Advice on kitchen appliances?
 

I've always heard that a good way to save energy to it use things like the microwave/breadmaker/rice cooker to take some load off of the oven. Especially since I've got a gas oven, I would like to pick up a rice cooker (I make lots of rice because I want to be japanese) and a bread maker (mmm, bread), but don't really know where to start.

I'd like to get some zojirushi, does anyone know anything about the brand? What's good? Any other ideas?

I've never looked at pricing to make bread... but once you include the cost of the machine, and materials to make the bread, i'd still go with store bought. And bread makers are pretty large. I wouldn't want to waste that counter space... but that's your call.

Like we just made ice cream with an ice cream maker that my parents have had for ~20 years. It's cheaper to go buy the store brand ice cream than it is to make it yourself.

We supplement our oven with the toaster over a lot. Specially during summer. During winter we use the oven more to let it heat the house a bit.

It's not really about price so much. I'm a vegan and as such, I can't go to the store and buy bread. If I want bread, I have to make it. So, pain in the butt space waster it may be, but I like bread (and pizza and calzones and other doughy things I can make).

Anyone have thoughts on rice makers? I'm looking at a 5.5 cup cooker that uses 700w. How's the compare to normal rice cookers?

Zojirushi rice cookers are the best as far as I have seen. You can find some nice ones off Amazon. I really find the features that allow it to keep rice warm to be as useful as cooking it. Some people leave rice in there 24/7 and let it keep it, which I don't do, but I do find myself starting rice when it's convenient and letting it keep it warm until I need it. Obviously it doesn't use maximum rated power during this time. I also don't think I need to tell you 5.5 cups of rice is WAY more than you need in a dorm room :p

And if you're into tea I suppose a hot water maker could be good too, but probably more useful for a larger household.

The one appliance I need to get that would save a lot of gas would be the aforementioned toaster oven. Right now we don't have a toaster even so I heat bagels on a frying pan... But they are great especially for 1 or 2 people because a lot of things you make will fit in there.

I already have a hot pot, so that's great to take a little energy out of the stove.

I'll prolly end up with a zojirushi 5.5 cupper, but since they're around 180 bucks it may need to wait, ;

I love my toaster oven. Its simply invaluable with just me and the wife in the house.

We have a really cheap rice cooker that I bought at the drug or grocery store. It works fine and probably only cost $25. It goes into warming mode when the cooking is done. I think it must have a temp sensor to know when all the water is gone. When cooking brown rice, I have to add extra water or it is too hard. I noticed that some have a steamer tray that might be useful for cooking veg at the same time. I don't think I would spend more that $50. A rice cooker probably doesn't need fuzzy logic.

We also have a bread machine that we use occasionally. Bread machine bread does not last as long as store bought so eat it as soon as possible.

I'm not really picky about many things, but I am picky about food, which is why I want a rice cooker that can make good sushi rice, ;). I have one of the basic ones that I spent about 30 bucks on and some always gets burnt to the bottom or I have to fiddle with it a ton or it boils over and causes a mess, so I'm kind of fed up with that.

Still haven't made up my mind on the bread machine. I don't imagine I'll make as much bread as I will doughs for things like pizza and cinnamon rolls.

Ours does tend to burn the bottom. I just thought it was because the non-stick coating was wearing off. :rolleyes: I have started to do the listen test. If I can hear it it isn't done. If it stops making noise, it must be done. Ours seems to overflow more if we added too much water. We have only been running small batches lately so we haven't had much of a problem.

How much more efficient can electric cookers be if converting the chemical energy from fossil fuels into heat to spin turbines is only ~33-50% efficient? Baring of course electricity from renewables.