5 Ways to Cool Your Kitchen the Heat of Summer

When the temperatures rise throughout a hot summer day, the last thing you probably want to do is turn on the oven and start cooking. If going out to dinner every night isn't an option, here are 5 tips to make sure your kitchen doesn't feel as warm as your preheating oven.

• Experiment with other cooking appliances – Microwave ovens can now brown and crisp dishes and crock pots cook at lower temperatures for longer periods of time. In fact, once a crock pot has been loading with the meal that will cook over the next several hours, it can be situated anywhere, including the patio if you have an outlet nearby.

• Add a ceiling fan – Ceiling fans tend to be under-utilized in kitchens but they can provide significant cooling as well as the dispersal of heat from the oven.

• Get outside – One of the pleasures of summer is cooking outdoors and the new barbecues and grills make it easy. In fact, outdoor cooking gear has so many optional features that you can prepare an entire meal on a barbecue/grill.

• Create sandwich and salad bars – These are fun meals that don’t require any heating. 

• Increase your venting capacity – One of the things that gets overlooked in terms of cooling a kitchen area is the venting system over the oven/cooktop. Improving your venting capacity can remove more smoke, steam, and heat from your kitchen area, making it far more comfortable to prepare meals. 

Summer evenings can be extremely enjoyable, unless you’re sweating them out in a hot kitchen. Follow these tips to vary your routine, get outdoors, and stay cool while you’re in the kitchen.

Blu-ray 101

Blu-ray is the name of the optical disc platform that has been designed with the intention of replacing the widely used format of digital video discs (DVDs). The technology gets its name from the blue laser that reads the information on the disc, at a rate which occurs at a higher storage speed than DVDs that are read by red lasers.

The advantages of Blu-ray include:

* Better picture quality – Blu-ray’s better picture quality starts with its increased resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 versus the standard DVD resolution of 720 x 480. The higher number of pixels available in the Blu-ray format results in far greater detail and picture clarity. The Blu-ray format also has deeper colors and enhanced contrasts.

* Better sound quality – Higher resolution audio formats deliver a richer sound experience that can rival movie theater audio.

* The Blu-ray format optimizes HDTV – Owners of HDTV screens can only optimize the picture from discs with the Blu-ray format due to the fact that DVDs are not designed with enough pixels for the display screen. Trying to integrate a DVD with a high resolution screen can result in a lower picture quality than that of a screen that doesn’t have HD technology.

* DVDs work in Blu-ray players – This avoids the situation where a new technology renders the one being replaced as unusable (VHS tapes versus DVD’s, for example). Being able to play DVDs means that a new Blu-ray owner doesn’t have to start from scratch in terms of a movie collection and can continue to play DVDs while adding Blu-ray movies.

As a relatively new technology, buying a Blu-ray player will still cost more than the DVD version. That being said, enhanced viewing experience is the name of the game for virtually all new technology in this category, which places Blu-ray in the middle of the next generation of video-related electronics.

Electrolux Dealers See the Future of Cooking

Electrolux dealers are excited about induction technology because it represents the next generation in cooking. Induction cooking employs high frequency electromagnets and sophisticated electronics to generate a magnetic field on the cooktop of a range. When a magnetic pot or pan is placed on top of the electromagnetic field, energy is transferred from the magnet to the pot/pan, which then heats the metal of the cookware. Heating of the cookware then cooks the food held inside. Increasing or decreasing the power of the magnetic field can then control the level of heat transferred into the cookware.

This dynamic presents many benefits including:

• Induction cooking is more responsive than gas or electric because of the capability to instantaneous adjust the heating level. Water boils faster and heat can be reduced more quickly as well. In fact, water can be brought to a boil in 90 seconds.
• Induction cooking provides a more efficient transfer of energy than gas or electrical heating elements, which can save both time and energy.
• Being able to control heating with electromagnetic energy means that cooking temperatures can be set precisely.
• The cooktop stays cool – Because heat is transferred directly from the electromagnets to the cookware, the cooktop stays cool. This can reduce accidental burns and make cleaning easier.
• Flexibility - Sensors automatically detect magnetic cookware that is placed on the cooktop and then activate the induction field, which can be adjusted to any sized cookware.

One issue that could be seen as a disadvantage of induction cooking is that at present, the only cookware that can be used must be a metal, such as iron, that responds to a magnetic field. Non-ferrous cookware like aluminum simply does not work on induction cooktops. This issue is mitigated by the fact that most cookware lines have plenty of products that will work on induction cooktops. Additionally, as induction cooking gains popularity, expect even more cookware options to become available over time.

Electrolux dealers know that the many benefits of induction cooking, including precision temperature selection, rapid heating, and savings in time and energy make induction cooktops a solid choice for any kitchen. For more information, visit: http://eastcoastappliance.com/index.html