate, but has to deal with occasionally (or if you don’t have a dishwasher, quite frequently). Washing every dish and piece of silverware by hand is enough to drive some people to use paper and plastic dishes for all of their meals. I didn’t go that far, but it did drive me far enough that I researched and then bought a free standing dishwasher (A.K.A. portable dishwasher), and now that I have it, I don’t think I’ll ever take a dishwasher for granted again (Thanks for the drawing of the extra happy dishwasher, Andy.)
If the term “free standing dishwasher” isn’t familiar to you, it’s basically a dishwasher on wheels, usually with a smaller capacity than one of the under-the-counter models, which can be rolled over and hooked up to your kitchen sink with an adapter anytime a load of dishes needs to be cleaned. It uses the hot water from to tap as a water source, and it drains into the sink through the same adapter.
I purchased the Danby “designer” portable dishwasher, model number DDW1805W from Walmart.com for a little more than $300. It is advertised to hold 8 place settings, and it has 7 wash programs. I was able to fit a good deal of dishes into it for my first load of dishes, but I can’t really measure my dishes in 
“place settings.” The DDW1805W seems to be setup well for a variety of dishes and dish arrangements, helping to make up for it’s small size. It is 18 inches wide, and fits pretty well anywhere I want to tuck it away in my kitchen. I doubt that I’ll ever use most of the wash settings, but it’s good to have the options. The interior of the dishwasher is stainless steel, and it seems durable. It has a water softener option, and a 3 tiered filter system. Everything about this dishwasher seems stable and well built.
Unfortunately, the faucet adapter did not work with my normal faucet aerator, and I have to use the included faucet nozzle to hook up the hose adapter. The hoses and power cord are plenty long enough, and they reach my sink with slack to spare. I used the “economic” wash cycle for my first run and it seemed to take quite a while to finish (I know it was well over an hour, but I didn’t time it), but that may have been because my kitchen sink was in-use the entire time.
The big question is of course, does it do it’s job? Thankfully, I can say that my dishes were all very clean at the end of the wash cycle, with a pleasant smell of clean dishes pervading the air. The only problem with the entire wash process was, once it was done running and I was ready to unload the dishes, I found that they weren’t quite dry yet. There was quite a bit of condensation still on the dishes and the internal walls of the dishwasher, so I was forced to leave the door open and wait a while before unloading it.
Danby Portable Dishwasher DDW1805W: 
4.5/5
4.5/5
Do you have to wash dishes by hand? Anyone own a portable dishwasher? Anyone actually like doing dishes?
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Spend five minutes in the morning throwing ingredients into a pot, and when you come home at night, it’s a delicious, hot, nutritious meal - it’s the promise of a slow cooker, and something I’ve been hoping to achieve for months. Last week I decided to finally go after my goal, and I bought a Hamilton Beach slow cooker, model number 33157. It was about $22, a very reasonable price compared to some of the competing slow cookers on the market. It is black and silver, fits 6.5 quarts, and goes nicely in my kitchen. Unfortunately, I don’t have counter space to leave it out all the time, but I have a feeling it might be out on the counter quite frequently anyway.
I have only made one meal in my Hamilton Beach slow cooker so far, but it turned out great. I had no problems unpacking and setting up this slow cooker, and I was quickly on my way to cooking a delicious dinner within a few minutes. It has “low”, “high”, and “keep warm” settings, and each seems to work as required. Most of the day it was set at “low” - and worked perfectly, at the end of the cook cycle it was set to “high” and definitely got more heated than “low”, and worked well. “Keep warm” also worked perfect, as I left the meal on this setting for about 30 minutes after it was done, with good results. The lid seems to sit well in it’s place, and I had no spillage during my inaugural cooking.
I am planning to use it for more meals in the near future, as well as for a dip recipe I have, Caesar artichoke dip; I expect that it will work well. The fact that it has a decent capacity means that I will be able to use it for most recipes, and I don’t have to limit myself because of size. I guess it’s not incredibly impressive for a slow cooker to work correctly, but I don’t have any complaints about any of the functions or features of this slow cooker, so I have to say I am satisfied. The one feature I haven’t yet used is a “travel strap” that is basically a big rubber band that holds the lid in place, in order to move the cooker and ingredients to a new location (like a holiday party) without any spills. I am not really that impressed with this “feature” and I doubt I will ever use it, but I can see how it might come in handy.
Cooking Ability: 5/5
5/5
Price: 
4/5
Appearance: 4/5
Capacity: 4/5
Overall Rating:
Do you use a slow cooker? What cool features does yours have?
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I recently moved into a new rental house that does not come with a microwave, a convenience that was luckily provided by my last apartment (even if the one they provided was 20 years old and leaking dangerous cancer causing radiation all over my kitchen, it was nice to have). Being an essential component of any lazy man’s kitchen ensemble, I was unfortunately forced to buy myself a new microwave. After quickly scanning craigslist, I decided to forget the minefield of trying to buy a used one, and instead my girlfriend and I headed over to Walmart to get something cheap.
Not wanting a piece of junk, but at the same time not wanting to break the bank, we ended up with an Emerson 1000W Microwave for about $60. It is model number MW8119SB. It has a sleek outside design, with stainless steel trim, and black plastic. One thing I noticed after the first day of use is that it is easily smudged, and even un-greasy fingers seem to leave marks on the stainless steel - not a good thing for someone with a mild case of cleaning-OCD. Beyond the smudge problem, this is a very modern looking microwave that does a great job of looking good.
Of course the most important question is, does the MW8119SB heat up food efficiently? The answer, thankfully, is yes, it is so much better at heating than my old microwave that I am having to re-learn how long to put things in for. Also, I am happy to have something new that I can be somewhat confident doesn’t leak radiation - although I have yet to test it out (is it true that if a cell phone gets a signal inside a microwave it has radiation leaks?).
The only thing that I really do not like about this microwave are the controls. I am so used to having an “add 30 seconds” button that every time I go to use this microwave, I am momentarily baffled as I search for the button, only to be disappointed. Also, when pressed, the buttons are just a fraction of a second slower at responding than any other microwave I have ever used, and it is a little bit off-putting to have a machine move slower than your fingers. The box claims that this microwave has 6 “one-touch” settings, but I have yet to figure them out, and I dread having to find where I put the manual in order to look it up.
Although I haven’t had this microwave long enough to know for sure, it seems pretty well built, and I think it will last longer than average in today’s built-to-break appliance culture, but I guess only time will tell. So, on to the ratings,
Cooking Ability: 4/5
4/5
Controls: 1/5
Appearance: 4/5
Durability: 4/5
Overall Rating:
So, do you need a new microwave?
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