Home & Garden
Updating your kitchen with new appliances can reduce cooking time
by Sara Holtz
A kitchen redo may be high on your list of remodeling projects, but though the spirit is willing, the pocketbook may not be. If you must scale back your plans, you may want to consider buying new appliances rather than restoring the cabinets or floors. In addition to the facelift, saving money and energy could be worth the investment.
"If you get a new appliance, it's going to use less electricity," says Cynthia Olson, director of marketing for Clark Appliance. "Sometimes the expense of repairing an old appliance isn't worth it anymore."
Induction cooktops are among the top trends in the kitchen, especially for those serious about their cooking. They use an electromagnetic field to create heat in the pan or skillet you place on top of it. The only heat that exists is the heat generated from the pan itself; the cooktop surface remains cool to the touch.
This technology allows you to bring your food to a simmer in just three or four seconds when it would normally take you 15 minutes with an electric stovetop. You can keep soups and sauces on it for hours without burning the product.
"In one of our demos, we place chocolate chips in a skillet and turn the temperature down to simmer," says Doug Overmyer, sales associate for Clark Appliance. "They appear to be solid, but if you touch them, they're melted. It leaves them in a soft mode-never scorched or burned, even if you leave them on there all day."
Overall, this appliance is safer, easier to clean and more efficient than gas or electric stovetops. You can get water to boil in about half the time without the stress of having it bubble over.
Depending on the size of the cooktop, prices range anywhere from $1,600 to $3,000. One of the high-end products actually has a sensor that identifies the make-up of each pan. This way, the product can adjust its temperature accordingly in order to give the best performance.
Along the lines of popular, quick-heating kitchen appliances is the Advantium Speedcook Oven, which has been around for eight or nine years.
The four-in-one oven uses a halogen light to brown and cook food four times faster than a conventional oven. Cooks can choose from Speedcook technology, convection oven cooking, microwave or warming modes.
"This oven is very versatile for families on the go," Overmyer says. "People find themselves, three or four times out of the year-especially around holidays, needing a second oven. This would fulfill that."'