4 Cooking Innovations Designed To Make Your Life Easier!

Are you like me, someone who loves to cook, eat and entertain?

I think that there’s nothing more rewarding than creating a delicious meal for family and friends and taking the time to enjoy it all together. I really like to experiment with new recipes but with two young children, I don’t have a lot of time to spend slaving over a hot stove or hours waiting for a roast dinner to cook. It made me start to consider the efficiency of the appliances I had in my kitchen and that possibly it was time to upgrade.

I started researching what’s available and I was absolutely astounded at the quality, functionality and efficiency of the appliances available theses days. It’s definitely something I should have started looking into much earlier. Having top-quality appliances with the latest innovations in technology is sure to make cooking a much simpler and faster process for me.

I had a browse through the Harvey Norman website and I was astounded to see what appliances are able to do. The cooking technology is absolutely incredible these days. Each appliance has clearly been designed with the home cook in mind, no matter what level of expertise or experience.

So, with my dream kitchen in mind, I put a little plan together and envisioned everything in place….I’m ready to share it with my husband over our home-cooked dinner tonight! One I might add I could do in half the time if he agrees with my new kitchen plans.

Now is the time to upgrade. I thought that getting new appliances meant we would have to remodel the kitchen entirely. I was wrong. It is actually a really simple process, and there is no more expense outside the appliances themselves and a qualified electrician to safely install your new items. That’s because appliances usually follow the same dimensions, which means you can just pull out the old one and put the new one in its place, just like that!

Best of all, you don’t need to do everything at once. You can actually upgrade one appliance at a time! Therefore it’s something you can budget for and complete over time.

4 Technology Innovations in Appliances that Revolutionise Cooking

Check out these four appliances that are so innovative they are going to change the way you cook at home completely! They will help take the guesswork out of cooking and help you cook smarter, not harder!

1. Cooktops

These days there are so many options available in terms of cooktops. Choose from electric or gas, induction, ceramic or stainless steel. Choose from standalone cooktops or upright cooktop and oven combinations, the choices are endless.

The cooktop is probably the most used appliance in my kitchen. Almost every meal involves something prepared on the stove, so I need one that is super easy to use (and easy to keep clean)!

Living in Australia in our house, we tend to do a lot of entertaining. That being said, although I really love to cook, I also want to spend time with my guests. Having a cooktop that allows for adjustable temperatures, different sized hobs and enough room to use most or all of them simultaneously saves me time when cooking different dishes. Something that doesn’t require a PhD to work out either is great giving my children the option of helping or even cooking themselves.

Having a versatile cooktop in my kitchen is a must and after looking through the available options found that many of them are designed for home cooks just like me. I love trying recipes that are a little fancier than our usual go-to meals. With my old cooktop, there were so many dishes I would have tried but found its inability to hold and adjust temperatures meant I wasn’t even game to attempt it.

As soon as I have upgraded my cooktop those recipes will be at the top of my list. Having a cooktop that is versatile, simple to use and functionally effective I am really keen to try out those recipes and really wow my guests.

2. Combi Steam Ovens

There is nothing better than a beautiful meal prepared in the oven. Veggies like potato or pumpkin taste so much better when roasted and are a definite hit with the kids. Plus a Sunday roast is always a great way of cooking a hearty meal in just one pan.

However, ovens do much more than bake and roast. I have recently discovered the benefits of combi-steam ovens and am blown away by how versatile they are. Not only can you use them the same way as a normal oven, but you can also use the steam function for cooking, defrosting and reheating.

We’ve always had steamed vegetables with our roast meals and generally with a large majority of the meals I cook during the week. Being able to put everything in the oven to roast and steam means I’m free to attend to other things, like helping with my children’s homework. Mid-week can be seriously crazy in our house and purchasing an oven that can do everything for me certainly sounds like meal time simplicity at its best.

Cleaning! As a mother, an appliance can be bought and sold simply by addressing its ability to be kept clean easily. These combination ovens are no different and in fact pretty much do it for you. Nothing sticks to a steam oven, so all surfaces can be wiped down with a damp cloth. There is no more need to use caustic oven cleaners that can actually transfer residue to cooking food and let’s not forget the horrid smell they emit during and after the cleaning takes place. That’s real peace of mind, especially when cooking for your family.

By replacing my oven it will no longer be off-limits for my children. Some of the ovens I’ve been looking at enable cooking with the simple touch of a button? Have you ever been too scared to attempt making croissants from scratch for example? These new ovens make it easy enough even my kids could do it! Use the touch the menu, tell the oven exactly what you have in it and the advanced technology used will have the dish cooked to perfection in no time. It is seriously that simple.

3. Pyrolytic Ovens

Who doesn’t want a self-cleaning oven? I mean if only this type of technology was built into houses I would honestly be one happy lady. The trick is with these beauties is that once you’ve finished cooking you can turn the oven to ‘cleaning’ mode. The oven uses super high temperatures (500°C), to turn any food residue and grime into ash. It sounds too good to be true, don’t you think. Well, I am serious and if this isn’t the best in advanced technology I honestly don’t know what is.

I also think these self-cleaning ovens are a winner with those of us that love to entertain. There’s usually enough mess sprawled throughout the house as it is. Dishes, wine glasses and the general mess of traffic. If cleaning the oven is one less task I have to manually attack after entertaining the better. All I will need to do is simply wait for the oven to cool following its self-cleaning process and wipe out the ash with a wet sponge, drying the surfaces as I go. No nasty chemicals, investing in only a lint-free cloth to ensure I’m not leaving behind any cloth fibres. Sounds like absolute bliss to me and with no heavy residues left from harsh oven cleaners it means I’m also keeping my family safe

4. Rangehoods

Rangehoods are one of those appliances everyone has but never uses. That is until it’s too late. The house is filled with smoke and the fire alarm has woken your deaf neighbours before you realise you’ve forgotten to turn it on. Why is that? I know mine has always been incredibly loud and seemed more like an inconvenient noise than a sister appliance. Most of them only offered minor assistance in the reduction of smoke or cooking odours and so loud I couldn’t actually talk to anyone while they were in the kitchen. Aside from that, given they sit directly over my cooktop they tended only to attract thick oil spatters straight into the filter and took hours of soaking to clean.

Not these days though. It seems the kitchen gods were listening and the Rangehoods available now are super quiet. Instead of leaving it to the cook to remember to turn them on, they also connect electronically with your stove. Now your Rangehood will start automatically when you turn on your cooktop. Anything a mother doesn’t have to remember is a good thing and I think this kind of technology is absolute genius. But what about cleaning? Well, Rangehoods these days have been perfected using charcoal filters in many of them. What’s so special about these you may ask? Well, you can remove them from your Rangehood and directly place them in your dishwasher. Next time you see those manky filters they will be beautifully clean and ready to place back over your cooktop no manual labour required. Ahhhh, Bliss.

Spend More Time Entertaining and Less Time in the Kitchen

I love entertaining, I really do. I also love cooking for my family. I’d really love to wow my guests by popping out something that little bit extra special for dinner. And as for my children, providing a beautiful home-cooked meal is a gesture I know they really appreciate. It’s just that I don’t love the time it takes to prepare, cook and clean up afterwards. I would much prefer enjoying the company of my guests or spending some quality time with my kids. Wouldn’t you?

After looking through the Harvey Norman Range it seems that upgrading my appliances not only adds to the overall functionality of my kitchen, it gives me more time and that’s something we can’t put a price on. I don’t want to be stuck in the kitchen all the time and if I can upgrade my appliances to make sure I’m not; it really is an investment. With all these technological advances I’m making it my mission to utilise what’s available and take my cooking level up a notch while simultaneously taking back my time.

Thanks, Harvey Norman for showing me that cooking these days isn’t slaving over a hot stove for hours on end. It’s simply set and forget. No matter what level of cook you are, new appliances will help you get a better result both in and out of the kitchen.