Kitchen Love: Step One

Funny to put the word "love" along with the word kitchen. At least for me. Most of the time, I am looking for ways to spend as little time as possible in that room of the house. In the busy years of raising a family, I have found this is not a plan that works for me since homemaking includes a lot of kitchen activities. I am a creative person and use those talents in every other area of my life but for some reason when I walk into the kitchen it is like I have a total brain freeze.

Always admiring people who love to cook and plan wonderful meals for their families, I come up a little short in my enthusiasm for the "food" part of my job. So, I am working on the idea of loving my kitchen. Step one: David and I both got $50 gift cards to Kohls for Christmas and I waited until they sent out their next round of coupons (which was a great idea because WOO HOO: 30% off!) We agreed we would find a set of cookware we could both be excited about and combine our gift cards.

So, here it is...its red. How cheerful, as a first step to change in my kitchen, this bright new addition. Back in, oh...probably 2000 I had a Pampered Chef party and earned their great set of cookware for half price. The set has served me well but as pieces have worn out, they don't sell the ones I need to replace in their open stock so I have supplemented with other pieces. I haven't had a 2 quart sauce pan since 2005 when after a rice cooking incident mine was scorched unmercifully. I tried everything to salvage what was left of the bottom of the pan but it really was hopeless. Needless to say, that has been somewhat inconvenient.

I will keep the family sized skillet and stove top wok because I make probably 5 out of 7 meals a week with those and the new set doesn't have an equivalent. I was also THILLED to find out that my steamer insert from the old Pampered Chef set fits nicely into two different sizes of the new pans. That was the one thing that we were hesitant about when we were looking at this set. I use the steamer insert all the time!

The little bonus was what they call the one egg wonder pan. David took it out of the box and immediately thought it would be best used as part of the toy kitchen set the kids play with downstairs! (I put my phone next to it when I snapped the picture to show the comparison...it is TINY!) It really is a one egg wonder! I am sure that during this time of our life it will be used the least of all of the pieces. I am looking forward to handing my honey an egg sandwich as he walks out the door for work in the morning. Talk about minimal clean up!