Thursday, October 31, 2013

Mauviel M'Heritage M150B 6526.22 8.6 Inch Round Frying Pan


A great product
Beautiful, impeccable quality. A perfect size for a good fried steak (or anything) or a spanish omelette, which is what I use it for most of the time. If you live alone, this is your perfect frying pan for quick, single serving foods.
Heats evenly on medium heat
Sometimes I just have to cook on medium heat. When I do, I reach for a pan with a high copper content. I finally decided to turn the copper content all the way up to "11." So I bought a Mauviel M'Heritage M150B 8.6" Round Frying pan.

The Mauviel M'Heritage M150B 8.6" Round Frying pan works great for a little light duty cooking. These pans are a decent compromise in that they are copper pans that have a thin stainless steel liner. Stainless steel and copper have wildly different reactions to salts and acids, so you'll want to watch what you are doing. Just read the directions that come with the pans and it'll last forever.

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BergHOFF Earthchef Acadian 12-Piece Cookware Set


Not up to expectations.
First of all, let me say the set is beautiful to look at. They are all shiny, even on the inside. However, that's where the story ends for me in positive light.

In this day and age where almost everything sold is made in China, we take special effort to find items that touch our food that is not made there. With this in mind, I first wrote to Berghoff USA asking where they were made. The response I got is that they are imported from Belgium, but specifically where they were made was smoothly avoided answering.

Anyways, wanted to give it a try and ordered. No where on the box nor the cookware does it state where they are made (very strange, indeed), which made me suspicious. Alright, then we noticed small imperfections and scratches. Alright, since it was a hassle to unpack we wanted all the reasons to keep this and decided to try it. After just one use, we noticed the floor of the pot was blackened in several spots, like pits. The chrome was taken off after one...
Very heavy and well-made beautiful cookware set
I currently have Cuisinart stainless steel set as well as other pieces of cookware and when I saw this BergHOFF Earthchef Acadian 12-Piece Cookware Set on lightening deal, I decided now is the time to upgrade. There was one other review when I purchased this set rating it 3 stars because it is suspected this set is made in China and I do not know about that.

When the box arrived I was surprised at how heavy this cookware set is. For the amount of money I paid, I was expecting a lighter-weight set as the heaviness usually is roughly equivalent to price and this is a very heavy set. The bottoms are very thick and that is where most of the weight is I think. The set looks very well made and well packaged and very shiny. On my cuisinart set, the bottoms are slightly angled in whereas on this set of BerHOFF Earthchef Acadian, the bottoms continue to same line making a very sharp clean attractive edge...
BergHoff Acadian 12piece cookware set
I received the set in excellent condition. They look very good hanging on my pot rack that I built from an antique cast iron floor register grille, shabby sheik. The only thing that I noticed that might be a concern for some, is that the outer edge of the pan lids is very thin, and if you drop a lid, it can and does bend the edge, a rolled edge would help, but would then make the set more expensive. I was able to straighten the edge out. If like me, you hang your pans up, you still need a place close by to store you lids. They are made in such a way that a crafty person can make a lid rack that holds them vertically from small to large. I made mine from old steel and then after welding together and dressing of the welds, I sprayed it with clear satin lacquer, once again very shabby sheik. My wife loves them, and that was a hard sell because as she said " we don't need pots and pans, we have a set of circulon pans that u had to by" . That was ten years ago and the coatings was almost...
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Spirit 7-Piece Cookware Set


Worth the price
Zwilling cookwares are always built to the highest quality. It is a good long term investment. Absolutely worth the price.


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Fagor Duo Combi 5-Piece Pressure Cooker Set


modern features, good service
Fagor is the least expensive brand that I am aware of which also has the 'modern' features desirable in pressure cookers. To learn more about pressure cookers and what is desirable go to missvickie.com (a non-commercial site devoted to pressure cooker enthusiasts.) Some of these features deal with safety, e.g. you don't have to worry about plugging the steam escape with Fagor. Fagor cookers also reach a pressure of 15psi (which is important.) Unless a brand advertises that they do reach 15psi, assume that they don't. I suggest getting an extra gasket when you buy the item as you will need one at one point (they don't last forever). I must also compliment the company on its service. I bought this item, and sent in a rebate form (for a free stock pot). They sent me a nice paella pan by mistake. I was satisfied, however I called them to make sure that there was no mistake. They answered the phone right away (without the common maze of annoyingly slow and complex menu options.) The woman...
Love this cooker
I bought this set of pressure cookers over a year ago. It is the most used appliance I have ever owned. I have used it for chicken, roast, saurkraut and pork. Vegetables turn out great. It all turned out delicious. It does not burn things. The clear glass lid is an excellent addition to this set. Buy this set and you will love it. Pressure Perfect cookbook by Lorna Sass is a wonderful book full of useful information and great recipes.
Great time-saver!
I bought this pressure cooker set about a month ago and I love it. I had never used a pressure cooker before I bought this set, but I find it easy to use and very safe.

The set comes with a nice instruction book (with cooking times for lots of different food) and a small book of recipes. I like that I can cook brown rice in less time than it takes me to make white rice without a pressure cooker (about 20 minutes). I have successfully adapted a recipe for slow-roasted pulled pork to prepare it with sauce from scratch in less than an hour. As long as you're not looking for a crusty exterior, I think that you can make food of comperable quality as the oven or slow-cooker in a much shorter amount of time.

I find the two pots very convenient for making different quantities of food. With the glass lid, they work very well for other tasks such as steaming veggies briefly.

My only complaint about the set is that the insides of the pots are hard to get...
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Cuisinart FCT-10 French Classic Tri-Ply Stainless 10-Piece Cookware Set


Really impressed
So far I'm thoroughly pleased with this cookware. Looks great, comfortable handles, nice heavy weight, and most importantly, heats evenly without the hotspots found with less substantial cookware. Absolutely love the size of the 'dutch oven'. It's heavy enough and the perfect size for my 'no knead bread' recipe.

I'll admit to being a bit leery prior to purchase. Only announced in June of 2011, this line was an unproven commodity. We were leaning heavily toward the All-Clad stainless line. I decided to order the 1qt saucepan of the French Classic Cuisinart cookware to compare. After that we were sold.

Pros:
Induction compatible, which was a must for us as we plan on upgrading to an induction cook top.
Handles more comfortable than All-Clad (an individual thing I'm sure. Try them both if you can to see which you prefer.)
Price compared to other what I would call "better quality" lines of cookware like All-Clad, Viking's Pro line,...
French classic
Awesome set. Fast to heat up. Even heating. Foods don't stick. Comfortable handles. Great look and mirror finish all for hundreds of dollars less than all clad.
Buying Tips
This review will compare this set to a similar set available at Bed Bath and Beyond. For a general comparison to other brands of tri-ply, see my review of Cuisinart FCT33-28H French Classic Tri-Ply Stainless 5-1/2-Quart Saute Pan with Helper Handle and Cover As you can read, the French Classic is constructed the same or better than other lines of tri-ply, but I really like how it looks. It's cost is similar, or cheaper than most lines. It performs great, and compares well to my outgoing Circulon set. It's also probably the only thing I own that's made in France, and I like to buy non-Chinese(quality and slave labor issues) when possible, so that's worth something.

The set at BB&B costs $240 if you use one of their 20% off coupons, which is quiet a bit cheaper than this set. They are both 10 piece sets. Both come with the same 8 and 10 inch open skillets, and a steamer basket. Both have a 2 quart...
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All-Clad BD553033 Brushed Stainless Steel D5 5-Ply Bonded Dishwasher Safe 3-Quart Soup Pot with Lid and Ladle Cookware, Silver


Best of the best
You can feel the difference of the 5 layer pot. The pot heats evenly, no hot spots. Definitely worth the few $ as it will improve your cooking.


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Breville BFP800XL Sous Chef Food Processor


Breville vs. Cuisinart Chop Wars!
2012 Year End Update: I continue to use and appreciate both the Breville food processor and the Cuisinart. I do reach for the Cuisinart more frequently than the Breville but that is mainly because I use it to make some sort of dough on an almost daily basis. Please see the comments section of this review for a discussion of the cheese grating issues and the resolution for the Breville Food Processor. (Kudos to the company for resolving this issue.) Also please note, I have added a Cleaning section to this review based on issues with the Cuisinart food processor lid.

Update:

Cuisinart - After 4 months of regular use I have to say that this has become my "go to" machine. I typically need to make some sort of dough with my meals and so I use the large bowl for my dough and then the smaller bowls for slicing and dicing. My only complaints about this machine are that sometimes there is spill over from the smaller bowls to the larger bowls when processing the food and...
Just in time for Thanksgiving prep.
The Breville Sous Chef is a powerful food processor. It has a 1200 watt motor, a size found in many restaurant food processors. My son-in-law has been a kitchen manager at several restaurants. He said this is very similar to the Hobart food processors they used to chop a case of onions at one time. He was impressed with the 25 year warranty on the motor. He did say they would have to replace the bowl every couple of years in the restaurant from running it through the dishwasher. Breville did say in the instruction book to not use the dishwasher regularly on the bowl, so that sounds like the restaurant's experience with theirs.

Breville has included several safety features in their machine. It will not turn on if the bowl, lid, and large shoot pusher are not in place. They have a finger hole on the plug to help you remove it safely from the outlet. The cord is also retractable for storage. The instructions frequently remind you to be careful with the blades and...
Will Burn Your Hand!
I love the features of this food processor. I was replacing a Black and Decker unit I picked up at Walmart that was about ten years old, so the step up to this model was more of a leap. The two bowls (the big one is huge, while the little one is perfect for tiny jobs), the giant chute, and the slicing blade that changes the width of a slice with a simple twist, are all favorite features of mine. I also like the storage case, the look of the machine(the base is easy to keep clean), and the way the large bowl has no hole through which contents can spill.

BUT, there are drawbacks, and a few of these would be enough to have me looking at alternative models were I to shop for a processor in the future.

First, and most troublesome (even dangerous), is that the metal spindle at the top of the blade attachments gets HOT. I mean burn-your-hand when you acccidentally touch it, hot. And you can't help but touch it. If you run the unit for more than a couple of minutes, the...
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