This Mama Cooks! Reviews

Dear Santa, please bring me more Frigidaire Gallery appliances

So what’s our next major appliance purchase? After falling in love with the Frigidaire Gallery Freestanding Electric Range and Frigidaire Gallery Over-The-Range Microwave I now want to have the full set.

I’ve been scoping out the Frigidaire Gallery dishwashers and refrigerators at Lowe’s. They’re selling Frigidaire Gallery top mount refrigerators for under $1000. That’s about what we paid for our refrigerator nine years ago at Sears. Luckily, I’m not much of a side by side kind of gal because those models are much more expensive. Still you can get a side by side starting for around $1400-1500, which isn’t bad for a stainless steel refrigerator though some of Frigidaire’s models are over $2000.

What I’m really lusting after is a Frigidaire Gallery dishwasher. (I’m such a nerd.) I cannot stand the cheapo dishwasher that came with the house. It’s beginning to show it’s age and doesn’t work very well. It’s gotten to the point where I have to hand wash dishes that were just washed in it. 

The Frigidaire dishwasher in stainless is selling for around $550, but if I use a $25 off Lowe’s coupon and open a charge account for a 10% off, I could get it for a bit over $400, I think. I’ll be keeping my eye out for sales and rebates, too, that is just in case Santa doesn’t get his jolly old elf (my husband) to buy me one for the holidays.

Has my Frigidaire Gallery Freestanding Electric Range saved me time?

It’s almost been two months since I’ve received my Frigidaire Gallery Freestanding Electric Range and Frigidaire Gallery Over-The-Range Microwave. I think we’re finally out of the honeymoon phase. I no longer pet them and call them My Precious (sick, I know). But they do make me happy and I love to show them off to friends who come over.

So, have the new appliances saved me time? The answer to that is…

YES!

Here’s how:

• The kids can easily heat up their own microwave meals and oatmeal in the morning.
• It’s easy and quick to defrost ground meat.
• Water for spaghetti boils faster.
• Soup heats up more quickly on the stovetop. Sometimes it’s even easier to heat up soup on the stove than it is in the microwave.
• Eggs and pancakes are done in no time.
• The convection oven cooks dishes quicker and loses less energy. (It probably saves me money, too.)
• And clean up is quick and easy. I came home the other night from giving a workshop. My husband and kids made pesto from scratch and spaghetti. While they cleared off the sink and counter, the stove top was a mess. After trying to wipe up the spills with a sponge, I got out a special acrylic pad I bought that is just for ceramic top stove. Using some of the special ceramic top cleanser that came with the stove, I had that baby looking new again in about five minutes. With my old electric stove, I would have had to soak the plates under the burners and spend at least half an hour scraping off the baked on mess underneath them.

So what am I doing with all my extra time? I haven’t a clue. After all, a mom’s work is never done since there’s always something I’m working on. Still, meals are getting made more quickly and I love cooking with my new Frigidaire appliances. The happiness quotient has definitely gone up since they arrived.

Cooking up some cobbler in Frigidaire Galley's Effortless Convection oven

I’ve been intimidated by one thing on my new Frigidaire Gallery Freestanding Electric Range – the Effortless™ Convection oven. One of the benefits of the convect feature is that food may cook up to 25 to 30% faster, saving time and
energy. Cool, right? But how does it work?

A convection oven uses a fan to circulate the oven's heat uniformly and continuously around the oven. This improved heat distribution allows for fast, even cooking and browning results. It also gives better baking results when using two racks at the same time. Heated air flows around the food from all sides, sealing in juices and flavors. Breads and pastry brown more evenly, too. However, if you’re baking a layer cake, they recommend using the bake pad feature instead.

When using the convect feature you must preheat the oven and reduce the temperature by 25°F from recipe’s recommended oven temperature. Then follow the remainder of the recipe’s instructions using the minimum recommended cook time. If you’re nervous about over cooking your dish, set the timer to check the recipe 10 or 15 minutes before it should be done – it probably will be.

The convection oven is easy to use. You just press convect, set the temperature, then press start. If you don’t want to do the math, you can use the Convection Convert setting, which does it all for you.

A month with my Frigidaire Range: oven review

In the month that I’ve owned my Frigidaire Gallery Freestanding Electric Range, the oven is the thing I used the least. We haven’t been entertaining much, and since it’s summer, we’ve been grilling a lot outdoors.

Ironically, the oven is the part of my new range that has the most features, such as:

• Fits-More™ Oven – The range comes with four racks, one of which I had to remove since I didn’t need it and probably won’t unless I conducting a cookie baking marathon. Still, having that option is very cool.
• Effortless™ Oven Rack – The bottom rack extends when you open the door for easy access. I’m still trying to remember to put dishes on that rack to take full advantage of this feature.
• SpaceWise™ Half Rack – I’ve actually shown this to friends who’ve come over. (Yes, I”ve conducted a few range and microwave tours.) You can remove the half rack, which gives you extra height for tall dishes like beer can chicken, while giving you a half rack to put other dishes on. Bet this will come in handy on Thanksgiving.
• Quick Preheat – You can pre-heat the over in less than six minutes. I used this and it works well. You can even watch the temperature zoom up on the oven dial. Neat.
• Keep Warm Setting – I use this a lot, even more than the Keep Warm Zone on the stove top.
• Keep Warm Drawer – You know the drawer you keep your muffin tins in? It’s a warming drawer with a rack. Again, perfect for Thanksgiving, pot lucks and parties. I’ve shown this to friends, and everyone thinks this is awesome.
• Cooking timers – There is a regular timer, of course. There’s also a way to set the baking time, so the oven shuts off and keeps the dish warm when cooking time is over. Setting this up is a bit challenging to figure out without having the manual near by. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that it doesn’t give you a count down to when your dish will be ready. So unless you set the timer on the microwave as a backup, you don’t know exactly when dinner’s ready unless you note the exact minute you put the dish in and wrote it down.
• Push buttons – It’s like the Starship Enterprise (Next Generation). However, I’m not used to setting something and then having to press start. I often set something and forget to press start and wonder why the oven isn’t getting warm. I’ll get used to it, I’m sure.

A month with my Frigidaire Range: cook top review

It’s been over a month since I received my Frigidaire Gallery Freestanding Electric Range. I’m still getting used to my new appliance, but for the most part I love cooking with it.

Taking less time to cook

Frigidaire has a More Me-Time Guarantee that states that moms will save time with their products. You know what would save me time? Not having to cook or clean up afterwards at all. Maybe Frigidaire can send Rick Bayless and his staff over.

But seriously, I finally do understand how my new cook top saves me time. It cooks things fast. Almost too fast. I’m not used to how quickly a pan will heat up on my new stove. Several times I would turn around from chopping veggies to find a pan smoking. Whoops, there goes the smoke detector! On my old stove the pan wouldn’t have been warm enough to start cooking yet.

So while the learning curve of my new Frigidaire Gallery Freestanding Electric Range has actually cost me more time, in the long run, pans will be ready sooner and food will cook quicker and with less heat. I’m cooking more efficiently, too, since I can change the heating area size to fit my pan.,

However, I’ve almost burnt a few things, too, not realizing how well my new stove top heats up my cookware. My Le Creuset cast iron French ovens and pans get especially hot, so I’ve learned to turn the temperature down and keep a stricter eye on my cooking.