Those electric kitchen helpers.

[RiverPines]

I am wondering about those great electric helpers in the kitchen.
How many homesteaders rely on them?

We have tons of outlets in our kitchen. House came that way. I got to thinking how costly it would be if we needed then all!!

I am talking about the dishwasher, microwave, coffee maker, bread machine, pizza oven, electric can opener, etc.

Those wonderful energy hogs that leave us dumb founded when they break and stimulates the lazy gene.

All we own in a microwave and crockpot. Other than those 2 and the fridge, our electric outlets are not used.

No electric mixer, or can opener.
We use the old manual objects like wisk and a hand powered can opener.
No food processor or blender.

My DH is the baker here. He makes homemade whipped cream by hand!
I didnt believe he could, but he did!!

Do you think all these electric helpers are good for us or not the greatest thing.

I dont think I want to find out if they are addicting. I'll keep my outlets empty.
I know it saves us money for sure.
I know we work more and that good.
My kids are learning how to do by hand and hopefully wont forget when they are grown and buy this stuff.

Oh, for Christmas we got an apple peeler. Hand operated, not electric, but it was this mounting contraption that you put the apple in and turn the crank. My kids loved it, I packed it away.
For one, I dont want my kids wasting apple peels. They are good for you.
(organics from friends). And if peeling is needed..I tried the peeler. It took longer that the old hand held veggy peeler thats in the drawer!!!
All I thought was...'what a waste of money and what a waste of food and time'. Its a shame the people that gave it to us think its great and have a kitchen with filled outlets. I think they may be missing something.
I did ask them what they do with all their veggy peels...they throw them in the garbage.

[cindy-e]

I have a ton of electric gadgets... grain mills, bread mixer, and etc... But if I only use them once per week or so, I figure it isn't costing that much. :-) You just have to make all you need of something at one time.

Cindyc.

[BaronsMom]

I have a 100+ year old house - I do have an outlet for the stove. One for the frig. and an outlet above one countertop. Each outlet in this old this old house is VERY precious!

[featherbottoms]

When we built our little house this year (it's 16x48) we made the decision to not have any built in appliances. It's just too small to devote space to things we may not use every day. We do have a refrigerator, but not built in.

Instead we use all portable appliances. A Cuisinart Crock pot, Crusinart Brick Oven for baking, Microwave, 2 burner hot plate for cooking in pots, a large Cuisinart electric skillet, blender, one large and one small food processor, and then main essentials - 2 coffee machines. One is the Keurig for a quick cup and the other is a Cuisinart coffee maker (can you tell I like Cuisinart appliances )

We've built small "cubby holes" to stick everything when not in use. The only thing that takes up any counter space is the brick oven, it's just too heavy to move, and the sink. Actually, I do have a "coffee center" but it has it's own counter. The rest of my counter top space is open and I just pull out what I need when I need it.

The only thing I've found I can't do is cook anything in a large pot - like a canner. But, I'm not canning anymore so that's not something I'm missing right now.

We actually think our electric use is less. Maybe because everything we have to think about what we want to use. I don't know. It's just what works at this time.

Debora

http://books.grfind.com

[amwitched]

When we remodeled our kitchen, we installed more electrical outlets along the expanded countertop. I wanted to have them there "just in case".

I do use electric appliances in certain cases. The food processor gets a good work-out when I make salsa or pickles. It sure makes quick work of all that chopping. My Kitchenaide mixer gets used around the holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas). While it's working, I am doing what I need to do. My electric frying pan is used to make spaghetti sauce. Since I cook my sauce all day, it sure does save alot of propane that my stove would use. I use my breadmachine once in a while (usually when I make spaghetti). I only use it to mix, knead and rise my dough. The toaster oven is probably the most used appliance in my kitchen. It serves us well for cooking small servings of food. Again, it saves propane and it doesn't heat up the kitchen.

[DQ]

if you can buy organic apples the peels are great otherwise they are considered one of the worst for having pesticide residues and washing doesn't help because its waxed in. I am not a hardcore homesteader. I have a microwave, coffee pot, food processer stand mixer toaster and even a great little icecream maker that is really handy. For me homesteading is not defined by how little modern equipment I use. I'm not into the contest of "who can live with the least" if I didn't have my ice cream maker and had to handcrank, icecream would just be an occasionall novelty, with the icecream maker it as a wonderful way to utilize all the extra goat milk. I can whip up bread, whipped cream, egg whites for home cooked goodies in a snap in my stand mixer, or shredd cabbage to make saurkraut with my food processer. they all help me live my homesteading life they do not detract from it. I also have an attachment for my mixer for making pasta which I find incredibly handy. now an electric can opener???I think that is just plain lazy. or an oven just for pizza? what a waste of space. but each to his own.

[RiverPines]

Originally Posted by DQ

if you can buy organic apples the peels are great otherwise they are considered one of the worst for having pesticide residues and washing doesn't help because its waxed in. I am not a hardcore homesteader. I have a microwave, coffee pot, food processer stand mixer toaster and even a great little icecream maker that is really handy. For me homesteading is not defined by how little modern equipment I use. I'm not into the contest of "who can live with the least" if I didn't have my ice cream maker and had to handcrank, icecream would just be an occasionall novelty, with the icecream maker it as a wonderful way to utilize all the extra goat milk. I can whip up bread, whipped cream, egg whites for home cooked goodies in a snap in my stand mixer, or shredd cabbage to make saurkraut with my food processer. they all help me live my homesteading life they do not detract from it. I also have an attachment for my mixer for making pasta which I find incredibly handy. now an electric can opener???I think that is just plain lazy. or an oven just for pizza? what a waste of space. but each to his own.

It was the observation that peeling an apple with that gadget was slower than my 1 dollar hand held peeler!

I'm not having a contest.

I said I wouldn't want so much stuff not because I am competing because I know it saves us money and everyone here keeps busy which is a good thing.

Just because we like an active busy life and we like to save everywhere we can doesn't mean its a competition nor fine for all others.
We are all different with different perspectives.

[featherbottoms]

Originally Posted by DQ

"...now an electric can opener???I think that is just plain lazy. ... but each to his own.

I'm gonna take offense at this.

I'm left handed. Most of the manual can openers are made for right handed folks. They make left handed ones nowadays but back in the olden days when I was learning to use gadgets they didn't have those so I find them awkward - to say the least.

I own a manual can opener but it's not easy to use. It takes me several tries to get the can opened. And my wrist doesn't want to turn that way for some reason. I tend to either not buy many things in cans that I have to open or I'll buy the pop a top cans.

Once we get free money again my next purchase will be a new electric can opener.

So there! [strongbad


Peace and blessings.

Deb.

[Meg Z]

I used to be very anti-gadget. I had a crock pot and a microwave. Now, I've developed a non-treatable muscle wasting disease. I bought an electric can opener, because some days that's the only way I can open the can. I try a regular can opener first. If it's early in the day and I haven't over-done, I might be able to do it. If not, I use the electric.

In fact, I'm beginning to accumulate quite a few gadgets. I wouldn't be able to make many things without them. And I'm not ready to quit yet.

Meg

[Maura]

I bought one of those peeler contraptions fifteen years ago. What a joke! What a waste of money!

I have an electric oven and a gas cooktop. My husband loves fresh baked bread and I don't make it anymore, so we have a bread maker. Bought a crock pot earlier this year. It looks attractive on the counter. I also have a hand held mixer, which I use occasionally and which I can easily store in the cupboard. We also have a two slice toaster. I like having many outlets so that I can plug in a gadget where I want to.

[JHinCA]

I *love* my dishwasher and my Kitchen Aid mixer. Don't have a microwave or a coffee maker. Have a toaster but hardly use it. That's all!


Edited to add: we have a food processor and an ice cream maker, but I use them so rarely I forgot them. They are very nice to have when you need them, though

[RiverPines]

Originally Posted by JHinCA

I *love* my dishwasher and my Kitchen Aid mixer. Don't have a microwave or a coffee maker. Have a toaster but hardly use it. That's all!


Edited to add: we have a food processor and an ice cream maker, but I use them so rarely I forgot them. They are very nice to have when you need them, though

LOL...heck, I forgot...
I have a toaster too!!!
Yup, we dont use it much so I forgot.

Makes me wonder if I have other gadgets buried in cupboards that I just forgot about!!

[sgl42]

i prefer having general purpose tools rather than special purpose tools. i started making my own bread about a year ago. at first I did it by hand, which was tedious. So, got a kitchenaid to make it much easier. could have gotten a bread machine, but that can't make cookies and cakes too, just bread. and I know a kitchenaid will last for years, but not sure of the longevity of a bread machine. i've also purchased a grain mill, altho it hasn't arrived yet.

i don't have a food processor. i still waffle back and forth on getting one. And I might go for one of the manual ones, altho they're rather expensive too.

I use my microwave for reheating leftovers, and sometimes defrosting meat or softening butter if i don't plan ahead. otherwise, i prefer the stove or oven.

i also have an inexpensive rice cooker. It's convenient to not have to watch it/time it, just plug it in and it does it's thing.

--sgl

[hotzcatz]

Don't even think about taking my KitchenAid mixer away! It's parked right next to the old Trace inverter that turns sunshine into household current so even if the power grid goes down that KitchenAid will keep going. We don't pay for electricity so I'm not giving up my mixer and I wouldn't quit using it even if we did have to pay for power. Today it made a dozen hamburger buns, a dozen hotdog buns, a loaf of bread, five quarts of vanilla ice cream and two quarts of strawberry ice cream. That involved a quart of whipped cream among other ingredients. There was also the pint of mayonnaise made today, too. It's a busy mixer.

Other than that, we have an electric airpop pop corn popper which gets used about once a week, the refrigerator is electric and the coffee bean grinder is electric. The lights are electric and that's about it for electricity in the kitchen.

The coffee maker is a French press, the stove is gas, the waffle iron is a stove top type, the can opener is manual, the meat and vegetable slicer is hand cranked, the meat grinder is part of the KitchenAid, the ricer is hand cranked and I just wish I had a grain mill.

[GrannyCarol]

My name is Carol and I am a gadget-aholic!

I'm pretty sure I need a twelve step program, but what will I give up? I work at home (grooming dogs) and I bake our bread, mill much of our flour, use the crockpot, use the food processor when I make jams and jellies and my husband insisted on getting a blender for his smoothies (I was happy with the food processor, though the blender is prettier). I have two kinds of pressure cookers (though they are not electric) and a hot water bath canner.

I agree that its much faster to peel apples by hand, though I almost never peel them at all! I did get a cherry pitter (non-electric) when I realized how much we LOVE cherry jam. I want to get a steam juicer (works on the electric stove) to process large quantities of fruit fast - jam season is also my busy grooming season.

Now that my mother in law is in a nursing home, having collapsed last week from heat/dehydration and ??, it looks like we'll be on the road regularly to go see her too. I just don't have time to do everything by hand right now, nor do I think I'd manage to mill the flour that way! I'm not as young, strong and energetic as I once was, but am finding there are more things I want to do than I used to! My gadgets help me to do more of the things I enjoy. I don't mind that, even if it costs a bit more.

[Quint]

I use quite a few labor saving devices. I've got a kitchenaid stand mixer, an electric skillet, electric fryer, hand mixer, toaster, meat grinder. I also have a dishwasher. Do I know how to perform all the tasks that they do by hand? Yes of course I do. Do they do a better job than I could by hand? In some cases absolutely.

If I can use technology to make my simpler, easier and save time I'd be stupid not too. It allows me to spend time doing more important things. I can either spend an precious time scrubbing dishes or I can shove them in the dishwasher and go do something more productive.

There is a reason why out grandmothers and great grandmothers embraced the washing machine. It eliminated back breaking drudgery work and allowed them to use that time for more productive and more enjoyable tasks.

Always have the ability to shut your technology off and still accomplish your tasks. That is just being prepared and planning ahead. I for instance have washboards, washtubs and the like and know how to hand wash but I'm sure not going to do it on a regular basis unless I'm forced to. I don't see any benefit to doing my laundry by hand when there is an inexpensive machine there to eliminate the need to. In fact eschewing that machine out of some sense of simplicity is dumb. It's not simpler. It's harder and takes longer. Most importantly it takes time. There are only so many hours in the day and spending them hunched over a washboard is not making the best use of them. Far better to use that time gardening, interacting with your family or just sitting outside enjoying nature.

[arabian knight]

Originally Posted by DQ

now an electric can opener???I think that is just plain lazy. or an oven just for pizza? what a waste of space. but each to his own.

I'm gonna take offense at this also. I have severe arthritis and NEED handy dandy gadgets like this. And they are a God Sent~!

[MOgal]

I too have arthritis fairly generally through my body and I'm grateful for my labor-saving devices. I have to budget time between sitting and standing jobs to get everything done. My hands are a particular issue. When my dishwasher went out last month, one of my co-workers teased me about the farm girl who didn't wash dishes by hand. Well, aside from the standing time I could use elsewhere and my lack of grip, my dishwasher can accommodate an entire day's worth of dishes (granted, it's just hubby and me) and some pots and pans in one load. Also, that load only takes 6 1/2 gal. of water to wash. I've never measured how much water the sink and dishpan hold but I bet it would be more than that for dishes for one meal.

I don't have an electric can opener but I do have a hand cranked apple peeler. We have 8 apple trees and when I'm drying apples for the winter, my peeler is also a godsend. No way could I peel, core and slice even one dryer load before my hands were killing me. Also, I don't waste the peels and cores. They go into the freezer until I'm ready to make apple butter with the culls.

[ChristyACB]

Wow, I just went through and counted. I knew I had a lot, but wow. My kitchen has a set of outlets every 18 inches along every counter and even on the island on 2 seperate GFI circuits. I have 11 outlet sets in the garage! This house is chock full of outlets. And I must have decided that since I had it built. Go figure.

But, in my defense, I built this house for resale later, not for me. And, the only thing that is plugged in aside from built in appliances at this time is my coffee pot and my dehydrator, both of which are running.

As to gadgets, jeepers. All appliances are built in DW, Frig, Range, Range hood/Microwave. Again, thinking resale not for me.

I try to buy manual things, but I love my kitchen aid, vacuum sealer, dehydrator, mixer, steamer, toaster, crockpot, food processor, etc. But I am slowly adding manual versions of all that can be. It is good exercise. But when I'm cooking one of my giant holiday meals for 15 people, I need all the help I can get.

As for the dishwasher, I do justify that by the fact that is is E*+ and uses about 1/3 the water and less energy than leaving the lights on and running the hot water tank for a full load. It heats it's own water energy efficiently and nothing beats it for washing canning jars. Just like my laundry machines, the dishwasher is a "smart" machine that tailors each cycle to what it dirty or big or whatever so very little waste. I do a lot by hand still, but it would be better to use the machine for energy.

[MushCreek]

We have a coffee pot and a Kitchenaid mixer which we use regularly. The food processor gets used enough to make it worth having. We have lots of other appliances that sit in the closet and get dusty. Now, my garage... well, that's a different story! You can't have too many tools! BTW, our Kitchenaid recently turned 25, and I mix bread dough 4 lbs at a time. That's a good machine!