How To Choose A Kitchen Appliance {Sponsored}

We've made no bones about the fact that we strongly dislike our current kitchen. We're slowly planning a complete renovation to make the kitchen more attractive, comfortable, and functional.

Kitchen renovation is nothing new to us - we've done it from the floor up twice before. In fact, if I'm counting correctly, we've purchased six new kitchen appliances in the last ten years and are searching for round three. We loved some of our appliances and quickly found fault with others.

What Makes An Ideal Kitchen Appliance?

1. Efficient Use of Space - In our last house, we bought a refrigerator with a bottom freezer that we placed against a wall. Even with several inches of clearance on the wall side, the cheese drawer could never fully open and we had to stretch to reach the back of some shelves. My parents' fridge, a french door side-by-side, cannot fit a cookie sheet in the freezer. This is a must for us for freezing sausage, berries, and more. Some dishwashers are able to hold many more dishes just by smart design.

The ideal appliance will take every opportunity to maximize usable space. The Electrolux French Door Refrigerator, pictured above, has adjustable shelves that make sense - they allow you to store extra-large platters or tall pitchers easily. In a fridge, space efficiency is especially important as fuller fridges use less energy. Which brings us to...

2. Energy Efficiency - We only buy Energy Star rated appliances, meaning they are 15% minimum more efficient than the bottom-performing appliances. This saves us money in electric and gas bills and protects the environment. Among Energy Star rated appliances, we read the yellow tag to compare energy usage, choosing the lowest possible for our needs.

3. Classic Appearance - We are far from design snobs, but we do appreciate timeless aesthetics. A green glass covered fridge (yep, I actually saw one in a design article) might look cool today but will soon be dated. Smudge-free stainless seems to be an updated classic here to stay. We like clean lines that will be ageless, despite the current trend.

4. Special Features - Alex is a bit of a gadget geek and likes innovative technology. Discerning controls, child proofing features, and professional-level upgrades are hailed as the next great thing. We like to wade past the lingo and find elements that are actually needed and function as intended.

5. Functionality - Finally, and most importantly, an appliance must function as we need it to. Our cooktop has to be able to bring a large pressure canner up to temperature and hold it there. (Ahem, not our current under-powered glass-topped electric.) A good oven heats evenly. The Electrolux French Door Refrigerator has several Perfect Temp features including a drawer with a customizable temperature zone ranging from 28 - 42 degrees and humidity controlled Crisper Drawers. A fridge must keep foods cool but not frozen.

What Do You Look For In A Major Appliance?

Are you pining for a new fridge? Now through August 22, visit www.livelovelux.com and enter the Electrolux Perfect Temp Sweepstakes daily for a chance to win your own Electrolux French Door Bottom Mount Refrigerator and a trip to a climate with a perfect temp - the sunny Abaco Islands in The Islands Of The Bahamas. For every entry and share, Electrolux will donate $1 to Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (OCRF) with the goal of reaching $125,000.

In the meantime, practice for beach-drinking with this recipe for a zephyr.

Summertime Zephyr Serves 1 by Kelly Ripa

"One of my favorite warm-weather beverages is a Summertime Zephyr. The combination of cucumber and mint are the absolute epitome of refreshment.

• Muddle two pieces of cucumber, two sprigs of sage, two sprigs of mint and one sugar cube together • Once all ingredients are muddled, add in one ounce of gin and mix together • Add a few ice cubes and top off with a splash of soda • If I decide to make a pitcher for a larger crew, the versatile Luxury-Design Lift Off Shelves in my Electrolux refrigerator allow me to customize the space so my pitcher has a safe, designated area and the designer LED Lighting provides full visibility, even when the refrigerator is full of other party treats."

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Cradling Chaos

Let's review the last week, shall we? Monday - Rachel worked 12 hours shepherding 86 Japanese exchangees from the airport to a hotel in two batches. Alex and Lil ran errands and maintained the home front.

Tuesday - Rachel worked another 12 hours orienting said exchangees to the ways of American life. Alex and Lil visited to meet the college student, Yukari, who would be staying with us after Alex teleworked a full day from home.

Wednesday - Rachel spent 8 hours getting Japanese students on their way to host families around the state. Meanwhile, our friend Uncle Leonard and his partner Gina arrived and began construction on a new mud room with Alex. In the afternoon, Rachel and Yukari came home, relieved the house of the 'Mess When Mom's Not Home', went to the grocery store, and made a from-the-garden from-scratch dinner.

Thursday - Alex and Len continued work on the porch all day while Alex simultaneously smoked pork shoulder and bacon. Rachel seeded fall vegetables and fed the crowd lunch and dinner from scratch. Later, she and Yukari went to a budget meeting with staff of the School For Young Children (SYC). On the way home, they picked up Jeni's Ice Cream for a pre-birthday celebration.

Friday - Alex's working birthday! Rachel, Lil, and Yukari toured SYC in the morning while Alex and Len worked madly to finish the roof of the mud room before expected rains Friday night and Saturday. When Rachel and the girls returned home, they cooked lunch and then mac and cheese and shredded cabbage for the following day. In the late afternoon, Rachel, Yukari, Lil, and Gina caravanned with Rachel's sisters to Legend Hills Orchard for some peach and apple picking on the way to help their cousin move. They returned home at 9:30 after moving and eating dinner with extended family.

Saturday - Rachel sold magnificent mushrooms (locally foraged chanterelles, people!) for Swainway Urban Farm while it rained for hours. Meanwhile, Alex baked 72 buns from Dave's perfect bun recipe. When Rachel returned, they braved drizzles to clean up the construction debris. Rachel's parents arrived as the rain stopped to set up tents, chairs, and tables. Rachel finished cooking, showered, and then the family welcomed 70 friends and family to a summer shindig with a local and from-scratch meal of pulled pork sandwiches, homemade bbq sauce, home-grown coleslaw, homemade macaroni and cheese, creamy cheese tarts with Berryfield blueberries, house whiskey punch, and homebrew.

Sunday - Everyone slept in. Along with the rest of central Ohio, Rachel, Alex, Lil, and Yukari went to the state fair for Ohio 4-H International day. They left in time to eat dinner at Alex's parents.

Monday - Rachel squashed squash bug eggs, pulled weeds, and harvested ten pounds of split tomatoes for stewing. Yukari and Rachel began preparing peaches for peach jam. Alex and Len installed the last windows, walls, and a door to the mud room. In the afternoon, the ladies completed an epic souvenir shopping trip. After a dinner of backyard chicken, mashed potatoes, and salad, Yukari and Rachel went to City Folk's Farm Shop for the Home Ec potluck.

Chaos Is Our Way Of Life

In these heady days of summer when fruit is ripe, weeds are prolific, and projects beg for completion before cooler weather, our day-to-day feels like a string of never-ending madness. There's fun mixed in with the chores, though, and garden-fresh flavors reward our work. Our muscles are sore, minds racing with new ideas, and hearts full of love for the land and people we interact with.

We cradle the chaos. Like a tiny newborn who grows so quickly, we recognize that this busy season will draw to a close soon enough. We can rest later. Until then, we'll let produce and projects full the long sunny days.

Our Dysfunctional Kitchen {Friday Five}

Live in Columbus and want to see the new place? Come to our open house next Saturday, July 13 from 3-5 pm. More details on the Facebook invite. There's one place in our house that I haven't dared to write about yet - the dysfunctional kitchen. It's an ugly space we use often. The back door to the house, the entrance we use most often, walks right into this room. Each time we host a dinner party or undertake a large preserving project, the 'heart of the home' reveals more design flaws. I could go on for days about what's wrong with our kitchen but I won't bore you with all the details. Instead, in the spirit of Friday Five, here are the basics of what we dislike most:

1) Where's the other half? Our kitchen is spacious but only has counters and cabinets on two of the four walls, which leaves us lacking in storage and working space. We temporarily corrected the issue with a large stainless steel table from a restaurant supply store. But why, when there is a perfectly good dining room just through the doorway, did someone not install cabinets on all four walls?

2) The ugly, ill-installed, tile floor - Tile is an abomination in a working kitchen. The hardness breaks every glass and dish that is dropped. It feels cold and bounces sound. Cold + hard = achy legs when processing a mountain of fruit, stock, or vegetables. Ours happens to have been installed by someone either inexperienced or lazy enough to not fully clean off the grout, so we have swipes of now-hardened grout on top of the tiles that collect mud and look dirty at the drop of a hat. On the upside, despite the five (!) layers of flooring, they all seem to be degraded enough that tearing them out won't be much of a problem.

3) The glass-top electric range - I could write a book about how much I despise electric, glass-topped ranges. Instead, how about if I list the things I could easily cook six months ago but now are either underdone or burnt or both every time I make them: popcorn, quesadillas, pancakes, eggs, bacon, grilled cheese. In what I think is an oft-repeated design flaw, this range has the controls on the back of the unit, requiring the cook to reach across steaming pots of water to turn down the heat.

4) Recirculating exhaust fan - Recirculating exhaust fans, the kind that most kitchens have attached to a microwave or just above the range, are worthless. They do nothing to remove heat or steam or smoke from the area. We'll have to move the range to the other wall to install an outside-venting fan but this is the only way that baking and canning in the summer is bearable to me.

5) The too-shallow sink - Our kitchen has a standard two basin ten-inch deep sink. Our needs, apparently, aren't standard because many of our pots didn't fit under the faucet until we replaced it with this number chosen for height. Our biggest cookie sheet doesn't fit width wise. There are always clean dishes spilling out of the drying basin. Large cuts of meat are nearly impossible to rinse and yes, we're still cure-deep in charcuterie. A deeper sink like my beloved old numerar doesn't take up much more space and is imminently more useful.

I feel a little guilty whining about a kitchen that many people around the world would love to cook in. Truly, we could live with this design and these appliances for many years if we needed to. But my aching legs tell me that if we're going to happily preserve the (hopefully) hundreds of pounds of food that we're growing, we could use an upgrade.

Fortunately we're starting to plan a DIY kitchen renovation. Did you know this blog started out documenting the renovation of our last kitchen? We've actually taken kitchens apart and put them back together in our two previous houses, so we're well aware of the effort the project will require. We'll document the process along the way and ask for your opinions too. Because while we're quick to solve the functional issues, we could use help with the finishes and designer-y options.

What bugs you about your kitchen?

Seasonal Snaps: Summer Solstice 2013

Welcome summer! Things are green around here. In the front yard, we have a squash and grains patch and the Swainway Urban Farm annex, six long rows of organic tomatoes, peppers, beets, and celery root.

Out back, the baby orchard is coming along. We're collecting no fruit from these trees, but are eating mulberries from a wild tree and looking forward to harvest from an existing apple and pear tree.

We've taken down trees, built a new coop, and started many gardens near the house. The natural playground balance beam, steps, and swinging rope lie between the orchard and near gardens.

Chicks are growing too. Lil and I allowed this Buff Brahma to explore the hoop house recently. We've eaten peas, greens, strawberries, radishes and beets from the hoop house this spring; the beds now contain tomatoes and peppers.

We couldn't be more pleased with the progress from winter solstice 2012 to spring equinox 2013 to now. We're not stopping yet - we have plans for a big harvest, mud room, and maybe even a renovated indoor kitchen before the next season change.

What's happening in your neck of the woods?

The Drunken Botanist and Bakeless Sweets {Book Hounds}

Welcome to another episode of the long-lost series, Book Hounds. It's not that we aren't reading, I'm simply not finding time to write about books very often. But two came into my life recently that must be shared.

The Drunken Botanist The Plants That Create The World's Great Drinks

The Drunken Botanist hit me like a cold, strong drink on a long, hot afternoon. It is crisp, refreshing, and a beautiful pairing of two of my favorite things: gardening and cocktails. Part plant-text complete with latin names and growing instructions, part cocktail recipe book, Amy Stewart's latest is a refreshing homage to the many leafy, flowery things that comprise alcohol.

Organized by species, The Drunken Botanist describes basic fermentation ingredients like barley, apple, grapes, and agave and then delves into more obscure flavoring herbs and flowers. In her trademark witty writing style, Stewart tells how each plant grows, a short history of how the plant first became alcohol, and modern uses. Pages are illustrated with Victorian-esque single-color drawings.

Stewart includes cocktail recipes and growing instructions for the most commonly available imbibe-ables. These practical bits of information are written simply for beginning mixologists and gardeners, though if I have one criticism of the book it's that some of the growing instructions are not detailed enough for true success in my experience. More details, including a plant collection available on the West coast where Stewart lives, are on The Drunken Botanist website.

If you enjoy mixed drinks and growing plants, take a sip of The Drunken Botanist.

Bakeless Sweets Pudding, Panna Cotta, Fluffs, Icebox Cakes, and More No-Bake Desserts

Well over a year ago, TheKitchn.com editor Faith Durand and husband Michael joined us for dinner at mutual friends'. They were headed out of town, so Faith brought over a raft of desserts she was testing a cookbook project. The puddings and toppings I tasted then went on to become part of Bakeless Sweets, just released.

Bakeless Sweets is a cookbook of puddings, custards, jellies, and icebox cakes. All are prepared without an oven, from scratch, with simple ingredients and methods. Many are gluten-free; an index in the introduction lists desserts to meet all dietary preferences. Faith calls for serving most recipes at room temperature or chilled, making them great candidates for summer picnics and cookouts.

Bakeless Sweets contains classic recipes and updated versions like Lemon and Sour Cream Custard, Peach Jelly Terrine, and S'mores Pudding Cake. Like a tasty trifle, the book includes many useful side bars, trouble-shooting tips, and overviews among the smooth, well-tested recipes. I'm glad to see that Toasted Coconut Brittle made the cut into the cookbook because the sample I tried was fantastic. I bought rhubarb at the farmers' market yesterday to make Strawberry Rhubarb Fool when our next batch of strawberries are ripe.

Far from the stodgy, box-mix recipes of the 70s, Bakeless Sweets offers a fresh take on spoon-able desserts. Photographs by Stacy Newgent effortlessly illustrate this intersection of vintage inspiration and modern appeal. Two weeks ago, I bought some nesting gelatin molds at an antique store in anticipation of receiving Bakeless Sweets in the mail; when I opened the book it landed on the page pictured above with the same molds!

Faith is sharing photos that didn't make it into the book on the Bakeless Sweets website. She'll sign books and offer a demonstration at the Country Living Fair in early September in Columbus and I'm hopeful she'll have a pudding party in Central Ohio sooner than that as well. In the meantime, I highly recommend finding a copy of Bakeless Sweets to enliven your summer desserts.

Our Natural Playground

When we bought our new house, we had big plans to build a tree house around our huge oak. Then we found out that the oak might qualify as a Big Tree and we don't want to damage it. And establishing the garden is taking an inordinate amount of time and money, leaving little for a play house.

Instead of buying lumber to create a house-like structure, we turned to what we have in abundance - tree sections - and used tools on hand to build a natural playground. First, Alex lag-bolted a thin oak trunk to two trunk sections to create a balance beam fun for kids and adults. After blazing through batteries and exhausting the air compressor, Alex resorted to hand tools and mechanical advantage to drill the pilot holes for the beams. Trees are ever humbling.

I rolled sections of catalpa tree trunk into a series of stepping logs over a wet area. Until these settle in, they are quite unbalanced and difficult to walk over! Lil and friends enjoy using the tarp-covered soil pile as a slide, one which is shrinking by the day. Lil thinks the creatures who visit her nearby fairy house might use the balance beam and stepping logs.

Last, but certainly not least, everyone likes climbing on the four-foot-tall trunk sections of oak laying near the house. Someday we'll get around to processing them into lumber or firewood. Right now, they're a pretend pirate ship, a climbing gym for kitty Moonshine, a jumping-off point, and a lookout.

We are enjoying the natural playground so much that I question whether we'll ever get around to building a tree house. It might be more fun to put in a couple slack lines and hammocks.

Where are you playing these days?

Probiotic Ranch Dressing Recipe with Food Bloggers Against Hunger

Have you ever been hungry? Really hungry like the 16.2 million kids in America who are food-insecure living in families without the means to regularly put nutritious food on the table?

I'm hangry when I forget to eat a big breakfast before becoming immersed in a project and suddenly it's two pm and I want to eat RIGHT NOW. I was hangry yesterday, in fact. I was surrounded by healthy food; I only had to stop a moment to prepare and eat it and my belly would be full. I thankfully have never been truly hungry.

But 48.8 million Americans struggled with hunger at some time during the year 2010. 1 in 4 Americans used at least one of the 15 USDA food and nutrition assistance programs. While many local food advocates like me disagree with some of the food choices available in some USDA nutrition programs, there's no denying that any food, even factory-farmed food, is better than no food at all for those who are hungry.

A country as great as America is cannot stay this way when children and families are hungry. Children cannot learn in school, crime and domestic unrest increase, and our national productivity declines when people are unable to meet their most basic needs.

My family delivers food donations to our local food pantry. We plant extra rows in our garden and share our harvest. The farmers' markets I work at collect fresh seasonal food for donations. But this type of charity is clearly not enough to meet the need when food pantries are inundated with hungry families.

To truly eliminate hunger, governmental leaders must continue to address and fund anti-hunger and anti-poverty programs. Take 30 seconds now to send a letter to Congress lending your voice to the cause.

When you have a little more time, consider the new film A Place At The Table documenting the complex problem of hunger in America. Accompanied by the music of T Bone Burnett and The Civil Wars, the picture also promotes solutions. Find a viewing of the film in your city or on demand through iTunes and Amazon.

Today, April 8, food bloggers around the world are sharing recipes to address hunger. I am proud to contribute my recipe for probiotic ranch dressing to the Food Bloggers Against Hunger project.

One way my family saves money at the grocery and adds flexibility to our dining is by making our own salad dressings. A bottle of dressing is at least a few dollars at the store and often includes manufactured oils, sugars, and stabilizers that I would prefer not to feed my family. The ingredients to make simple, fresh dressings at home are cheaper and healthier.

We whisk together this buttermilk ranch dressing recipe frequently because it pairs well with fresh greens in season now and is useful as a dipping sauce too. It uses buttermilk and sour cream, both full of live active cultures that can aid digestion.

Probiotic Ranch Dressing Time: 2 minutes active, 30 minutes inactive  Makes: 1 cup

1/2 cup buttermilk with live active cultures 1/2 cup sour cream with live active cultures 1-2 teaspoons minced garlic chives (can be grown from a sprouting garlic clove planted in a pot of dirt or foraged from your backyard if you are lucky like us and they grow wild in your area) 2 teaspoons minced fresh parsley or 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley 1 teaspoon minced fresh oregano or 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano flakes 1/2 teaspoon finely ground black pepper salt to taste

1. Mix all ingredients. Adjust consistency to your liking by adding more sour cream for a thicker dressing or more buttermilk for thinner dressing. 2. Refrigerate for at least thirty minutes to allow flavors to combine. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired. 3. Serve within one week.

Weekend With Guests From Japan

Once again we opened our home to guests from Japan this week. Long-time readers may recall when we hosted Kayoko and Anna in summers past through the Ohio 4-H Program. Hosting international guests has so many benefits that of course we said yes when asked by daughters of our friend Naoko if they could stay with us for a few days.

I was pregnant with Lil when we hosted Naoko in 2005. She mothered me through a hot summer, creating a special bond between us. We met her daughters Maiko and Yuiko on our trip to Japan in 2007 and welcomed the chance to house them for a few nights this weekend during their short spring break vacation to Ohio.

Maiko and Yuiko arrived on Thursday evening after a lengthy wait on stand-by in the Chicago airport. On Friday, we drove North out of Columbus to see Amish and visit with the animals at Six Buckets Farm. We came home for dinner with friends which featured venison sausage and pie that Maiko helped cook.

On Saturday, the girls shopped the Worthington Farmers' Market and Mall. We visited my father-in-law's studio and City Folk's Farm Shop before Maiko and Yuiko made us ramen for dinner.

We saw Maiko and Yuiko off to another friends' home on Sunday. Their visit was short and we couldn't show them everything we wanted to, but that's OK. We're building a relationship sure to last a lifetime with more visits over the years.

It's that time of year when Ohio 4-H is looking for host families again for July 24-August 19, 2013. You don't need to be a 4-Her or have any special plans this summer - the children coming here want to see real life in a family with a 10-15 year old host sibling. If that's you, please read the Ohio 4-H International Program website to fill out an application or contact me for more information.